10 survival tactics of city bachelorettes

You can tell married woman in Nairobi from a mile away: She looks like she might do with a gym membership, her eyes are puffed after her toto cried half the night while her angled weave is indicative of hardships in achieving life-work balance. She might also wear the kind of face common among killer wives who might not have any qualms getting rid of hubby. These women survive from gainful employment, biasharas, inheritance, chamas, communal investments and husband’s small mercies.

But what of city bachelorettes...the kind without good jobs but seem to live large?

Here are 10 of their survival tactics:

1. Sponsors/private developers

There are city lasses who live in Sh50,000 apartments yet they slave in exhibition stalls in the CBD for less than Sh15,000 a month. Just know that such bachelorettes have a ‘sponsor’ or what they now call ‘private developers’ footing the rent in Kilimani where they gas in in some Vitz-the signature ride of a beginner bachelorette-after being upgraded from a ‘Foot-Subishi,’ ‘Walks-Wagen’ and ‘Shoe-Baru’!

2. Free party food/alcohol

Bachelorettes are good at knowing where all the weekend parties with food and free flowing alcohol are and from where randy dudes will drop the Girl’s Brigade home. This way they save on evening unga and breakfast noodles.

3. Shylocks to the rescue

Most shylocks in Nairobi thrive on the back of butt broke bachelorettes. They pawn the Plasma TV to finance mtumba shopping expeditions in Toi Market so as to look good for a potential ‘private developer’ huh!

4. Borrowing/buying clothes on credit

That silicon hair and body hugging neon bandage dress she sports does not always belong to that city lass you often see at the bus stop. Clothes, hair and shoe swapping is the order of the day for these bachelorettes who also shop from their friends wardrobes or from a boutique owner who has to involve police in debt recovery. 

5. Club Keja on weekends

Weekend entertainment bila mpango involves holing up in a bedsitter with an outdated but functional laptop to watch movies and series from a reliable guy who ‘burns DVDs’ at Sh250 for seven flicks. This way, her weekend home alone is sorted via a ‘Club Keja’ session from which a pal might bring over a left over ‘makali’ drink from Number Two above!

6. Serial dating

City bachelorettes milk cash from various sources including having a string of boyfriends who not only finance household budgets, air time, bus flight but also provide alcohol and pocket money at various stages during the month...until the said boyfriends collide kwa the mlango of her bedsitter in Uthiru!

7. Money from odd jobs/folks

The little money they get after squeezing cash from their old guy or old lady is supplemented  by doing odd jobs in the city such as beer and promotions in night clubs, point of sale marketing in supermarkets, receptionists, manning ‘exhibition stalls’ and working as point persons for real estate agencies.

8. House pooling

These girls love renting houses (mostly bedsitters and extensions in leafy suburbs) in groups of twos and fours. If one of them is lucky to own a vitz (from the aforementioned ‘sponsor’) you may never really know who it really belongs to as they drive it in turns.

9.Ganging against the boy child

They show up for Friday dates in groups for free drinks and food in between borrowing from the hapless fellow until he blocks their numbers, unfriends them on Facebook and pretends he’s recovering from open-heart surgery and inflammation of the left butt and gnarled balls when they finally reach him using their friend’s ‘mulika mwizi’ phones.

10. Cure for dry spell

When dry spells comes calling, well, our bachelorettes are sorted out by dildos, cold showers at midnight and attending interdenominational prayers and keshas.