I have been asked many times by my daughter what I do for a living. It has been hard to explain to her. I have fielded the same question from my wife and it has been equally hard. My mother – let’s just say, she knows her son is an Engineer. As for my grandmother – it is a story.

I say a story because I recount an experience visiting with her a couple years back. I could not hold back my laughter when I offered to help fix lighting in her house and she was hesitant on ground that it was a tricky thing to solve that needed a very skilled person. The problem was simply replacing a blown bulb. How could I explain to her that I spent 5 years in engineering school?

My daughter thinks that I am an engineer, because once in a while, I get to fix her toys when they are broken. I mean, isn’t every daddy an engineer after all? And my hats off for single mums reading this because they have to step up and be the “engineer”.

I was telling you about what I do.

I am different professions to different people. To my employer, it sometimes doesn’t matter what my profession is. It boils down to getting the work done! To my eldest son, it is about helping him navigate the turbulence in the season of life he is in. To my 6 yr old daughter, it is affirming her in the little things she does. Paddling in the water and I almost have to strip Michael Phelps of a gold medal and confer it to her. To Noel who can hardly pronounce any word, I have to employ tactics in frequency spectrum management to decipher what he is saying.

So is profession so overrated?

I think what the society yearns for in all professions is the practicality and the human touch it comes with. Nobody cares what or who I am unless I can touch their lives.

If you are a civil engineer by profession the village that brought you up longs for you to be of help when the waters rage to levels that threaten the safety of the wooden foot bridge.

To the doctors, it doesn’t matter that you are the best trained surgeon with skill to correct spinal osteomyelitis. Simply tapping the shoulder of the patient and assuring them that the pain will go away without their estimation of the level of sophistication of the surgery at stake is all that matters.

ION

Has my government given up on their “professional” role of providing for social services to the citizens – top of them being education and health care? A chat with a friend of mine who is one of the few surgeons at a Level 5 hospital sickened me (pun not intended).

Is the Government of Kenya simply reneging on its responsibility and leaving the poor to fate?

What if the said Hon members were caught in an emergency situation away from the facilities covered by their luxurious Bupa or Cigna insurance covers?

#SomeoneTellPresidentUhuru that things are getting worse and this is not doing well for his re-election bid.