About Me

My photo
Nairobi, Nairobi County, Kenya
Geoffrey O Okeng’o is a South African- trained Kenyan physicist with a Ph.D. in Physics (Theoretical Cosmology). He was born on 17th April 1984 in Kisii, Nyanza Province, Western Kenya, and his love for Physics and Maths began at a nascent age when he took interest in solving Maths and Science problems for other kids while in primary school. He passed to join secondary school where he studied Maths and all sciences: Biology, Chemistry and Physics, topping in class. In 2003, he got admitted to pursue a 4-year BSc Physics degree at University of Nairobi-Kenya, graduating in September 2007 with Honors majoring in Theoretical Physics. In 2008, he won a scholarship to join the National Astrophysics and Space Science Honors Program (NASSP) at the University of Capetown (UCT), South Africa. While at UCT, he won a Square Kilometer Array Africa scholarship for MSc at University of Western Cape (UWC) graduating Cum Laude March 2011. He then proceeded to pursue a Ph.D. at UWC, completing in 2015. He loves reading articles, deriving equations, writing codes, taking walks, cycling, jogging and writing science articles, traveling, socializing and gardening.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

The Kenyan Astrophysicist: Not Missing in Action (MIA)!



By Okeng'o G. O.

Tutorial Fellow, Department of Physics, University of Nairobi and
Doctoral Student, Square Kilometer Array Project (South Africa), based at the Department of Physics, University of the Western Cape (Capetown, South Africa)

© Copyright by Okeng'o Geoffrey Onchong'a, July 2014


Last weekend, while in the midst of sipping away my favorite `thought-consolidating' beverage at one of my famed joints around Mowbray-Capetown, a best friend of mine tabbed my shoulder and asked me wryly: “Mr Kenyan Astrophysicist, what happened to you man? Seems like ages since we heard from you!”. It took me a few sips and a little scratch on my clear-shaven `cosmological' head, to exactly decipher the magnitude of my friend's question. Then when I remembered , I acknowledged with a nad that it has indeed been over a whooping 500 + days (or 43 + million seconds) since I last updated my blog! How could this happen under the Sun unless of course the clocks outside my `enclosure' have been ticking faster of late? I asked myself this question, before taking another sip. Well, my dear esteemed readers and fans, the Kenyan Astrophysicist is back! This special edition provides a brief statement, in his own words, what actually transpired..


You see, they say experience is the best teacher and indeed I have come to fathom the fact that (from my recent experiences) growing up is not an easy feat! And who said it should be anyway? Now, close to eleven thousand days ago when I grew up as a restless young man: full of overzealous energy to conquer the `world', myself, together with other young boys of my age, spent our evenings sitting outside an open fireplace, listening to stories from my self-styled wizened grandfather- the late Mzee1 Johnson Mbaka Ochong'a. Sheltering under the `roof' of the myriads of twinkling stars that lighted up the calm heavens, my grandfather would, perhaps bemused by our youthful demeanour and boyish arguments, calmly reprimand us using a famous Kisii2 african proverb that says: “Yaa kina mobirore timokaga mbinde” which when translated in English simply means “Grow up ye young men thinking otherwise”. This, as I came to understand later is a widely used proverb to warn young men about the eminent challenges of life when one grows up. And yes, I now understand that my grandfather's words were exactly on point. But what does this have to do with the Kenyan Astrophysicist's MIA?

Well, while it is quite tempting to associate my prolonged absence from an important platform such as my blog to probably laziness, a computer breakdown and/or both, I would like to take this earliest opportunity to plead “not guilty” and deny any charges that anyone of you may lay against me. Nevertheless, I must acknowledge and take some of the blame.

So what transpired?

Before 'confessing' where I had been holed up all this while, first some disclaimer: I have to categorically state that my whereabouts in the last couple of months have got nothing to do with either being lazy or inactive! (at least from my frame of reference). Much has been happening, and to agree with my grandfather; I have indeed been 'growing up'-while away! Thanks to my PhD supervisor for the PhD project that has kept be busy in the last two years or so. And as any graduate student would easily acknowledge doing a PhD is in its own right a full-time 'job opportunity' and writing codes (that appear easy at first) in order to solve cosmic problems or analyzing data and publishing good papers can turn out to be a hard nut to crack (well, most of the time). So, patience please! Therefore, if you do not spot me traversing some airports to attend conferences or workshops relevant to my research, you will definitely find me perched on my home or office desk staring at my computer screen and occasionally scribbling some equations in my notebook. That's where I have been!

1A respectable Swahili word for an older person or elder

2Also known as AbaGusii, the Kisii are Bantu people in Nyanza Province, Western Kenya

No comments:

Post a Comment