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Creative Non-Fiction


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Creative Non-Fiction

THE TENDER FORGOTTEN SIDE OF THE ASSUMED ‘DEVILS’

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THE TENDER FORGOTTEN SIDE OF THE ASSUMED ‘DEVILS’

Looking beyond all the misconceptions and wrongly added up assumptions about the street children, commonly known as ‘chokoraa’, I clearly see what most people tend to ignore. When we see that small girl or boy with torn and dirty clothes, shaggy unkempt hair with a bottle of glue stuck between their teeth all we want to do is walk furthest away from them. We see them like small devils ready to attack yet we never took our time to get to know their deeper selves that is yearning for love, care and understanding. They have so much pain hidden under all that rebelliousness and violence that they show in first impressions.

Working with a non-governmental organization dealing with street children made me more open minded than before and I couldn’t avoid getting so much affected emotionally by their true selves. One of the incidents that I will never forget is when I first had an introduction session with them and one of the older street boys started with a short prayer. ‘Ewe Mungu tunakushukuru kwa kutuweka hai tukaweza kuishi kuona krismasi hadi mwaka mpya. Ijapokuwa tumepitia mambo magumu mengi na siku nyingine tumelala njaa lakini pia tunashukuru kwa maana tunatambua kuwa kuna wale hawakuweza kuishi mpaka leo na washafariki. Tunakushukuru Mungu baba kwa walimu uliotupa na tunamkaribisha mwalimu mpya sana na tunampa heshima yake. Tunashukuru pia anatuchekea na hatuiti ‘chokoraa’ kama tunavyoitwa huko nje na watu wengine wote. Watu wengi hawatambui kuwa sisi ni survivors and hatupendi kuitwa chokoraa kwani sisi pia ni binadamu kama wengine. Mungu tunakushukuru kwa kila jambo ulotupa,amen.’

I was filled with so many mixed emotions and I couldn’t stop to question myself, how many of us have a much better life and yet can never stop a minute to make a short prayer and thank God to be so much fortunate?? I blamed myself for some time for also having a pre-assumed attitude and fear towards them. I realized that from their stories, most are victims of circumstances whereby they had no other option but run to the streets for survival. While some had to walk from Nairobi to Mombasa in search of life, others ride under the buses for hours to get to their destinations to date. One of the crippled boys who walks in crutches used this method to get to Mombasa and we can all picture how tough and rough it can be for a crippled to ride under the bus in an entire journey. Some have been looking for their mothers over twenty years while others are born just there in the streets. With all that, there come the government officers who chase them out of the streets which are their only home, without considering any way to help them out.

The young girls are even more vulnerable to sexual harassment and misguidance in the streets. They have a tougher time in the streets and they clearly talk of how much they hate it when they ask for money in the streets from people and they are abused and called names such as prostitutes.

No one can deny that they can be violent and some are thieves and hard core robbers, druggists and some rapists’ maybe but the fact is that these are forgotten people of the community. They are so much yearning for help, care, love and appreciation from the society. They need guidance and counselling so that they can relieve their stress and get help to be better people.

It is for this reason that I highly salute ‘Glads house Kenya’ an NGO which has taken its time, energy and wealth to invest on the street children and have successfully rehabilitated and reformed quite a number of street children and led them into independency and into foster homes. Same to ‘Wema center’ and to all the other charity centers who have golden hearts and risk their lives in making other people’s lives be better. Kudos to you all!

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Creative Non-Fiction

THE TIME FACTOR; ARE YOU A FRIEND OR AN ENEMY?

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Photo Courtesy: http://www.randallpacker.com/

As they say it, time waits for no man and if you think of it, wasn’t it just Monday yesterday? When did it get to Friday already? Days, hours, minutes, seconds fly past us like wind and eventually leave us behind still wondering; when did it get so late?

It all seems like just yesterday when I got admitted to the kindergarten and how I really cried for my mother, proceeding to primary school, secondary school to adulthood whereby everyone expects you to be a responsible being. But who could ever believe that those are so many years back and all what we are left with are memories and probably regrets of what we should have done and what not.

As the clock goes tick-tock tick-tock and as the finest sand trickles down the hour glass, did we ever pause to imagine the wisdom behind our Creator creating us with the abundance and yet still, limitation of time? It is for this reason that we must be organized and arrange how to spend our time wisely. In the time factor, we have two kinds of people; the organized being and the procrastinator.

An organized individual knows how to use time wisely. He is the kind that since his youth age already has a time plan of life. He would write down his dreams and goal and set time limits for himself. He has set a time for everything; what age to study, what age to work, when to get married, when to make a family, when to retire etc. He knows when he is to wake up, when he is to prepare himself to go for job, what time to leave the house and when to get there such that they arrive in time. It is such people that always know how to divide their schedules such that they have time for work, time for family, time for entertainment and everything in such an orderly manner. They barely have regrets in the time factor for they make the best use of it. They are the same kind of people who made the best use of their childhood, playing all kind of games and having fun all children need. They make use of their youth; creating amazing memories, doing great things that will always be remembered by the society, making time for studies and merry as well. When they got to the working age they immediately start hustling and looking for ways to learn a living. They get married and have a family when they are surely ready to take such responsibilities and finally retire in peace with no regrets of the time or opportunities they wasted.

The other kind is the procrastinator; the lazy being. He is the type that races behind time and expects the hour clock to miraculously stop for his sake. He would wake up late and blame everyone for not waking him up. He takes everything at ease and even when he is in a crisis, he wouldn’t refuse an invitation from friends to party instead of looking for a solution to his problems. If he is a student, he would procrastinate his study sessions each time for invalid reasons like watching a TV series that they can’t miss or a movie. Such a person doesn’t even have a purpose in life and such, ends up doing a lot of the wrong things before finally realizing their goals in life. They get to regret a lot due to the time and opportunities they wasted by being ignorant. They made so many wrong choices and hanged around with the wrong lazy people who were but enemies of time.

Time will never advise us but instead it will only give us time to correct ourselves but this is only possible if the Time-keeper himself wishes! So let us make a wise use of the much or little time we have because we can never guess when the end of our times will be!

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THE IDLERS OF OUR TIME

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Photo Courtesy: Unknown

If you want to know how much Kenyans or coasterians are idle, then let an accident happen. It is at this time that you will know how many people are actually jobless or just lazing around. The accident may have happened at seven in the morning; you may pass by at the scene one hour later and still find the same people crowded there. I never got to understand whether staring at the dead bodies brought any change to the fact that the accident happened or that they are doing some ‘mtaani investigation’. What is even more interesting is how they are amused for all that time that they are at the scene and you could hear comments like ‘aii ai aii. Huyu jamaa amevurugwa kabisa!’ and the person would keep repeating the same statement for as long as the policemen take to get to the accident scene. Others would not want to miss out chipping in their comments of ‘mimi niliona kabisa kilichotokea! Makosa ni ya dereva wa matatu! …’ and he will tirelessly narrate the story to anyone else who would pass by to ask the same question of ‘what happened’.

Actually, citizens have proved to be better journalists in moments as such. Each one would show their deep concern and would be glued at the scene, shaking their heads with pity and wanting to know exactly what happened. At this particular hour is when traffic jams are created and matatus would rush to overtake other cars but yet still, when the matatus get to the accident scene, it is almost a guarantee that the driver would slow down and he would eagerly poke his head outside. He would have a small conversation with the next driver opposite to him about the accident before speeding away.

My concern has always been the crowd though. It is quite for sure that at least a quarter of the crowd was heading to work but nonetheless, they stay around. I end up thinking maybe they have a very tolerating boss who would forgive for the late coming and maybe ask them as well to tell the story, or that they are simply careless employees who aren’t worried about time.

Idlers have become a large population in our country and joblessness still stands to be the main reason. It is not only during an accident that you would see the idlers. Sometimes all you have to do is alight from a car at the ‘mtaani’ stage; and you would see them seating in rows like they are watching a football game or sometimes in small groups discussing issues that only they know about. It is paths like these that I would rather avoid because once they see any creature looking like a woman; their eyes would follow for as long as one is in their sight. Well, maybe it is because they have no better thing to do and as it is said, ‘idleness is the work of Satan’. But yet still, maybe we can’t really blame all of them that are present there. Some are university graduates who walked day and night searching for a job but all in vain while others ended up having the job; ask them and they would tell you ‘kazi ya kutafuta kazi’. It is really high time that our leaders sorted out plans for the idlers and the jobless. For sure, with their great numbers, Kenya would need their ideas to do something meaningful to the community.

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TOMORROW NEVER COMES

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Photo Courtesy: Salem_Beliegraphy

 

Procrastination is another one of Satan’s workshops and most of us have been trapped in this so many times; that lazy feeling to postpone what we are to do today with the claim that we will do it tomorrow. What most people don’t realize is that the price of procrastination is always too steep.

What we can do today is much easier for us to do at the same moment because the next day the work becomes double and if postponed to the next few days, you realize you have a whole pile of work. That is when you start asking yourself where all that work is coming from while whining and complaining over and over again. Sometimes all you have to do is sacrifice a bit of your time or wealth or even energy to do what is required. If you want to start a business then you don’t have to wait till when you have saved so much. Start with the little much you have and once you do, you will realize that you will work even harder to sustain the business.

A person who planned to build a house ten years ago and still hasn’t, may never get to achieve his goal. If his aim at that time was that he should get five hundred thousand to start the house, then with today’s economy, the budget would be double or triple since everything is much more expensive than before. The house that could be built at five hundred thousand ten years ago would have to be built at one million today. Time changes, and the more you postpone, the further your goal seems to be. But maybe had this particular person sacrificed his little money, maybe just one hundred thousand and started the house, it would be complete by now.

There is always this morale that comes when you have decided to start a thing. With the one hundred thousand, the person may have started the foundation of the house. Next thing is that the person would be restless and would work day and night to complete the house. This is the same thing with house chores or even homework given at school. It is quite weird when a person decides to clean the entire house and leaves a corner for tomorrow or when a child does his homework and decides to leave the last two sums for another day. Once you start a thing, you would always have the urge to perfect it.

As for the one who keeps piling up work, then work for you will never end. Even if it is just about buying a present for your mother, procrastination is not appropriate. Today you may say that ‘let me buy myself these beautiful shoes, then tomorrow I will buy mother the thing she always loved’ and the next day, you will realize you also have another thing to do. In the end of it all, you end up not buying the present at all.

Same thing with charity, humanity or even forgiveness; do not wait for tomorrow to tell your loved ones how much you love them, ask for forgiveness at that same moment, give charity even if it is just a coin or two, be humble and live each day as it comes because… tomorrow never comes!

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IS A CRIME JUSTIFIED BY ANOTHER??

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IS A CRIME JUSTIFIED BY ANOTHER??

By: Lubnah Abdulhalim

Photo Courtesy: Salem_Beliegraphy

 

At one point of our lives we must go through pain, betrayal, heartbreaks, or any other kind of suffering. That is life and without all these problems that we go through, we could as well be in heaven straight away. These problems are what can change a personality forever. Could be for the better or for the worse. Most of the times though, people tend to get so bitter on what has befallen them and decide to follow the dark path of revenge which brings us to the question, is a crime justified by another??

Taking a scenario of a lady who was raped and contracted AIDS. The lady thereby decides to seduce all men coming to her way so that she can spread the disease to others with the lame and selfish thinking of ‘I shouldn’t die alone.’ No, it is never justified. No humanity law will ever justify your action. A crime remains a crime whatever the case and a sin remains to be a sin whatever the situation.

Human beings should stop making each other victims of their lust, greed and selfishness just because they have been in a hard situation. Who in this world has never been in a hard situation? Who in this universe has never tested pain? No one. Not even the queen of England or the Sultan of Oman. Not the pauper nor the begger. For sure when we were told ‘an eye for an eye’ it never meant you go poking everyone’s eye you meet on the way just because someone poked yours. It is not acceptable to be ruthless on others for something they have no connection to.

Many a times we have seen people who get horribly heart broken by their loved ones ache and mourn for so long about their pain to the extent of becoming so cold hearted and heartless. Their lives may never become the same and they tend to become so rough to the people who come into their lives afterwards.  But why should it be so? Why should it be that it is always the next person that has to pay the consequences done by someone else? Why are the undeserving ones that always fall to become the victims of someone’s anger and frustration?

We all feel pain and not just feeling it, we live with it. It sometimes becomes part of us. We understand you are hurt. We understand that your life may never be the same again. We understand your suffering and aching. We do. But no one will ever understand why you have to pay it forward to the next person in such a ruthless and heartless way. No one will justify your actions, because you are never justified. Because a crime remains a crime and one crime doesn’t make another be alright.

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THE CHANCES THAT NEVER RETURN

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Photo Courtesy: data:image/jpeg

One year ago, my aunt was critically ill with diabetics and her leg had been mutilated thrice.Every evening at the end of my classes I would go to the hospital to check on her condition. She was my mentor and the only other person who deserved the name ‘mum’ after my real mum. So on one particular evening, my mum called me to rush to the hospital and check on my aunt. I was so tired just from class and didn’t want to meet that familiar hospital smells and cries that would always depress me. I refused to go but mum insisted that I should go. Dragging my feet, I got there and saw the critical condition of my aunt that she wouldn’t answer back when we talked to her. She was writhing in deep pain and I watched her helplessly. All I could do was hold her hand and silently pray. That was the last night I ever saw her for early the next morning she passed on. To date, I say to myself, if I didn’t go to see her on that night, then I would have hated myself all my life. Not because I would have changed anything but because it is those last moments beside her that really ever mattered.

Many a times we take what comes on our way for granted and always think that there are yet otherr chances to come. Like how we get a job opportunity not paying much but worth the take but let our arrogance take control over us. We would rather sit lazily around than take the little that we get. The worst part of it all is when you come to realization that you made a mistake and regret but life never offers you such a chance ever again.

How many times do we annoy our parents and bring them nothing but sadness, how many times we break the only true people who ever loved us, how many times do we postpone meetings and appointments, how many of brilliant opportunities did we have and yet wasted them?

Life sometimes may offer you another chance if you are lucky enough. Maybe you wasted your teen life in drugs and illegalities but then your star starts shining on you and you get counselled and rehabilitated and you get a new start for your life and be happy again but not everything in life is the same. Some things are not meant to return or be re-lived. It could be that that particular day that you decide to stomp out of the house while yelling at your mum could be the last time you ever see her.

Beware of people’s anger on you, you may never have the chance to apologize. Beware of not caring on what you do, there will always be a time whereby your actions will backfire on you. Beware of not showing your loved ones how much they mean to you, you may never get the chance to ever do so again. Beware of ignoring meetings or appointments, that friend of yours who is about to travel may just die on his way back. Beware of postponing what you can do today to tomorrow. Beware of all the things you take for granted. Beware before you become regrettably aware.

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THE TWO FACED BEING

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Photo Courtesy: http://www.youngisthan.in/

Have you ever met the two faced being? The one with such sweet words that can entice you so much, make you trust them completely and make you eventually fall into their traps? That person who is an angel to everyone’s eyes and is loved by all yet he is the devil himself??

In this world, human beings have proved to be the most sophisticated creatures; very difficult to comprehend. While the best of personalities and the worst have always been known, there are those who are the best and yet still, the worst at the same moment. Such a person may come to you like an angel in disguise. He/she might help you tirelessly, spend money on you, and give you a shoulder to cry on and much more. It is that person who may stand by your side when everyone else left, gives you words of encouragement and makes you to take decisions you never thought of.

This person would really play the ‘friend’ part so well and make you think that everyone else is a hypocrite behind your back. He/she can make a wife quarrel with her husband; he can make family get apart and make friends hate each other forever. He will tell you so many lies about different people in your life and maybe even approach the others and do the same about you. He/she is a slanderer.

The strange part about them is that there is nothing they really want from you. They don’t gain anything from destroying anyone’s lives apart from the pleasure they give their ego. They just find it fun to play around people’s life, make it when they can and destroy it when they can. It is even sad how you can find such a person seated amongst important people, all listening to his spiced words, praising him of his wisdom and big heart yet it is a heart only with a cover of golden linen while inside him, he is rotten.

For a moment when you warn others about that person, they wouldn’t believe you and claim that you are the bad one slandering him/her. They will not listen to you because they have also fallen into the enticing trap; because she has a miraculous charm on people. Not until they come into the same regrettable situation like yours or give it a whole lot of time to listen and think about your words is when they will believe that you are right.

Many have been victims of this two faced being whom we considered our best pals and our family more than our real blood. When we finally come to know them in their real colours, it is often too late; after we broke friendships and ties, after taking big regrettable decisions, after hurting our loved ones, after our lives have totally collapsed to nothing. Their pleasure is to see you helpless, crying alone, with no one beside you, bankrupt, with an ill opinion by other people and with a lot of pain and unhappiness.

It is for this reason we are supposed to be smart when dealing with people. We are to understand a person and try to know their deeper intentions before really trusting or giving any person an upper hand than others. So beware of the two being faced who hovers around your life.

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THE VIEW FROM THE FRONT DESK

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Photo Courtesy: https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/

Every beginning of a day means new drama for the people dealing with customer care. As much as we all complain how awful customer care is in most offices in Kenya, there is always the other side of the story.

Talking of how miserable Kenyan customer care is, there are times you go to the same office often and you always find the one at the front desk grumpy and snapping at you whenever you ask a question especially at the airport and immigration offices. After you’ve had to stand for a long time in a long queue, the last thing one would want is to have an encounter with a too serious, frowning face that can’t even force a fake smile for you. Some purposely make you wait and wait and wait for hours as they take their sweet time doing the services for you. It can actually ruin your entire day’s mood by how they talk to you and even when you try to be friendly, all you will get is an ungrateful glare. All this, chances are, maybe they just didn’t have a good start or they missed breakfast or rather, the boss had the wrong start with them but then, in the end of the day, as a front desk clerk, your sole aim is to attract customers to make them come again tomorrow not to chase them away.

When you work as a customer attendant in an office where you have to deal with different people everyday, you might as well end up having tough headaches, migraines or even depression. Every person has a different character and ironically speaking, the person would expect the one behind the desk to talk in the same way as they do. One needs to be very patient especially when arguments get to the boiling points and you can’t take it anymore.

Out of the curiosity of capturing the other side of the story, my friend who works in one of the Samsung offices at the front desk made me stay around for almost one and half an hour just to see how the conversations go like in their office. Every person who came by came with a different tone; the friendly ones, the very impatient ones, the ones who must create a scene, the ones who would ask gently, the ones who would create so much tension even to the boss himself, the ones who always had something to whine about repeating the same things again and again, the ones who would loudly insult your products and services and how bogus you all are, and by the time I was leaving the office I just had to ask my friend ‘and how do you survive this everyday?!’ I bet they carry paracetamols and hedexs in their wallets and eat them like sweets daily.

I’ve ever seen groups of ladies go to boutiques or stalls selling jewellery or watches and they would keenly ask the seller to remove the stuff so that they may see them clearly. They would wear them and each would ensure they have a taste of the bracelet or watch on their hands. At this you can imagine maybe it is a group of five to six young girls, clearly coming to just have fun. They would make the seller remove almost all what is on the shelves and by the end of it all, they would not buy one single thing. Obviously, anyone would be pissed by such tendencies and it is always the next customer who walks in that pays the price of the attendants being angry and grumpy.

Customers are mostly drawn to the offices that have a lounge room, where one will be offered tea or coffee and sometimes even biscuits to go along with the drink but then, this can only happens in well established companies which apparently, know very well how to win their customers.

As much as you, as the attendant, may be having a bad day, your emotions shouldn’t be reflected in how you treat your customers. Many people end up not buying things or even buying unnecessary things just due to how friendly, gently they are handled or the vice versa. Patience should be a main characteristic amongst the attendants at the front desks but still, even we as customers need to be considerate on how we make our demands. Just as we are in a hurry to get proper quality attention, they also need a peace of mind from all the tension we create for them!

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THE EXTREMES IN WEIGHT

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Photo Courtesy: http://www.alivehealthblog.com/

Have you ever been called fat? Obese? Fatso? Or maybe stick, 1gb or any other kind of name related to your body size? Have you ever had people rubbing it on your face on how ugly you look because you just gained some weight or is too skinny? Well, you are not the only one.

It is always hurting and rather irritative when someone starts discriminating you by your weight or height. Many people end up having stress and being depressed for the comments they get from friends and relatives or colleagues. We tend to forget that we are all creations of people and each individual are beautiful just as they are. Sometimes the woman you laugh at for being obese could be suffering from hypertension or that very skinny boy could be suffering from diabetes. Yet still it isn’t a must that there should necessary be a reason for someone being fat or too skinny.

We can all remember as children at school, there would never miss that one boy or girl who was called fatso and everyone including the teachers would mock at their eating behaviours and body weight. The poor children always had a low esteem and are mostly exposed to bullying. Some end up hating themselves and their lives which makes them lock themselves up at home, with very few friends while others start extreme diets that rather becomes unhealthy at some points.

It has been noted though that it is mostly women who are hurt on how they are perceived in terms of body weight and height. Many take up strict diets to ensure that they lose much and never gain. The irony though is that some women, though very skinny, still deny themselves food for the fear of gaining weight. It is hereby that some become anorexic which is characterized by a phoebia of gaining weight.

For one to know whether they are underweight, normal, fat, overweight or obese you should calculate your BMI, body mass index, which is a measure of body fat based on height and weight that applies to adult men and women. The weight of each person depends on their height too and that is why for example people who are both tall and fat, have big bones and thus the weight of the bones goes both to the height and weight. So this tests clearly shows in which category one is.

Gaining weight isn’t an awful thing as most people make it seem though it is important that one takes control of their eating habits such that they grow healthily.

For those who are overweight or obese, don’t be too sad on your situation. There are ways of keeping fit and dieting such that you may be in your right weight category. As for those who are underweight, start eating well and not just well, but healthily too. Keeping fit is better than dieting that could make you fall down due to extreme food reduction. Accept yourself as you are, which is most important.

What some people forget is that one mans poison is another persons meat. The person you may consider to be fat and ugly may still seem pretty to another person. The rest of the world should show appreciation to every fat person we know instead of being insensitive by mocking them. So today, we will make it special to celebrate all the fat, overweight, obese as well as the skinny underweight all over the world cheers to you! You are beautiful as you are!

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THE PLIGHT OF GAZA

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Photo Courtesy: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/

Can you feel what am feeling?

Like insects on my skin are walking

i can feel in me the chill

of the cold blood being spilt

This is for the small kid in Gaza wondering,

what’s happening? They must be figuring…
All they see are the lifeless bodies
and all they see is that death is calling..
Then who are the real terrorists??
The instigators,the war catalysts?
Its those tears that break my heart
their small smiles that pain hides
When will freedom come??
When can they finally call home-sweet home? </3
#FreePalestine #FreeGaza

#Whoever you are,Wherever you please pray for these innocent souls all over the world! Allahuma nsurhum ya Rab!

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