A Guide to the Beasts of East Africa Read Online Free PDF

some
     dead rushes on the far side of the pond. He had also noted that the Secretary of State
     for Development had now dined twice at the Hilton with senior representatives from one
     of the world’s leading producers of GM maize, that the Minister of Finance had
     again left the country ‘on private business’ – flying Swiss International –
     and that despitehis assurances that national parks were for people not
     profit, the Minister of Agriculture and Tourism had given the go-ahead to his
     wife’s cousin for another private development on the shores of the Kiunga Marine
     National Reserve.
    The biggest news that Thomas Nyambe had
     passed on, though, concerned the new Minister for the Interior. After the previous
     minister had been forced to resign by revelations in the
Evening News
about
     unauthorized slum clearing in Nairobi’s Kibera district, the new minister had
     vowed to relocate people only when new housing was available. He would, he had declared,
     make this his mission. Not only that, he would ensure complete transparency of the
     process, with open tenders for government housing contracts and a free and fair ballot
     system for choosing who would occupy the new houses. But according to what Mr Nyambe had
     heard from one of his fellow government drivers, not only was the building project
     stalled (despite all that money from the EU), but the list of those eligible for the
     houses – should they ever be built – seemed only to include members of the
     minister’s own constituency.
    ‘Thank you, my friend, for your
     company and your conversation,’ said Mr Malik, closing his notebook.
    ‘And thank you, my friend,’ said
     Mr Nyambe. ‘It is good to share things. Sometimes I think that there should be
     more sharing in the world.’
    Which, by coincidence, is exactly what
     Petula wanted to talk to her father about at breakfast the very next morning. Mr Malik
     wasn’t sure he understood all the details, but it seemed that the new
     CommunicationsDirector from Geneva, who she’d met the day
     before, was keen to set up a local website for Clarity International through which
     people with interesting inside information – ‘whistle-blowers’, Petula
     called them – could reveal what they knew to the world. The tricky thing was to make
     sure that while anyone could post their information, it couldn’t be traced back to
     them. This was just the kind of thing where Petula, with her passion for all things to
     do with computers, knew she could be useful. She seemed quite excited.

5
The sand of its digging does not blind
     the porcupine
    ‘Did you hear, A.B.? Tomorrow’s
     talk has been cancelled.’
    ‘The Thursday lecture, you
     mean?’
    ‘Yes. Damned shame, I was looking
     forward to it. “Safeguarding Nairobi’s Water Supply in the Twenty-first
     Century” – should have been interesting.’
    Mr Gopez put down his glass and reached for
     the bowl of chilli popcorn.
    ‘Me too – always like a good fairy
     story. Chap drowned, did he?’
    ‘Died of thirst, I heard,’ said
     Mr Patel. (Nairobi’s water supply, like most of its municipal services, is often a
     little erratic.) ‘Ah, there you are, Malik. Speaking of drowning, you’re
     looking a little damp about the noggin. Raining outside, is it?’
    Mr Malik decided to ignore him.
    The picture of ourselves that we carry in
     our minds is seldom the one we see in the mirror. No matter what our age, no matter what
     our sex or skin colour, few of us view our image in the looking glass with one hundred
     per cent personal approval. Too short or too tall; too thin or too fat; our eyes too
     close together or a little too far apart; our nose too big or too small. Of all our
     physical features, hairseems to give the least satisfaction. Too
     straight or too curly; too pale or too dark; too thick or too thin – or there is simply
     not enough of it. Hence Mr Malik’s hairstyle.
    The classic comb-over is not a matter of