Living in the leafy suburbs, even if you’re renting, can make you lose your sense of reality. Therefore, it pays to occasionally take a walk to the ‘third world’ and catch up with the latest on the life and times of hustlers and their cousins, the sufferers.
I did that after Jamhuri Day through River road and Accra roads in CBD. I escorted a guest from the countryside to his matatus at ‘tea room’, which is at the junction of River Road and Accra Road in Nairobi’s CBD. And it suddenly occurred to me that even in such places, Christmas comes early.
Even in mid-morning, there was heavy traffic as hustlers prepared to go to the countryside to celebrate Christmas with their loved ones. One parent had her children ‘chauffeured’ in a wheelbarrow as she walked behind them.
Matatus were busy picking passengers to take them to various destinations, with the fare well displayed on the vehicles’ rooftops. I kept wondering where all these matatus would have gone if the ban preventing them from entering the city centre had been upheld. Curiously, I’ve never heard passengers complaining about matatus in the city.
We’ve all refused to accept a simple fact: Nairobi is a hustlers’ city; don’t be fooled by the skyscrapers.
What does Christmas mean to the hustlers taking matatus home? It’s time to rest after hustling all year round. Seeing old friends you once schooled with in the countryside might remind you that you’re not that unlucky.
Visiting the countryside can be therapeutic. You for one, can compare yourself to Kenyans who have less than you do. The whole year made you bitter, comparing yourself to those better off than you are, at least materially. Going to the countryside is often the best sign it’s Christmas.
Another sign is the return of hawkers selling their wares on the streets. They know the pent-up urge to consume finally bursts around this time, and business is good. How else do you show off during Christmas? You buy something new, with clothes and shoes the best outward sign. Non-hustlers can buy cars and other big items.
Economic balloon
The chaos that precedes Christmas isn’t accidental; it symbolises the bursting of an economic balloon that has been built during the year. We spend the money we’ve saved and drain emotions by visiting new places and new people.
Beyond the Christmas songs, which haven’t changed much since my childhood, and lit-up houses in the affluent parts of the city, Christmas is an economic season, with consumers and suppliers all at work.
The season doesn’t discriminate. Hustlers and non-hustlers in their own ways celebrate this great day in non-religious ways while awaiting the realities of the new year. Whichever way and place you celebrated your Christmas, I hope you had a merry one.
And let’s keep hustling into this new year. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll be rewarded by the laws of economics and join the “leisured class”, to quote Thorstein Veblen, the American economist with Norwegian roots and author of The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions. It was published in 1899, but it’s still a great read. Try it for the new year. [XN Iraki; [email protected]]
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