PATRIOTISM THEN AND NOW
The joy of writing about our national holidays is that you can always turn in the same column every year, except of course for the election year where the national holidays are converted into political rallies. So during the non-election year, the president drones on and on about the achievements of 'my government' and then realizes in the election year that his government has achieved zero and he starts to promise us pie in the sky come the following year. During the Nyayo Era,we kids attended the National Holidays with zest especially if one belonged to the 'exclusive club' of the school choir. To join this club, all one needed was a pair of black Bata leather shoes. We pleaded with our parents for this privilege and if they could afford it, or if they did not subscribe to an imaginary 'rebel' group, one was in. The only problem is that when the shoes were new, they were five sizes larger because they were meant to last the whole upper primary duration.