We were on our way home, passing through the promenade of KICC, when someone reached out and tugged at my arm.
We could give him a minute. In fact, we could give him the whole day. We had nothing to do anyway.
“Cheki, you guys look young,” he said. “I want to offer you the opportunity of a lifetime. Do you have a minute to hear how you can make a lot of money in a few short months?”
In those days, money was hard to come by. And this man here, in a sharp suit with brown shoes that don’t match the sharp suit, was offering me a way out. I pictured all the ways that money would change my life. Vanity and pride topped the list. Girls, too—if I was being completely honest. I would move out of home and my mother’s diet of ugali sukuma wiki. I would come back home whenever I want and wear what I want, and would not be forced to go to church on Sunday, and when you ask mother why, she says, “because I said so.” I would get a girlfriend—for obvious and non-obvious reasons.
My brother, who was standing with me, also had his dreams, which were far less important (or urgent) than mine. He was still in high school; I was in campus. Time was running out for me. He still had his future. He still had so much time to kill. I had so little time in which to kill it. I used to spend a lot of time wondering if Sarah “Tanya” Hassan from Tahidi High and I would have been friends.
“Cheki ,” he said, “I am with Jijenge Global, and we are signing up marketing executives. We will train you and get you clients from all over the world. We guarantee that for just 400 bob each you invest in the company, you will receive 1,500 bob return on your money in just two weeks, and there is no risk of loss whatsoever. The 400 bob covers training and a bottle of water. Limited slots available.”
He spoke in an accent that felt ridiculous, the accent of a working man; he spoke like he knew what he was saying. People like these were untouchables to me, raised on some other planet and then transplanted into my general vicinity to remind me how bad I was living. Sensing our apprehension, he showed us a picture of his car—a white Mitsubishi Lancer, KAS. I pictured myself going back home with a black Mitsubishi Evo, with my girlfriend riding shotgun. Kenyans will believe anything if you show them a car. I had seen my way out of that pendulum that was swinging between hope and resignation. Mother would see.
“Brathe, listen. This is why the rich stay rich and the poor—including you—will stay poor. This is your chance to break out of the pack. Cheki , only the doers achieve success because they reach out and grasp the opportunity.” He said “cheki ” a lot.
“Lakini , it sounds too good to be true! Wacha twende home tutarudi.”
“Cheki,” he said, “The deal is only for today. The opportunity will be gone tomorrow. Uamuzi ni wako, but if I were you, I’d strike while the iron is hot.”
Even if it were you, wouldn’t you have been sold? There is a price to be paid for dreaming. Somewhere I had heard that it’s best to take risks when you are young because you can recover faster. In the rare instance that you fail, nobody cares, but when you win, that will show them. They will see. I think I had heard this discussed on some morning radio show. Perhaps Maina and King’ang’i’s Kasheshe. Or I had read it somewhere. The counsel had seemed wise at the time, and I had been determined to remember it if ever an occasion presented itself.
Using part of my HELB money, I paid for my brother and I—Sh750, a discount of 50 bob because “I like you very much and can see your potential,” the man with brown shoes said. He even gave us a receipt with the initials J.I. Global. Jijenge International Global. I didn’t question why he didn’t think international and global mean the same thing. Or maybe they didn’t? In there, at the KICC Ballroom, were hundreds of us, huddled in the middle of the room, chattering incessantly, all waiting for “an opportunity of a lifetime.” A national miscarriage of dreams.
The man with the brown shoes had promised us that we would have trainers. We each had gotten a bottle of water, which only served to heighten our thirst for knowledge. We looked into each other’s eyes and saw our pupils lit by the fire of a dream coming true. We knew we deserved more. There was always something more we wanted, something more we were just about to get, something that was going to turn our situation around once and for all. It was vague and indefinable, this thing, hovering nearby in the air. How did it feel? It felt like being exiled from oneself.
After about an hour, we started getting angsty. The convention was to start at 2pm. It was three-something PM, and other than us in the room, something felt off. We hadn’t seen the recruiters for the last 30 minutes or so.
We panicked. Started searching for Joe or John or whatever the hell his name was. He was nowhere to be found. Outside, the registration desk had miraculously disappeared. Joe was a con artist, but even I had to sit and appreciate the art part of his con game. We had been swindled, clean and fair. No Jijenge International Global ever existed. They just wanted registration money. And they had got it. They had escaped through a slip door at the front. In plain sight. Bravo. We stared at the door the way the last two disciples had stared at the resurrected Jesus. Akili mjini, nguvu kijijini.
I think of this now because it’s easy to fall for eloquence and elocution as signs of intelligence. I saw some “techie” guy on a podcast talking about tax deductibles, and I can say I have met government bloggers with more honesty in them. But that’s who we are as Kenyans. It’s how the Motaras and Kamuels and Sugois grow up to lead—because they can talk. What does he talk about? It doesn’t matter, really. Style over substance. We don’t interrogate, we accept as long as it is presented beautifully. Isn’t that how some marriages happen too? I once had a thing with a girl.
But she even ain’t your type, my friend protested.
She left me on a Thursday afternoon saying, “She just doesn’t see where this is going.” I hope you get paper cuts, Mellisa. May your husband have a big ovoid head for obvious and non-obvious reasons.
I never told my mum what happened. She, too, a few months down the line, would fall for the quail eggs scam even after I expressly told her, “Quail eggs are a scam!” Those few weeks, however, I gained weight, so thanks mum. Over the years, I would get conned several times (Public Likes! AIM Global!) because a) I am a slow learner, and b) even if it were you, you would have believed them. I am a susceptible man, which is why I walk around with no wallet. Whatever. Didn’t our Bukusu elders tell us that a naked man has nothing to hide? Anyway, does anyone know how to set up a multivest forex trading account? Cheki, don’t say you heard it from me, but I heard that people are making a killing there.
