Patriot's Diary # 13: Kenya, the land of opportunity

My friend told me the other day that Kenya is a land of opportunity. I looked at her a bit baffled and said that I didn't think so. But after today it just popped out and yelled." I am Kenya, Your opportunity.
Most of the time we walk around huffing and puffing about what could be better in this great land, when the answer is pretty simple. Stand up and seize the opportunity.

I had wanted to be a journalist for so long and it just scared me when I got to work in a media house and realized that I could live my dream. I dilly dallied for close to two years. I wanted to make a subtle entry into TV journalism. Yeah I know, how subtle can that be? I was just jittery about all the unknowns and the prophecies of doom. It's not like a meteor would land on me from space in the middle of the shoot. But the truth is, I felt that something of that magnitude would happen.

I was in a comfort zone,seated behind a desk, getting bored by the day. But the first to yell and talk to the TV reporters about lousy stories, cool angles that I thought their stories could take. Whenever I was asked why I hadn't joined the TV news team, all I said was, one day I will. The opportunity was staring me in the face, but I just didn't want to see it.

A good friend and a respected reporter; Abdi Osman, was a great audience to field my ideas and he really encouraged me. So slowly by slowly, more like my best friend was hounding me about it. She's my accountability partner as well, I realized it was time to quit the talk and walk it. That's how Africa's Solution Now came along and slowly by slowly I gained the confidence to do the right thing. Seize the opportunity to live my dream.

Abdi guided me to check out the BBC training website which I did.I did some exercises on the site and was fired up and ready to rock the camera. I spoke to the managing editor and got a camera to shoot my first news story. I prepared a script to get me going and as a guide for the shoot. I rehearsed my sign off in the house, God knows how many times. I was ready.

On the shoot today, as I had been forewarned and learned from the BBC training website, not everything goes according to plan. The shoot was more like a new plan, because most of the things that I had planned went down the toilet. But the beauty of it all is I enjoyed myself. I am in a queue to edit my story now. I am ecstatic and all I can say is BRING IT ON! Kenya's and Africa's stories need to reach out to Africans and build them and that's what's I am going to do.

I don't know how it works in other countries, but from my own experience, it doesn't seem to matter where you live on the globe, if you look at your country, take pride of it with all it's flaws, the opportunity is there, just look at it. I kid you not, I know of a Kenyan who owns a flower farm in Kabul...yes the capital of Afghanistan and has a thriving flower export business.

Opportunity is around you everywhere, look around you, what do you feel in your heart that you want to accomplish? Take the first step, however scary it seems and go for it! Because like your country, my home is a land of opportunity.