Random Thought…😁

Just the other day, Nairobi Governor H.E Johnson Sakaja met with Ndagire Renova, the young Burundian trader caught up in an ‘unfortunate incident during routine enforcement by Nairobi City County security and compliance officers’. The Nairobi City government imposed a ban on hawking inside the CBD before 4 pm. Renova was caught on the wrong side of this law. According to sources, he was hawking groundnuts to the hungry city revelers when the kanjos appeared out of the blues! The young trader was clinging on his transparent bucket full of roasted groundnuts to stop the kanjos from confiscating it.

Then without warning, the bucket handle snapped and within a split of a second, all the groundnuts spilled on the tarmac. The standoff attracted a sizable audience who captured videos of the young entrepreneur sobbing uncontrollably over his loss. Well, the incident got the attention of Governor Sakaja. The city Governor also reached out to the Burundian Ambassador to Kenya for a permanent solution and they unanimously agreed to take Renova back to school so that he can secure a bright future through education. Good stuff.

Now, the story reminded me of the first time I visited the capital Nairobi. I had received a very abrupt email inviting me for an Editorial Internship position interview at Switch Media offices in South C. It was a Wednesday evening. I decided to check my mailbox out of curiosity before stumbling on the interview invite. The interview was to be held on Friday. I had never gone to Nairobi, and I was dumbfounded on how I would make it. Thank God I went through it rather smoothly, things that you experience when you have a supportive sister who got your back. Story for another day.

After finishing with my interview, I booked a bus that would ferry me back to Eldoret at around 10 pm. It was some minutes to midday. So I wondered, what would I do between midday and 10 pm? I was all alone. Would I sit on the uncomfortable coaches at the bus booking office scrolling through my phone until 10? Or would I dare venture the streets on my own and meet the proverbial Nairobi thieves to rob everything from me?
As I was still engulfed in the thoughts, an idea popped up in my mind.
Brian was the Secretary in charge of environment when we were in highschool back in St. Mary’s School, Yala. The post was highly ranked, can only be compared to a present day national government Cabinet Secretary! After highschool, life happened. I remembered seeing Brian post in his WhatsApp statuses things likely to suggest he resided in the capital Nairobi.
So on that Friday afternoon,  I thought hard before calling him. Maybe he would be held up somewhere, or he would be far away from where I was, or he would ignore my call wondering what I  was upto after all those months. But I decided to give it a try.

Immediately the call went through, my throat ran dry and I didn’t know what to say. In lack of better words, I blurted, “huskii niko Nairobi!” And braced myself for the worst.
To my suprise, he asked “uko na wapi sai”, inquiring where I was at the moment. I told him I was inside the Easy Coach booking offices. The further I had gone was the paid washrooms few meters away. With my phone deeply tucked inside the cardigan I was putting on, I walked cautiously, constantly scanning the surroundings for any person with questionable intentions.

After about 5 minutes, the guy popped up from another route. I was suprised to see him. After exchanging pleasantries, Brayo, as we fondly call him casually told me “wewe ni mzigo yangu kutoka sai hadi venye utarudi Eldi“. Not sure of what that meant, I said fine. Let’s do it. From what I gathered, it turned out that Brian is one of the finest electricians I’ve ever known in recent days! Having got no agenda myself, I told him I would go wherever he was going and do whatever he was going to do until 10pm.
First things first, we maneuvered the crowded, filthy bus stage around Afya Centre until we came to a nyama choma joint. A guy wearing an old dust coat was expertly roasting meat on a grill. After choosing a chunk of meat of your preference, he has it sliced up and served on a plate. Accompanying it is frozen kachumbari and salt to taste. Soup is offered separately at a customer’s request. I swear that was also my first time eating choma as it was fondly called, a delicacy I had lived to believe is a reserve for pot bellied men drinking beer😂😂

Brayo was to fetch and install a certain remote controlled fan in a client’s house in Westlands. We began the search for the remote controlled fan. We traversed various places to my joy, I was knowing the city. I recall passing through Muthurwa market, River Road, some streets I can’t remember, onto some electrical shops owned by men and women of Arab origin. After a relatively long search, we found one. Brayo knows the best plugs for anything electricity, so we went to some of his trusted dealers for wires and other accessories he would use to install the fan. Time was literally flying. Brayo said he couldn’t manage to install the fan that Friday, so we would just go to his crib, leave the fan there and he would do it the following day.

We boarded those excessively graffitied mini buses with disco lights all over and loud music that could burst your ear drum. I heard them called Nganya. Oh! I also got to witness the proverbial hordes of people lining up for Super Metro buses while touts on other buses were shouting their voices hoarse for customers! We were headed to Dagoretti. I was seated next to Brayo by a window, and he explained to me the places along the way. Nyayo house, Afya House, Nyayo Stadium, Express Way, State House Road, Quiver Lounge..name them. The bus came to a hult just at the beginning of a small  hill. We alighted. That was the ‘hood’. They called it Dagoretti Kona.
I must admit that guy Brian is very sharp upstairs. In the hood, he had set up a Kinyozi business and was running a shop for small electrical gadgets like chargers, bulbs, sockets and stuff. Estate women passing by would complain of broken electric kettles and faulty electric gadgets. They would then ‘book an appointment’ with Brayo on when their issues would be looked into.

There was a big 4 storey block of flats in the neighborhood.  Brayo narrated to me how one day, when Manchester City was taking on Man United, something I don’t recall burst off rendering the building powerless. He was called to tend to the situation and power was restored! Few minutes into our stay there, I noticed that on the other side of the road, there was a kibanda specializing in Chapo dondo,  the revered chapati and beans. A relatively tall, slim man with a green apron was busy frying chapatis. I couldn’t help but notice they were very big in size compared to those we buy in Eldoret. There were others who dealt with delivery of orders to short distances around.
Brayo signalled to one of them and shouted tatu tatu to mean two sets of three. Few minutes later, a young man, probably in his late teens approached balancing two plates of heavy, cut chapatis mixed with beans stew. I was dismayed to learn that it costed 30 shillings! Like it was a lot compared to what I was used to. While feasting on the chapo dondo, I couldn’t help but scan the area. The chapo dondo business seemed to be really booming. I asked Brayo who these people selling chapo dondo were because they seemed kinda strange.

“Hawa ni wa Rwandese“, he answered casually. I was like what does that even mean. I thought it was one of the street slangs used to describe a certain group of people. He later explained that they originate from Rwanda. Brayo explained that there are numerous of them in that estate and they have specialized in fast moving businesses such as the Chapo dondo we had just consumed, hawking hot Kahawa in the evenings and dealing in liquor trade. And they seemed very good at it. As the clock ticked some minutes past 8 pm, we hoped into another nganya headed towards town. Brayo was familiar with the crew. Infact he relieved the conductor of his job and was the one manning the door. It was a free ride of course.

As we parted ways and I caught my bus back to Eldoret, I couldn’t help but think of the Rwandese. It was not the first time I was seeing or hearing of such scenarios. In no way can I lay blame on the foreigners. I am all for Free Trade & Regional Integration. It is a challenge to us Kenyans. We must guard the most basic of vocations. I believe that we have enough skills and competencies available locally. Until we saturate demand, or until Kenyans prove incompetent, we shouldn’t allow our economy to be this porous. Let foreigners come with skill-sets that are unheard of. I mean, why should a random person come all the way from Congo, Rwanda, Uganda or wherever to sell kahawa, chapo dondo or hawk roast groundnuts to locals in order to make a living while you’re just there doing nothing?

Multiple studies show that majority of Kenyans, especially the youth who form the bulk of our population are generally lazy. You will find them sitting in entertainment joints, scantily dressed and making marry, some doing absolutely nothing for over 5 hours. No work. I wonder how they compensate those many hours lost in a day. Yes it doesn’t concern me, but how do they feed themselves and those around them? A typical Kenyan youth would rather sit down jobless and blame the government on an issue or two.
Now that I’ve finished renting out, I encourage us all, especially the youth to go out there, grab anything to do. Let’s hustle together. Be mad for work. It’s time to hustle.😅