Donald J. Trump is the president of the United States and by international standards the most popular human being in the world today. His popularity does not mean people like him; rather, it means they know who Donald Trump is. Even the women selling spinach at Soko Mjinga know of Donald Trump! They call him the man who wants to chase Kenyans from America. That of course is not true!
Every one will agree that Donald Trump has many properties. The most glamorous is the Trump Tower in Chicago. It stands magnificent on Michigan Avenue and adds to the core beauty of Chicago. The New York Trump Tower stands out but I am not a fun of New York. There are too many things happening around the tower, too many people (I am a villager from Kijabe), and New York is very expensive.
Whether you support Donald Trump politically or not, he has contributed towards the American landscape. It is not easy to succeed in the United States. Ask all the senators and house representatives and they will confess that they all would like to be president. That is why Barack Obama’s presidency marks a great spot in American history, and Kenya! For Trump, an unconventional American New Yorker to live in the white house is historically unprecedented.
I arrived in the United States and settled in a college that was 99 percent white. Anglo Saxon. The students came from the mid – west; Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and some came from the town of Hershey Pennsylvania, the home of Hershey chocolate. To understand Donald Trump’s victory and the resistance thereof, one must understand these young people with whom I shared dorm, cafeteria, basketball, chapel, and with whom I played football (soccer). They came from small towns, which were built by the historical America families. The testament of these towns is businesses, restaurants and a church at every corner.
For these people, American experience is going to college, getting a job, marrying their high school sweet hearts, and raising children within the Judeo Christian tradition. They grew up in quiet neighborhoods with picket fences, and manicure lawns, garage sales and the privilege of leaving their garage doors open during the day while in the house. Their homes do not have walls like we have in Muthaiga and you can walk by a million dollar home and see inside the house because they do not have curtains. It is this lifestyle that they fear will go away if they allow refugees to become their neighbors. Even the liberal politicians who want refugees would rather have them somewhere else than their neighborhoods. They fear that the historical philosophy of peace and life without fear will be erased. By the way I met a family from Syria with a burger shop in an Orlando mall, very friendly!
With historical perspective in mind, I wanted to know something about the neighborhood where the Trump Mar a Lago resort is situated. This would help me understand whether my conclusion on his supporters is right. I drove down highway 95 from my sunshine habitant and arrived at the Mar a Lago in the afternoon. The highway up and down Mar A Lago neighborhood has perfectly cut cider fences with patches of flowers within perfectly cutgrass that resembles a well-kept golf course! The walk way was lined with benches for visitors and residents to sit and watch the ocean as the sun rises in this peaceful place. A large stone marker marks the stripe with a clock that celebrates some historical figure in the town.
The homes were beautiful mansions with no gates. Places where one can walk right to the door. It reminded me of a family member who had refused to put a wall around his property in Muthaiga until thieves invaded his home! Now they have a twenty-foot wall! Kenya used to have Mar a lago like neighborhoods in the 1970s before the country degenerated into scenes of Jailhouses with electric fences and guards at every gate. My buddy used to have a house in Buru Buru with no fences and gates.
After visiting Mar a Lago and enjoying some Florida hospitality I confirmed my analysis of Donald Trump. When you grow up in these kinds of neighborhoods, the kind of places my class mates in Trinity College grow up in, you will do every thing, including keeping immigrants out to preserve. Wish we had preserved our neighborhoods! Too late.
Teddy Njoroge Kamau (PhD)
BBN TV
HTBluff Associates
Diaspora Messenger Senior Columnist
Donald Trump’s Mar A Lago Resort: A Kenyan Visits and sets the Record Straight!
You can bet your booty that they have crystal chandaliers and even more expensive alarm systems, not to mention guards with guns, in Mar del Lago. So, who needs walls? Oh, I forgot, President Trump did say that we needed a big wall on the U.S. southern borders, but not for his Beach House in Mar del Lago because that would spoil the view of the Big Blue Lagoon and of Dr. Teddy Njoroge Kamau walking down the boulevard in a stylish Panama hat. As they say in Cubanaville, “Mi casa es su casa.” It would be nice to be invited though.
Or is that a Bermuda hat?
Nice read
Actually, the Cubanos say: “La casa de Donald Trump no es pequeno; pero un casa muy grande y muy linda por el Presidente de los Unidos Estados en el Sur de Florida en ‘Mar a Lago.’ Pero su casa no es mi casa.
Es verdad, su casa es mi casa! Trans: IT
Why does Pres. Trump’s wife stay in NYC while he is in D.C. at the W.H.? I mean that’s a far commute to see each other. I guess the only time they see each other is in Mar a Lago.
Man, if I had the chance to live in the W.H. I would be like Michelle Obama and be there with my man. At least they were a family. What we have here is the typical Kenyan shift houses to where the wife is and then go back on the road to the other house. But that was Melania’s decision I guess, not President Trump’s. I mean it is a real mystery. Every First Lady from Martha Washington to Michell Obama were in residence with their husband when their husband resided in the W.H. (well there were a few stranger than fiction cases I think, such as with Franklin Roosevelt perhaps. But now we are dealing with the D.C.-NYC-Mar a Lago triangle. Hopefully not like the Kenyan triangles though. Well, there are plenty of Trump Towers where they can meet up.
Well, as long as both in agreement about where the other stays, all is good. I mean America is a free country and President Trump only has one wife to worry about and she is usually with him in Mar a Lago. At least there’s no conflict of interest such as the Lesotho’s First Lady who ended up dead 2 days before her husband was inaugurated as the new Prime Minister (leader) of that country recently. She, the first wife of the Prime Minister had the audacity to go to court to win the title of “First Lady” because she was, afterall, his first wife and still was. I guess it is common that when a woman passes the age of 30 in some countries that legalize unlimited polygamy, the men just go get another wife who is younger and rarely, if ever, visits the first wife again–even though they are supposed to support her–but of course that could mean less for the other wives who live with or near him so there might be a lot of pressure to give the first one less than she deserves for putting up with him and then being abandoned for a younger woman. And of course these kind of men never divorce, so she is ‘his’ forever even though he is living with others and cares nothing about her.
However, in the case of the First Lady of Lesotho, she was the “First Lady” whether she lived with him or not–just like Melania. However, in the Lesotho leader’s case, he had 3 wives (well now 2 wives since one was murdered) to deal with–one whom had been put out to pasture so he would have time for the other 2. But the other 2 wives will have to fight it out I guess to see who gets the title. I wouldn’t want to be a man in the of that cat fight. But maybe not because what happened to the other “First Lady” should sufficiently silence the other 2. Witnesses say that some men were banging on the now-deceased “First Lady’s” door a few days before she and her lady friend, who had been shopping with her, were gunned down on the road–for no apparent reason. No wonder he wanted to go ahead with the inauguration instead of delaying to attend the “First Lady’s” funeral in deferrence to losing her. Who in his own country would dare to defy him now that he has ithe throne and has ultimate power to dissaude them in a most extreme way? Does anyone in the world even care? I mean now that the story and the headline are a few days old, I guess it’s over in the news and afterall he said the murder would be ‘investigated’. I wonder?
Well, at least in America we don’t have that kind of dilemma because one wife at a time is enough and is the only legally-sanctioned arrangement. In that respect, the Trump family and their living arrangements in or out of the W.H. (by the First Lady’s own choice) seems quite normal compared to the sordid affair of who gets to be (or not be because of extreme prejudice) the “First Lady” of Lesotho. Quite bizarre. I hope someone cares enough to find out what happened to her since obviously no woman deserves that, even if they are extremely expendable and replaceable in such places. But in God’s eyes she does matter, even if some heartless and cruel people don’t think so. She matters to Him like each of us matter to Him.