The number of young men and women who spend their day watching the latest series and movies by Americans is alarming. But you cannot blame them because many think that they are spending their hours productively while in the process incurring their guardians and parents a lot in terms of the ever increasing electricity costs. Watching pirated movies it appears is the best past time, in the process killing artistry all in the name of killing idleness. The rural areas are even better because you can get a job just like that.a
But as a prospective intern (I will write about the interview attended) and a jobless bugger in search for greener pastures, I normally take stock of the far I have got, where I am headed to and what I will have achieved. I am still lethargic about coming up with goals the night before dawn of the oncoming day to execute them on the given day.
Every time I sit down to write about the rigmaroles of a job seeker, I usually want some form of motivation which is elusive and in retrospect utterly absent. The average youth is full of vengeance at the protracted struggles he/she undergoes in order to make money. He is emaciated with the hope of ever getting to get there. He/she lives hoping things will change.
Nairobi is increasingly becoming callous and untoward to the average bloke on the streets. The yawning hiatus between the haves and have nots is widening as the day goes by. Some nondescript contractor is winning tenders to supply goods, build roads or houses and the list is endless. The government has no proper oversight because EACC is plunging day by day due to some forces beyond its tentacle rein. Those who want to eat are more than those who struggle to make ends meet. As such they make the lives of the majority harder because of the kickbacks they receive.
Then there are chaps who are way above owning luxurious items. They can be said to be doing deluxe. Angelo Petrucci, Chief Master Tailor for Brioni landed in the country courtesy of Little Red. His stay probably leaves a sour taste in my mouth. He has orders from the filthy rich who know that money has no feelings and they therefore don’t give a damn about how much they spend to look chic, spruced and having a flair of a difference demarcating them from the common man. How comes a person (the likes of Ahmednassir) spend in excess of $.10000 on a designer suit while you are left to read about the trappings of the plush display of extravagance which leaves you with the mouth wide agape. Is that not tantamount to being prodigal?
Kenya has about 18 million poor people. Those that go a day without a decent meal. Yet a ritzy hotel offered a Valentine getaway of romantic rendezvous with a package of about Sh.2.4 million to a couple who probably got the shekels on sleazy grounds because the pay for most executives never exceed three million in most cases. In either way, chances are the room had been probably overbooked. While most think that this is a rara avis, in actual sense, most of the city godfathers have more money and James Mwangi’s Sh.440 million earning of bank dividends from his more than six percent shares in Equity bank was a laudable amount. The 2.4 million was just a drop in the ocean if he was to spend because it would have been like pocket change.
Talking of Equity Bank, there is a prodigy in being a member of the bank because they are the certified lenders of most money released through government exchequer. In other banks, you have to make to do with transfer fees and that means the pay you get only diminishes especially if it is meagre.
While economists have recalculated the GDP of the country through the revision of the base year from 2001 to 2009, the benefits have not trickled down to the common man. This means Kenya is the ninth largest economy with a gross national index of $.1160 meaning it has surpassed the threshold of $.1030.
Rasnah Warah posits that “Corruption, money laundering, fraud including fake shell companies, stock market manipulation, under-invoicing, poorly thought-out contracts with players in the extractive industry, organized crime, drug trafficking and other criminal activities have contributed to these illicit financial flows.”
Being jobless is not a crime, and it is the reason why I have decided to horn my writing skills because there is fulfillment in it. We cannot all be entrepreneurs, some people are better managers, others know how to execute their talents and so on an so forth. While our leaders may have given rise to a still birth economy, the lack of political will to address the plight of the youth and giving the masses empty promises because most people loved being lied to since politics is arguably about who tells the best lie convincingly even if the masses know that the utterances are sweet and gullible empty talk.
Anecdotal evidence however shows that Nairobians are a very witty people. They know how to survive the stormy weather even if times get fermented. They look at life in 3D and act faster like they have 4G in their brains. Many wish for a time when they will be financially secure. They come up with businesses that never see the light of day, most are under conception. They keep hope alive that someday things will go north. But a friend told me that it is very easy to be an overnight millionaire in Nairobi. How? He never knew. The likes of Dennis Itumbi made it through blogging and though many thought low of him, his street-wise intelligence made took him places.
In Nairobi anything is possible. The days when you are hustling are some of the best days. Some friends usually are of the opinion that they cannot take some jobs because they are paid wages and the tasks and responsibilities are debasing and demeaning. They are graduates who have set high standards. They know what they want. I loved one who said that Sh. 15000 was a paltry figure and not a salary but wages a domestic manager (read maid) is given for her productive services that are usually very burdensome in a whatsapp group I am a member. Then there is a master’s graduate who operates a motorcycle having been employed by his younger brother. Fukes!
It’s hard out here for a job seeker. Even the sentries know this and chances are there are some graduates among them with superfluous degree papers who are holding onto their jobs hoping that one day they might just be smiled upon by lady luck. And then the number of people writing to give hope to the youths and teenagers that getting good grades in high school to secure good courses in campus such as law actuarial science and medicine does not mean success in life. Woe unto you if you buy into the idea because grades sometimes matter on how successful one becomes in life.
If my reading serves me right, the richest people in the world have been to or were university graduates or drop-outs. If a person thinks that failing in high school will lead into something better in life, then he is all alone. Failing means the hurdle gets tough while you could lax it by just reading to pass exams if you have the brains and chance. But again it also inhibits one’s prospects if he or she has no nerve to fight it out in this ever changing world that is full of bustle. I hate it when a person thinks that school school is only about cramming and memorizing content to pass exams. Bulshit, if it was so, everyone with high potential in cramming would have gone to the course of his choice. Again passion does not mean you will do that which you wanted. Instead, people should grab opportunities and make a lemonade out of a lemon.
To make it in Nairobi, one needs to be very suave and humble. Like one pal who intimated to me on the dirty tricks he uses to make it to town on a daily basis. His daily spenditure averages Sh.100 exclusive of breakfast and supper. Out of the sh.100, he spends sh.40 on transport and the rest on a meal that is balanced. The meal consist of two chapattis served with beans which retails at Sh.50 and a banana that goes for sh.10. Other times, he takes a brunch and ends up spending only sh.40 on transport. This means he can change whatever he eats at lunch.
As a very witty chap, he adroitly knows how to ensure the receipt he is given on aboard the train is safely kept so that he uses it in the morning on his way to town. His adept at doing it has made him save a lot of money in the process. But again it has to do with being paid peanuts. You need to survive. Someone somewhere is benefitting from the fact that youths are unemployed.
Hitherto, I had never knew where the holoi poloi of Nairobi ate in. With prices in places like Club 36 having risen, it is just fair that someone had to come up with a cheaper avenue to address the delicate matter of issues to do with the belly. Arguably, the number of women selling cheap food has increased sporadically. They are street smart as they know areas where they have a target market who has not been adequately catered for.
But cheap also means the comfort and pride of an individual is compromised. The service is mediocre and there are no seats, one has to stand. Again, there is no surety of adherence to cleanliness especially at the point of preparing the meal. Hygiene issues aside and the fact that this is usually a makeshift eating avenue, the number of those who go to partake of these meals are also well a good number. For a paltry sh.50, you get a variety of meals that you will need to cough five times in places that are housed in that side of town. The place looks like a den and I realized that the number of women doing this brisk business is increasing by the day.
As guys who are hustling to make ends meet, we usually talk of going for mbuzi to our colleagues. We have created the illusion that we spend almost six times the amount we spend on the dish. The lady even knows us. While most people are required to pay before they are served. On our part, we pay after service. But when things get tougher, I usually ring one of my pals who is on the verge of exiting campus for lunch which is usually sumptuous because as a hustler, you never care about the quality but the quantity or other times, just what is enough to fill the belly so that it does not ramble.
Obviously, there are those fries next to Nairobi Aviation sold at sh.30 but most of the time the queue is usually snaking outside and one is forced to go through the discomfort of not only eating chips that are prepared using what people say is transformer oil, but most times, the chips is usually not very appetizing with stains of black spots. Reminds me of my first encounter with sossi which was a pathetic chow owing to the way the cook of the meal had prepared it. It tasted like poorly cooked mushroom. Sossi, however, is not meat. Campus taught me to substitute it for Nyama because it was cheap and readily available and my pal knew how to make a sumptuous meal out of the soya beans.
Safaricom is albeit a good friend for most hustlers. What with their ever friendly products that cater for the need of the plebeian in terms of loans through Mshwari and Okoa Jahazi. While I would have exited the mobile phone operator long ago, I am chained like a dog because they have held the hustler in me hostage. They still overcharge and even times when I have unsubscribed from their products, I usually find them very alluring. Kudos to their Research and Development Department, they know how to entice even when the going gets tougher. Some people however shirk paying their loans not knowing that the credit reference bureau is informed and in the future they might not qualify for loans because the will have been long blacklisted by the firm.
But the best ruse to maneuver in the city is to sometimes take a seat in the frustration benches and watch how it is frustrating to be a Nairobian. Never mind that the kadogo economy is giving you sleepless nights because inflation is on the rise. Lack of rains means the prices of most commodities are rising. While the prices of petrol may have plummeted, the cost of living is still high. A thousand shillings never lasts more than two days. Expenses are never reducing. Ideally, with more money, there are more expenses.
What astounds is the fact that a person who pursued his or her education in either Europe or America is given preferential treatment because Kenyan revere Jungus more than their own. You are never given a better chance because the other person can speak using his/her nose or the queen’s patois which is a plus in the negotiation table. Sad that we don’t trust our own.
What I came to realize is that most youths want better opportunities, they want to go to firms where there is competition which is productive. Competition never kills, it ideally results in making life even better. What most youth want is to work and gain experience that every employer wants before they can be employed. Most employers have termed the youth as half-baked though. As the jobs continue being elusive, the problem is that the number of people who will be inveigled into larceny will be not be abating. The number of abettors might mushroom and the portent of this is that most will end up six feet under or in penitentiary where they might be booked for the rest of their lives or even worse having to wait for the hangman’s noose hoping that one day the big man on the house on the hill will exercise his clemency powers and come to their rescue.
In the meantime, getting out of Nairobi is out of the question. Why? The best stories reside in the city, not forgetting women, cars, casinos and the list again is endless.
SITUONANE
