Why retirement is a pain in the butt

The one and only time I ever drunk in the morning was in 2008 when I toasted to Barack Obama’s electrifying speech after he had just bagged the US Presidency.

It was a working day and I was worried about arriving late for work, and worse, with the whiff of brandy on my breath. But I needn’t have bothered.

My boss roared in an hour later than I did, as did the entire office, and he too had the whiff of something that wasn’t exactly ndufia on his breath. Not much was accomplished that day.

We huddled in small groups discussing Obama’s exhilarating victory. I worked for a US-based NGO then and although it wasn’t overly stated, our colleagues overseas felt we were a bunch of dunderheads.

And now the son of Kogelo had pulled a steeplechase on them and demonstrated how a Kenyan does it; who was the boss. Bliss.

Reflecting on that earth-shattering moment many years on, one thing that has stuck in my mind is the breathless announcement by a CNN reporter, live from Kogelo, that Obama had a piece of land where the clan expected him to build a simba when he was done with his duties as President of the United States.

I hope the status quo remains, because keeping a patch of land free of squatters and thieves is not a walk in the park. Why, even right here in Nairobi, you have to erect a “This plot is not for sale” sign on your ka-quarter acre of land deep in the interior of Isinya, Kajiado, yet you live barely 40km away.

Speaking fat English

But what I do not doubt is that the big man will never set foot in Kenya till long after he has retired. And in so doing, he will be keeping with a time tested tradition where the brilliant sons of the village take off and return in the sunset of their years, backs bent, all the juice squeezed out of the brains, loins and hind pockets by the hustles and excesses of city life.

They arrive with bombast, driving a fairly new third hand car, in starched suits, speaking fat English. Their first year is spent regaling villagers with tales of the imaginary distant parts of the world they have travelled and conquered. Although they buy villagers cheap booze, they stick to whatever it is they used to drink in Nairobi.

Over time, the money wears out. The trendy jeans, suits and colognes become a figment of the past. The expensive wines and cigarettes give way to cheap hard liquor and odorous fags. Funerals and boring church and primary school functions become the de facto social gatherings, the village barmaid a trusted confidant.

A decade or two down the line, they are the toothless oddity shuffling down the road in a threadbare suit, mumbling about cobwebbed days and times gone by. And when they tremble past, those in in the know point and say, “You see that Mzee? He used to be President of the United States.”

Oh...and if you happen to be a university student, save and invest in a copy of the The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father, which of course was written by a white woman while we wined, dined and cursed Mututho.

It is a sad chronicle of how not to make it in life, in spite of being blessed with the biggest brains around.

Photo: www.rgbstock.com