Men! Have some pride and stop public urinating.

Men! Stop public urination across Africa

Over the weekend, as I drove with my daughter through the Nairobi suburbs, I saw a man, probably in his late 50's, literally pull down his pants exposing his full butt cheeks for the world to see, just so that he could urinate in a hedge off the walkway. Seeing men relieving themselves in the nearest hedge or wall is a common problem in Kenya; heck across Africa... but this old man's "extra" expose just got me so riled, I had to say something.

Honestly men! Have some respect!

I have two daughters. From when they were young and able to recognize what's happening around them, every drive has involved us all looking sideways and pretending we didn't see a man taking a piss by the side of the road. Some men are so brazen, they don't care about discretion any more, hang it all out there, who cares if there are women or children in eye-view?

If you are a man, pause for a second please. How often have you seen women postured in the side of the road relieving themselves? Does their absence not say something?

Having daughters, I've had to appreciate the distress and pain of them having to wait until they can find a suitable rest-room. I've seen them, pressed as crazy, but holding it with a semblance of dignity, until they could find a suitable place. Yet men, at the slightest impulse stop their boda-boda and into the hedge they go. Regardless of traffic or number of viewers.

It's quite sad that mothers are equally to blame in promulgating this. When the young boy is pressed, she quickly stops the car on the side of the road and just dangles him to relieve himself. Who cares who's watching. Yet if she has a daughter, she trains her from day one to hold it until they get to their destination, just as she does.

We are living in a world where this women's emancipation drive is in 4th gear. While women are strengthening their status in the home, in the economy and socially; men are dumbing down to primitive nonsense like thinking that pissing on the roadside is a privilege.

Discipline is a learnt thing. Today, as a man, you have no respect for the environment and the people around you purveying your sacred anatomy. How can you expect that tomorrow mothers, children and people of authority shall respect you. You have thrown away your moral authority.

I can't believe I'm saying this to adults, but "learn to hold it in". Learn to relieve yourself before the journey, or else deal with the issue at your destination. Have some pride! Stop being like a wild animal, or like your pet dog that must mark it's territory along the side-walk.

It comes to a point where there are areas in city centers and walkways that wreak of urine and you feel the need to avoid such spots. It is sad to highlight this, but only men will have contributed to that hazardous stench. And that is an indictment to how we have fallen down the moral chain. Law enforcement and City Councils across Africa do nothing about it. They say it's "nature". Maybe that's because the person who makes that call is a man, and already has his special corner in the city, that he relieves himself. 

In high school, we took shifts in cleaning our school toilets. In time, we messed them up less, in order to have a better clean-up experience. That theory didn't hold 100% of the time, but I honestly believe any man caught relieving himself, must be put to community duty; cleaning public toilets for a day.

Men, we have to stop this nature call liberty. If the women can hold it in... so can men.

Get a grip!