The troubles of a Nairobi hustler

My definition of a hustler is anybody without a jet, without a big car, whose bills are not paid by the tax payer, the guy living between mind and mouth, always thinking what to eat, where the rent comes from and how will s/he finance his way to the office.

Adding some salt on the definition, this hustler is anybody who takes the mat to job especially during the corner of the month.

One thing I have come to distaste, as one of the many in this class, or no class, is the rain. A drop of the rain hits the makanga and the fare doubles, pap, asap, chap chap!!

Luck was with me today. No sooner had the bus left the stage than the rains started drizzling. What a sentence!! The use of no sooner rewinds the clock of time and sends me back to standard seven, and a book called one step ahead (or is it one more step?), and, English aid. The colloquial, sounds like queer, expressions and synonyms, antonyms and othernyms.

That aside, rain does drizzle, in Nairobi. The idea is, that small rain scares the brains out of the ladies heads and the touts have known this. At alighting points paper bags, used and new paper bags, double up in price. Our ladies, with the brains already blown by the drizzles, snatch everything waterproof and bag it on the heads.

The boyfriend is never at peace with the rain either. On top of the hiked fare, a text message might come, anytime. "Babes, you know the rains and my hair", guys loathe such messages, but on the side of the neck, or just shingo upande, they send the final MPESA. Now it will be borrowing fare and eating leaves for the rest of the month, due to one drizzling, no, raining, Tuesday morning.

The troubles double when the forwarded message on whatsapp appears, upon switching on the cellular data on the cheap touch screen phone christened smartphone in Kenya. Avoid these places, the bombers are holed up in Eastleigh and Kariobangi, and they plan to bomb a major TRM, Taj mall etc. The message goes on to list all the places you spend your day hustling.

Enough troubles. Perhaps the troubles made some guy die himself somewhere around zimmerman. He went to the VCT and the results were positive, In that place, I am told, positive is not good. Bro Code Sheddysays that there are better ways to spend one's time than going to the VCT.

Sometime back we used to say "serikali tafadhali", i hear now it is the government crying out to some illicit millitia coward group throwing grenades. We will talk about that some day. Good morning Kenya.


(The Article was first published on Bantu Kivai  account may 6, 2014)