Where my house is in our apartment is at a vantage point, a panopticon of sorts. That means I have bird’s eye view of many things that occur in the block.
On one side, I am surrounded by trees where I take all my pictures and perpetuate the illusion that Nairobi is still the green city in the sun.
On the other side is a tin town that has cropped up, shanties housing exiled Burundians, Rwandese, and Congolese, the population having exploded into thousands that they even have their own schools, bars, and, as is common with these things, thieves and prostitutes.
This is not a neighbourhood to bring up well-adjusted children. You can tell from the names of the estates. Congo. Stage Two. Ndurarua. Do you know anyone from Ndurarua who made it big in Kenya because I sure don’t.
Which is frustrating because rent here is blowing a hole in my pocket. Unless you work for the government, are in forex, or do moja, mbili, tatu—those people who go by the amorphous term of ‘broker’—I don’t think I’ll afford my lifestyle next year. Maybe it’s because we are on Ngong Rd, maybe it’s because The Sugoi is building the world’s most expensive stadium here—allegedly, of course—or maybe it’s because we are next to Junction Mall.
Because of my extended stay, my sense of neighbourhood began to expand; then, too, it’s easier to love a neighbourhood when you love the girl in it. I am talking about the girl downstairs, #Door5, and I hadn’t given a toss about the world around me until she moved in late last year.
I could tell you how, when I first saw her, I thought the sun rose and set on her, or the way her clothes cling to her like they’d rather be her skin, or I could tell you that if she passed around a hoard of gay men she’d make them question their sexuality, but you’d say I am exaggerating. So I won’t.
Anyway, we got friendly, I with nefarious intentions, because to the best of my knowledge, she is not spoken for. And if she is, they are yet to make an honest woman out of her. But quickly realised I could not finance the lifestyle she lived. First, she has three meals a day, every day. Two, she goes to work with an Uber. Daily. And those wigs she wears. I used to think ‘real’ human hair is what, 1500? Brethren. I saw the price, and it was enough to buy back my great, great-grandfather from the British slave ships. But what really made me back off is that her mother pays her rent. And she was getting paid in a year what career civil servants earn in their lifetime. Soon, she will pass a point in her life where she will have earned more than all my ancestors put together, all of them.
That’s before I even mention my next-door neighbour, who’s 22 and is driving too. The source of her funds? Family. Still, she has a job and saves most of her income because men will spend on a woman as long as you are a pretty babe. Or even if you aren’t...
You’d argue I am cherry picking, that many women pay their way through life. But I have the mic now, and there are far fewer women who do that than there are men. If, for instance, my source of funds dried up today, I can’t go back to Shirere like the prodigal son. I’d be considered a failure, and the neighbours will whisper it to each other, and this one will tell that one who will put it out on the street. Success, after all, loves a witness, but failure can’t exist without one. Besides, have I exhausted all avenues? With my dreadlocks, they’d tell me, I could easily head over to Malindi and score an old Italian woman, and nurse her to death, if you catch my drift. Or I could become a politician’s spanner boy (not in that way, or maybe even in that way), or a goon, have I tried goonism? I mean, I have the dreadlocks for it.
“Maisha ya mwanaume ni vita!” the Legio Maria church below me over Easter Sunday bellowed. The life of a man is trials and tribulations. Lamenting otherwise is a fool’s game, just as is competing with women. They are far too subsidised and empowered. And they’ll always be a man willing to spend on a woman; the inverse is hardly true.
