It’s an evening, on a stroll home, a usual routine on such days that permit a long walk from the office. I pass by the shoemaker, in a market someone called ‘Marigiti’. Why, at dusk, there are series of bulbs hanging underneath the sacks-made roof of the shacks that is their stalls. Typically, a normal market place would not afford the luxury of such lighting, reasons the Matatu tout. I make a mental note, particularly after sneaking a peak at his awe when he points out this wonder to the bus driver. My eyes wander, and I check up this shoe maker, with his display of Akala shoes. I strike a lame conversation, mostly bidding to find out a little about their trade. He tries to persuade me to buy a pair but I respond I would buy a pair another day.
Alas, and there is some chicken business underneath the display of his merchandise. I don’t seem to see any symbiotic nature to this shoe and chicken arrangement, but being amidst grocery stalls, the connection instantly becomes evident. I role-play in my mind, taking the place of the shoe maker but it’s not clear how I would thrive in this informal sector. Supposing I didn’t have the advantage of a good education, and the luck of a formal job?, wouldn’t necessity then force me to invent a way to thrive, even in this sector? Education is not the only variable to this argument, but it occurs to me that it has greatly increased my chances in a different sector.
The shoe-guy says he lives in Kibish city, a fond way in reference to Kibra, and I momentarily forget all the anecdotes to the informal settlement. I walk on, and venture into Toi Market. I am not looking for anything in particular so I detour to “Mathy’s Place”. She used to own a salon, before it was flattened under the cover of darkness by some hired goons. And unable to count her losses, changed trade to a “clothing line”, dealing in secondhand children wear. Her business has thrived, and she replenishes her stock from Gikomba Market regularly. I don’t know her name, but I call her Mathy, always beaming a smile when I approach her ‘boutique’ made of rusted corrugated iron sheets. Her neighbor, Moraa, once didn’t open her store for a week, because she was praying over her business. She had invited some prayer partners to help her pray for posterity, and they spent a week humming prayers behind closed doors. I sigh at this revelation.
Moraa, Mathy says buys her Mtumba from a supplier in Karen who imports from Sweden. She refused to make the business introduction, so Mathy settled to get supplies from Gikosh. Secondhand children wear from Sweden is of good quality, Mathy laments, as if to regret that she cannot access them.
Her generosity keeps me from stopping by many times when “sunshine shopping” at Toi. A good thing, generosity but it doesn’t go well with her when I turn down her invitations to a soft drink, more so with no liberties to pay for that drink if I was to oblige. So today, I am invited to coffee. Black coffee. Coffee is my poison, but I politely turn the offer down. She thinks am watching my weight. Well, I always do but I chose to ignore the remark. I hold her disposable cup, against Njoro’s big coffee urn. Damn! I could drop it. It’s burning hot, my fingers I mean. For a reason I could not conjure, they fill it to the brim, cares to how hot the black liquid is, clearly not a consideration. The clients like it that way. And scones, or a big toast, smeared with lumps of Margarine. I pass the cup to Mathy, who copiously drinks, and before paying, engages the young man in a conversation.
He is Njoro. Njoro wears an oversize apron, which sags at the sides with monies. The coins he gets paid for watering the stall owners’ throats. He is taken aback by Mathy’s question.
Njoro, hebu nikuulize, how much do you make in a day?
Njoro seems uncomfortable, as Mathy prods.
Hiyo kibuyu inabeba vikombe ngapi? Na useme ukweli. Usinidanganye.
Njoro probably feeling safer with the conversation now says sixty. It’s some huge urn. It’s a wonder he is not walking with a side stoop yet, probably it’s balanced by the coins in his huge pockets.
I feign disinterest in the conversation, to encourage them to speak on, while doing the calculations in my head.
Njoro supplies 4 urns of black coffee to the stall vendors every day. And he has a polythene bag with smeared slices of bread in it. He sells a cup of coffee for 10bob, and my simple book keeping in the head, I declare, “Well done Njoro.” You have a good business, keep it up. Encouraged, he confides that much as he doesn’t like to discuss finances, he makes enough money to live comfortably. All factors constant, Njoro he makes KES 60, 000/per month.
Niambie, nitahitaji kuajiriwa na nani?
I affirmatively respond that self-employment is a tick. He plans to hire two people to help him in the business, which typically involves moving around the clothes stalls vending black coffee. I wish him luck but not without pondering the harsh and non-encouraging climate for Entrepreneurship that thrives in this country.
Unbeknownst to the demolisher of the stalls a year earlier, the entrepreneurial spirit seems to override any kind of impediments. They build their lives back again, and move on. And it is this kind of resilience that even the government seems to misinterpret, and imagine that the SME owners will somehow go around their problems. So we all soak in the response that the government can only do so much, and people need to see what to do for their country ‘read government’. I am of the opinion that if the climate for entrepreneurship is to get better, there is still a lot the government should do. Like ensure security, affordable housing, better roads etc. But no, they will concentrate on taxes, if they invent or innovate; it must be a new way to tax the already burdened tax payer. And that extends to your death, in some counties. And if they get better at it, it’s outshining each other at winning tenders. The small man, struggling to make it each day, is too small to be fitted to their matrix.
What poverty does or necessity, more aptly put, is push people up the invention ladder. They have to invent ways to survive, even if it means rearing chick beneath a market stall ridden with toxic waste, or building a shack above a raw sewer drain, and without a care to E-Coli and other sickly bacterium, proceed to fry chips therein, and I forgot how tamuu those dirty fries usually are, for some reason—and we don’t get sick, do we? Not yet so. Maybe because no bacteria can withstand such high temperatures from the furious heat. What I don’t understand is mostly the beaming smile from most of these street vendors; they always seem to keep moving.
I am off my reverie, when Kajuju walks in. She is wearing a white turban, bandana style, which circles the middle circumference of her head, and whether on purpose, leaves the side hairs protruding above her ears. She vibes Mathy, and she may have noted my disagreement with their views, upon which out of the blues am declared not worthy to give an opinion. I am happy so.
The chastening is of the girl across the street. She always seems to laugh and smile, alone, they chide. She has Facebook on her phone, and its evil, they opine. It’s a useless recourse to try and inform a willingly ignorant person, and that’s how I earn a rebuke. I chide, but raise my voice again, to explain to Mathy that Facebook is a social media platform, but thanks to her ignorance, fueled by imagined demons as explained by Kajuju, she just doesn’t get the how to virtually connect with many people, and as you lay your bum on the heap of mtumba clothes awaiting your customers, you are seen to be laughing alone. It must be the witches who are doing their thing to make your clothes stall full of people. Kajuju is in a trade, revealed as she explains to Mathy how so-and-so, got blessed by her visit. She gets some coins from Mathy too, hums a blessing and leaves the stall. City Council people come in, to receive their collection. Mathy makes a bargain blaming low sales, but they are immune to her pleading. As the city council person leaves the stall, I don’t ask what services she thinks that the government owes her business for such levies.
WRITEthinking 