The mistaken impression is that Kenyans despise corruption.
To be born male—and shameless—in Kenya is to have won first prize in the Lottery of Life. This is one of nature’s incontrovertible truths. If you believe in anything Darwinism, you’d know: Kenyan men, especially the shameless ones, sit at the top of the evolutionary tree. You might not believe this, although I suspect you will, but there is no greater privilege than being a man, especially if you are from the top three tribes in Kenya…and yours is currently ruling the roost.
I wanted something from the immigration office, and I wanted it yesterday. I had been told that someone would sort it out quickly, provided I provided chai, just something small for the eyes. Si you know how it is in this country, my handler was saying, “Everyone is hungry. Just give them something small for lunch. Kitu kidogo.” He never specified how much kitu kidogo was, and it could range from anything between Sh50 to your father’s ancestral land in Shamakhokho.
Of course, I am not writing anything new. We all selectively apply the gospel… turn a blind eye when we are benefiting. Only the moral sticklers would argue otherwise. They are resisting because they have been self-programmed to do so. They believe that they’re driven by some greater moral imperative, for that makes much more sense. But we construct monuments for our feelings. This wouldn’t work if those manufactured emotions were not manufactured. It’s Method acting. All of it. Including your reaction to this.
What more can I tell you, my friend? I was at the end of my rope. My handler was pulling at my seams, threatening to unravel the threads of thoughts needling in my mind. Time is money, he said. And I was wasting the former because I didn’t have the latter. I said, Wait. Let me call someone. See, I too can play the game.
But all my tall relatives were either busy or “I will call you back” or some variation of that. How much did I want immigration to sort my issue? My handler said that he has done this ‘numerous times’ for ‘cases even more sensitive than mine’. He considers himself my promised messiah. He picks the phone and shows me a letter, stamped, ratified, OFFICIAL-ised, and all that. He says, juu ni wewe, and I like you, I will even slash my fee. I tell him he doesn’t have to do that. He says shush. I shush. “This is a great deal bro,” he says, texting our contact on the inside.
He does a good job pretending as if he’s as impressed as anyone by how surprising and impressing a deal this is, but you and I and him know he’s reciting off a script from somewhere inside his head, his eyes darting here and there across the page, watermarked with his commission.
Ghafla bin vuu, doors swing and we are protocolled in like a wealthy old potentate, through pristine glass doors. Outside, it smells of fresh air; in here, it smells of air fresheners. We are received by a fat toad in a grey suit and an orange shirt that doesn’t go with the grey suit. He goes only by ‘Steve.’ With the kind of deals he has orchestrated, a man like Steve would be on the run in some parts of the world, publicly executed in others, or in corridors of power in Kenya...but that’s neither here nor there.
Steve is a cousin to my handler, who’s one of those Kenyan men whose operations in the city remain unclear. If you know a guy, then he is the guy your guy calls. I got his number from a friend of a friend of a friend…and if he asked around in his language, and asked the right people the right questions, I would be having uji with the president tonight.
My handler gestures me to shush. I shush. Sit. I sit. He gives me the eye. I get it. He shall do all the negotiations, he says, which starts with a ‘Good morning’ to “Umenitupa sana…”, patati patata, before trailing off to their local language, where they cast ominous glances at me, and I feel like a slave for sale in a slave market. My handler seems animated, and lively, and flatters his cousin every other sentence, and I suspect, if I weren’t looking, he would probably plant his mouth on his shiny shoes. Not that I would mind. Anything to reduce that ransom.
He catches my eye and tells me that it is done. And if I don’t believe it, ‘You can check your phone’ and sure enough, it is Done, with a capital D, and that means it will stay done. He shoos me outside, as he lathers more flattery on his cousin. The toad in an orange shirt which doesn’t go with the grey suit is croaking by now, any more fawning and I suspect I could actually be having uji with the president tonight. See how far shamelessness will take you?
“That is how you speak to powerful people, brathe,” he said. “They know you’re exaggerating, but they like it, and you keep your pride because you also know you’re exaggerating.” The rich, or powerful, he tells me, may be better or smarter, but there are still ways to make them do what you want.
I had to give him that one. The style was the man. I want to dislike him. But I don’t. I can’t. It’s useless to get angry over strangers. If we concede that life is not fair, we must also concede that it has to be unfair to someone else’s benefit. People need to be reasonable in their expectations. You are, after all, the only alternative to corrupt, inefficient government. Ama?
The mistaken impression is that Kenyans despise corruption. Wrong. We like grumbling against corruption. It is moral superiority, a sinner’s penance. That’s why they invented Twitter. So we can grumble, to anyone, anytime, anywhere. After a while, you learn that as a country we have a lot to say, but refrain from saying a lot. People complain, no matter what; and you learn that for some people, complaining is a way of being.
Do not misunderstand me: it is a tragedy only from the point of view of the authorities. Corruption is the bastard child of ambition and mediocrity. If we, arbitrarily perhaps, but perhaps not, name ambition as the mother, and mediocrity the father, it seems to me that current corruption suffers as a child who takes too much nourishment from its father’s hand, an insufficient amount from its mother’s.
Corruption? There is no such word in my mother tongue, does it exist in yours? After all, the money remains in the country, right? Nchi ni ya kitu kidogo. Did the elders not counsel us: If you sell a drum in your own village, you get the money and keep the sound? Do you think them fools? Besides, it’s just kitu kidogo. I am not condoning it, but I am not condemning it either. How to be shameless, you ask? Get in, get it, get out.
