Naturally, the understanding is that as the Ambassador’s Deputy, Ms Jenipher Awuor is supposed to help her boss Purity with the day to day running of the Embassy. However, Awuor’s real job may have remained off-topic until a KSB commentator brought it up – carrying Purity’s handbag whenever the boss is on her numerous excursions.
Probably, this makes Awuor one of the most expensive hand-bag carrying employee in the international world of diplomacy. In fact, it makes our country unique because “Only in Kenya” do we have “hand-bag carrying” as the basic job description of the Deputy Ambassador and there is photographic proof and repeated sightings by all and sundry.
To juxtapose the Awuor situation, it is like Kalonzo Musyoka always following Kibaki everywhere carrying the President’s briefcase. Worse still, it is like Musalia Mudavadi or Uhuru Kenyatta, the Deputy Prime Ministers, always following their boss Raila Odinga with his brief case.
By following Purity up and down even when she is on a shopping spree, the impression an observer gets is that Awuor is very idle in the office and whenever there is an opportunity of “going out”, she has to fix an excuse and Her Excellency’s hand bag is always part of the bargain. Look at it this way. If Awuor was a man, could he be following Purity everywhere with the hand bag on his hand as is the case today or could he be too shy?
Simple logic would have it that when purity is away, Awuor should be in the Office to take charge and to control staff members who may begin to behave badly by playing the mice when the cat is away. Conversely, a normal Office should have the boss sending her Junior to minor errands while reserving to herself the bigger and more heavier stuff like meeting the Swedish Prime Minister on behalf of the Kenyan government. While Awuor is to blame for playing the hand bag carrier, Purity too needs to be cast into the frying pan too.
She renders Awuor useless in the Office because she goes everywhere and never gives Awuor the opportunity to go and represent her anywhere. One day, she was invited to a Sudanese disco to represent the Kenyan government and instead of transferring the responsibility to her deputy or even another Junior like Kottut, she was at it, jumping to the staccato beats of the Sudanese rhythms in her Kitenge with hands in the air and hips swinging as Awuor waited patiently, keeping watch on Purity’s handbag.
At the Uganda independence day held in Kista some times back, Purity was invited and she was the first to arrive in her white Benz. When a Ugandan national who knew her tried to talk to her in Swahili, she refused to respond, pretending that she couldn’t speak Swahili. She abandoned the national language because she thought that the guy was a KSB spy. The Ugandan later called KSB to complain about Purity’s behavior.
Deprived of all opportunity of representing her boss anywhere, Awuor has decided not to sleep in the office. She follows her and the hand bag trick seem to be working because the other day, she managed to get close to former US President Bill Clinton at the Climate change conference just by carrying Purity’s handbag.
Awuor knows that the bag can take her to places but the key concern is whether she notices the damage she is doing to her reputation just by reducing her official duties to handbag-carrying at every opportunity. In as much as Purity needs to be recalled, Awuor should also grow up and stop Purity from converting her into a cheap “escort girl” whose job is to carry baggage. She needs to wake up!
Okoth Osewe
About the Author
Thanks KSB, for getting back into the bussiness of zeroing on our Kenyan embassy under the “ksb electron microscope” and magnifying out purity and awuors diplomatic “scubs” of sycofancy and non-chalant disregard of kenyans at best.I think we should consider the notion of not calling our embassy,an “embassy” but “kwa purity na watu wa nyumba yake” ,because she only caters for those who lick her boots,carry her handbag(something i have never witnessed untill today,i.e, a colleage of equal resource stooping as low as handbag carrying cum escort-girl job description),tells us/you Wakenya that as long as you will be a positiv critic towards purity,she will never warm to our needs, although its the wanainchis taxpayers money that pays her(sic)…KSB CONTINUE FOCUSING THE ELECTROM MICROSPE,it might reveal her worst scub yet!!
Why for heavens sake would Jenipher Awuor, with her high diplomatic status, behave obsequiously to Purity Muhindi? Why suck up to her Mount Kenya Mafia dominance? By now, she could have been promoted to possibly an ambassadorial position, but evidently she can’t wriggle herself out of Purity’s grip and thinks that carrying her handbag and polishing snow and dust from her shoes, will get her somewhere.
I agree with KSB that Awuor needs to wake up and fend for herself. She should also stop playing second fiddle to Purity and also cease being mean to the non-diplomatic staff at the Embassy in Stockholm.
Haaaaaaa heeeeee whoooooooo!!!! Awuor, Awuor, Awuor. What a site and congratulations to Osanya the photographer, who captured the fly in the soup, which was the handbag carried by Awuor, while Purity swaggered hands-free. Surely, was it worth it, just to get a glimpse of the former American president Bill Clinton? Purity must have enjoyed arriving like a queen, well protected by her maid, Awuor.
No wonder there is laxity and non-productivity on all levels within the Kenyan government. So who controls the embassy when the two top leaders are away? Is it not the rule that the deputy stays around when the boss is away and vice versa? At the Kenya-Stockholm ambassy this does not apply, because the two women are known to jet out together chasing conferences, discos and other useless functions at the expense of the Kenyan taxpayer whom they are accountable to.
Some commentators feel that a protracted war in the blogosphere is one of the ways to show their displeasure against the embassy.
This is too low of Awuor. Where’s her prestige, stature and show of might when she is continuously under Purity’s umbrella playing her lap dog? This is just as crappy as it gets to watch a mature woman like her being dragged in murk. She needs to wake up and make the best of her position and not to sing Purity’s old broken and tired tribal songs.
A picture tells a thousand and one stories. Carrying the handbag has now confirmed our worst fears that Awuor has not much to do apart from being Purity’s escort girl. What a shame!
Dang! This photo proves that Awuor is Purity’s escort girl. How low can she stoop? To waste time in Stockholm licking the boots of Purity is a complete turn off. I have always thought she is a strong-willed woman whose ambitions are sky high, but after reading this, I feel she needs to aim higher.
Purity is a political appointee and working under her is painful because you need to kiss her booty to survive, lest she calls Nairobi to roll your head. Awuor should curve her niche by moving away from her because regime change is inevitable come 2012. Out with the Mount Kenya Maffia.
KSB: Well put. 2012 could even be far. Awuor ought to be advising her boss on strategy but unfortunately, she has become part of the problem at the Embassy because she opted to wallow in Purity’s nincompoop attitude towards Kenyans here before targeting Purity’s hand bag as a gate way to hopeless meanderings that add nothing to the national well being. After being reduced to Purity’s escort girl, she is not worth tying my shoe laces any more.
As Awuor gets recycled here between being Purity’s deputy and escort girl, Kibaki has recyled the old and demented Muhoho back to the Kenya Airports Authority, at the age of 71. One gets disgusted to imagine that such people began eating when some of us were not even born, and are still eating, hiding under the shield of Mount Kenya Mafia. Githongo’s new book put it so well: “It’s Our Turn to Eat.”
President Obama recently said that his administration will only help Kenya if the government stamps out corruption. Currently, the Government’s grand corruption is so deep already overshadowing tyrant Moi’s era.
Kenyans in the Diaspora must continue condemning the Kenyan government for all the ills it does: – State sanctioned killings; mortgaging the country to foreigners in the name of investments; stealing from the Treasury to enrich personal pockets and many others.
All sensible Kenyans in the Nordic region must never sympathize with Awuor and Purity who live lavishly by misusing the poor Kenyans’ money, yet do not care for us.