When a venue upstages its guests for all the wrong reasons

I meant to write about the Kenya-Uganda friendly played last Sunday, but I will instead talk about the venue and how much it reminded me of our negligence.
Viewed from Thika Superhighway, the Moi International Sports Complex – Kasarani, looks remarkable. But a shockingly filthy detail reveals itself when you turn off the highway and move up close.
The place is huge, and that tends to diminish whatever clean-up efforts have been made. Still, many parts look like they were last dusted during the 1988 All-Africa Games and I guess killing the overwhelming stench from the washrooms or the weeds that have overwhelmed the parking lots, is going to take more than the occasional fresh coat of paint.
In many ways however, Kasarani reminds me of Namboole. Both are tucked away in densely populated and relatively poor suburbs.
It is, therefore, unimaginable that cheap labour is a resource in short supply here. And yet one major contradiction stands out for both. They are shabby reminders of our inability to preserve our public facilities, even if they sit in areas whose potential to provide clean-up armies is obvious.
We may prefer to explain away the crumbling of these facilities as our lack of the technical skills and the money needed to run them. But this excuse starts to crumble as well when you consider that the rot has gone on for decades and regardless of continued technical and financial aid from the Chinese. For example, Kasarani obtained a $9m renovation grant from China in 2010. But one would be forgiven for thinking it was a pledge that was never honoured. And there have been Chinese technicians living in the Namboole clock for years but it’s still only correct, twice a day.
I reckon therefore, that if free money and expertise can’t help us then we are either lazy or irresponsible. Probably both.
Consider this. Operating huge facilities, is only still a matter of broken-down mundane tasks - the kind of tasks that could have been cost effectively done by the good people of Kariandundu and Kinawataka.
Instead we have overlooked these people, leaving them no choice but to channel their imagination into an evil form of supply-chain management that involves selling trinkets before the games and mugging them off buyers after games. To that extent we have been lazy. One, for boxing small tasks into impossibilities but also for not finding solutions within reach. Literally.
But not even that is half as bad as how recklessly we handle public property. Management dispense their duties casually and us the crowd litter, break furniture and leave. All of us are guilty of criminal negligence.
And it is this guilt that got me writing about the venue. How couldn’t I? There were stories in the vivacity of Emmanuel Okwi’s captaincy or the promising debuts of Allan Okello and John Revita. But eventually it was also very hard to disregard the filth in which I found myself and how much that actually reflects on who we have become – an inconsiderate lot.