THE DECEMBER TRAP

Bottomline : money starts talking and you listen, it gives you suggestions that you know very well are illogical but since it overpowers your thinking forcing you to make the dumbest decisions ever..

Money has this itching effect, anyone who tells you money never itches him or her is a pretender, the festive season provides the most suitable environment for the itching effect of money to manifest itself.

This remains to be the only month where you have two salaries; your November salary usually hits the account on the 5^th of December latest whereas the December Salary is deposited in the account latest 15^th, those employed are we reading from the same script? Yearly bonuses also happen to come at this time, if you are never loaded in December yet you are employed, the person who bewitched you died without lifting off the spell.

In this month, church attendance is at an all-time low, when people have money they forget about God. Either way they will come back in January, after seeing the light when broke. It is the only month when one leaves the house at AM (After Midnight) as early as 8am and comes back in AM as late as 7am the following day, after night out raving. Actually it’s the only month that nights are longer and days are shorter.

Then the money starts talking and you listen, it gives you suggestions that you know very well are illogical but since it overpowers you thinking forcing you to make the dumbest decisions ever. Money will tell you how Jameson from your usual neighborhood joint which is relatively ‘cheaper’ is of a lower quality, has been ‘added’ water, its counterfeit and its produced somewhere in Kariobangi North. It will go further to advice you how it might give you liver cirrhosis, kidney failure, diabetes, high blood pressure and leukemia yet you have been drinking there for a whole year. Money will therefore direct you to upgrade to another upmarket joint where the price of Jameson is attached to its ‘big’ name that comes with it costing you thrice what you are accustomed to, since you are buying both the ‘name’ and the drink.

After using public transport and route 11 for the whole year, money will advise you on how you need to either buy or hire a car depending on what is available, it will never advice you to use taxi. Most of the time it advices on the latter, car hire. Knowing very well you don’t have a driving license you conspire with crooked members in the System acquire it within two days, call a driver friend for a two day driving crush programme in a nearby football field probably in a public school. Within three days you are overtaking people in roundabouts, playing loud music with all windows open as one arm is in the “Greater Than” position. Those asking why traffic jams have been all over the city, you now got your answers. All these come with hidden costs which you will be made aware of in January.

Most of your friends have gone upcountry to join their folks; money tells you how you should also go upcountry to visit yours. How do you even remain behind when the entire neighborhood is away? Unless you want to invite those unpleasant questions of “Kwani hamnaga Ushago”, you don’t have an upcountry home? . Knowing very well the village perception a Nairobian “JoNarobi” as they are referred or other urban dwellers “JoPango” the ground will be hostile if you don’t arrive in a car with serious supporting shopping from city supermarkets to account for what you have been doing in the city.

All bills will be yours to foot, relatives will come in handy with all kind of financial problems that need your financial intervention such as how your father’s dog invaded their farm and devoured all their maize and groundnuts thus a poor harvest yet the last time I checked with my class four science teacher dogs were carnivores i.e meat eaters;  the chief will also ambush you with a proposal to marry his daughter as elders converge at your homestead daily offer you development advice on how you can play a crucial role in ensuring the village establishes its first power plant, Posho mill which will be the village’s lifeline. Heading upcountry in December is a trap; yes a serious trap and January always proves me right.  

KENYAN LADIES AND THEIR NIGERIAN BOYFRIENDS.

Bottomline: My sister if you happen to be dating a Nigerian businessman who doesn’t work at either Shelter Afrique, Taxify, Nigerian High Commission, United Nations or EcoBank, run baby run..

     

Seated in a dimly lit corner which doubles up as the VIP section of a high end lounge in the western side of the city, a place where only those with membership cards or ‘those’ accompanying ‘those’ with membership cards are allowed entry. I fall under the category of ‘those’ accompanying ‘THOSE’ with the cards thanks to the people I work with. In this section of the lounge you are able to have unlimited view of what is going on around the lounge. Let’s not confuse each other, a lounge combines dining and entertainment with the dining section serving a wide range of delicacies; a club has hawkers who limit dining services to eggs, samosas, smokies and sausages ; whereas a pub has its dining section at the door where meat is being roasted, boiled with soup being titrated under not so hygienic conditions.

Some few minutes to 8pm, a troupe of Nigerian men donning their usual Agbada attires storm in taking strategic sitting positions adjacent to where we were. It was not the first time I came across them infact, we usually had those small time conversations which don’t go beyond ten minutes exchanging only pleasantries since I am not able to comprehend the points they are trying to put across thanks to their heavy tongues, Igbo interference culminating to their pidgin English which from afar sounds like English but it’s not English, it’s just in between here and there.

Knowing very well that Kenyan men are grand architects of robbery without violence, like what the Thika trio pulled on Kenya Commercial Bank, they don’t bother themselves sustaining any meaningful conversation with us since they know we won’t buy in their ‘business’ shenanigans. Furthermore, the difference between them and us when it comes to crooked ways is the similarity. So they shift their focus to our gullible women who buy everything they say as gospel truth, removing no comma, hyphen or apostrophe.

Inset: Agbada attire Photo: Courtesy of Amillionstyles.com

Thanks to the fragrance of their expensive French cologne which I could tell was Annick Goutal Eau D’hadrien, women start trooping to their table one after the other, within a few minutes the ratio of  Ogas to women is 1:3. They automatically shift the point of attraction from the Deejays booth to their table as they talk in capital letters multiplying any other lounge sounds to zero raising it to infinity. Telling stories on how they took part in Biafra war, how they have neutralized Boko Haram in Sambisa forest, how everyone is a Masters holder back in their country and other Yoruba short stories as ladies remain glued to their seats listening keenly. If they would replicate the attention they give our these ninjas elsewhere, 80% of our doctors would be women and not men. Before realizing it, they are already living with them as husband an wife only for the Oga to disappear regularly for mysterious ‘overseas’ business trips within Westlands. They make you see Nigerian as paradise, until you start critically asking yourself, If Nigeria was the paradise they portrayed what brought them here in any case?  

Creating this enigmatic impression among our women aided with their movies and music which have religious viewership amongst our female members of the society portraying them as charming, hardworking, sensitive, patient romantic, presentable, loaded, confident, generous and caring which is the direct opposite of their realistic Kenyan counterparts who have been accused of being stingy, shaggy, cantankerous, lazy, boring, careless and insensitive.

Unlike men who reason with their heads before making judgments, Ladies use their feelings and hearts to make judgments. Alive to this fact, these cliques of Nigerian noveau riche possess all the attributes that will make ladies susceptible by appealing to their feelings thus facilitating their end game, deception. They clearly orchestrate the 3^rd Law of Power, concealing their intentions.

All of them are businessmen; they deal with everything in general and nothing in particular. They have many businesses overseas, their numerous passports act as ‘supporting’ documents to their claims, which in essence might be the criminal trail they left behind from respective countries. They all claim to be related to Aliko Dangote who is either their ‘uncle’ or business associate or a combination of both.

No man in his rightful mind would spend hard earned cash on daily merrymaking; drinking and smoking shisha. Our Oga brothers are international renowned drug peddlers, ivory traders, black market operatives, money launderers and cyber criminals. If you doubt ask uncle Google about Antony Chinedu or Emannuel Peter Lovembe. My sister if you happen to be dating a Nigerian businessman who doesn’t work at either Shelter Afrique, Taxify, Nigerian High Commission, United Nations or EcoBank, run baby run..     

DEAR MOTHER IN LAW..............................

Bottomline: Boiling sossi and noodles gives her the false assumption that she is a good cook.

I sincerely hope all is well with you as for me nothing seems to be well but I am fine. Am writing to you from our homestead somewhere in South Mugirango concerning your lovely daughter. You might not have heard about me and you may never hear about me depending on the designated role am playing in your daughter’s life.

Am not even sure if am the one she has talked about during your usual mother daughter pep talk, now that she is in her prime age, 20-23 years where she is the pearl of many men eyes courtesy of her physique.  I might not even feature in her list of preferred potential husband material ‘candidates’ infact I won’t be surprised if she categorizes me amongst her “a thousand ways to die”.

Coming from a clan of renowned dowry negotiators, my mother still holds the record for being the most expensive signing, bride the clan has ever paid dowry for, our clan was left 15 cows poorer. Apart from being a teacher she is the clan’s de facto chief chef across all events from weddings, family get-together to funerals.In the village where your daughter might be married there is no electricity and running water. I hope she knows how to carry water on her head from the stream.

Going by my previous experiences from your daughter’s kitchen ‘prowess’, am happy to inform you that your daughter might not even fetch you a chicken. I might not only be fined heavily for wasting their precious time and energy in a closed door dowry negotiation meeting of a woman who can’t cook ‘Ugali’ maize meal, for ten people in a pot on a three stone cooking fire but also be banished from taking part in clan activities since a man whose wife can’t perform motherly roles is considered single thus can’t speak in front of other men. She is an environmentalist thus she can’t come into contact with charcoal, she doesn’t know how to use a charcoal jiko, she isn’t aware of the existence of a paraffin stove therefore she can’t cook on both.

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photo courtesy

The first induction these traditionalists whom we share a common village, origin and happen to be older than me will give her is to slaughter and cook chicken for them. This will be an herculean task am aware your daughter can’t manage since she is used to buy those ready-made somersaulting ones in fast food outlets around town or those deep frozen in my neighborhood butchery. Plus she considers it an inhuman act that is primitive in nature.

Your daughter is the SI unit of incompetence when it comes to cooking. She has managed to drag me to her sossi-noodle-pizza dietary axis which has made a minor common cold ground me as if I have contacted tuberculosis. Boiling sossi and noodles gives her the false assumption that she is a good cook. Am yet to find a family that brought up their children on sossi-noodle-pizza dietary.

Promoting local economy at the expense of my wallet seems to be her objective in life, buying ready-made food from chopped vegetables be it  kales or cabbages, grated carrots to boiled beans, green grams and peas. Nevertheless, God has been faithful I haven’t contracted cholera with all the outbreaks have seen on TV.

She tells me you never taught her how to knead flour that makes chapati which has forced me to incur additional costs in buying ready-made ones which have overstayed on those supermarket bakeries. However, lately I have resorted to preparing chapatis for myself since buying those ready-made ones she forces me put in my supermarket trolley limit my consumption abilities, in addition to their substandard nature.

Washing anything isn’t her thing as she says; doing laundry and cleaning dishes will break her well-manicured nails which are always under maintenance every Saturday afternoon in those posh saloons where ‘colouring’ nails takes the whole afternoon. The financial implication of her not being able to do dishes and laundry means I have to either acquire the services of a house help or  a dish washer and a washing machine to me the latter is the only option since I live in a bedsitter, though I still doubt if the two appliances can fit in the limited space.

African cooking stones

There is this universally agreed girl code that there is no mother in-law who is good. If my mother wasn’t that good I wouldn’t be here, she should never try to speak daggers concerning my mother, like Caesar’s wife, my mother is beyond reproach.   

I acknowledge we live in modern times though she has taken modernity to a whole new level. She has replicated her habit of watching wedding show to gate crashing weddings with her clique of friends where they go to benchmark for their future weddings. Didn’t I mention these weddings they gate crash are the invite only ones where one friend in the clique gets the invitation then the rest invite themselves as proxies as they tag along. Anytime she comes from those weddings I never have peace as she highlights on key areas of improvement for her big day in future. From how she prefers her wedding having a seven storeyed cake, being ‘chauffeured’ on a chopper to wearing an Italian made gown designed by Allesandra Rinaudo herself. Her wedding budget is worth my lifetime saving.

Her insistence on not taking up my name after marriage, in any case we end up together is another bone of contention. She insists on maintaining her birth name hope you will inform her of the benefits of taking up your husband’s name just in any case things go south she will be in a position to inherit the few earthly possessions I have here and there.