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Last week on Mashujaa Day, one of Kenya’s biggest musical patriots breathed her last.
The next day and all weekend, she was the biggest topic trending – not so much about her death-but because of a plaintive post she had done on Facebook, lamenting that at a medical fundraiser she had organised for her son out of pure desperation (he needs Sh12 million to go to India for some specialised treatment), only ten people came.
Most of her well-heeled friends stayed away.
Please read this article very carefully, especially if you are one of those ‘woiye’ people who pretended to be shocked at how ‘wannabe’ our supposed friends can be.
First of all, Kenyan wannabes don’t like giving money for medical harambees, and the reason is very simple. Say you have an ongoing medical condition, and you need to go abroad.
Okay, so people raise money for you, and you go to Mumbai or wherever. You have a ‘successful’ procedure and return.
After a year, or even some months, your situation relapses and you need to go back to India. You look for the people who saved you the first time round. They are now not returning your calls.
That is why Kenyan wannabes prefer funeral harambees, and are very generous when it comes to giving cash out for a ‘decent send off.’
They know you will not be coming back to disturb them for money once you are buried.
Personally, I long learned about the wannabe nature of even relatives when my mom passed on (long ago), leaving three teens behind.
Uncles raised and pressed lots of cash into my nineteen year old hands. Aunties spoke gently about how they would ‘always be there for us.’
After the burial (save for my Aunt Dru, now in the USA), these ‘relas’ vanished like thieves in the night. We never saw most of them ever again. It is as if wannabes think death is contagious, like the flu.
Bereaved people will tell you it is as if death is a disease. No wannabe wants to hang around a sad person. I remember this pal called Billy who once told a mutual friend whose wife had just passed on: ‘Stop being so miserable and just drink this Jameson. Unlike the dead, at least you can still swallow a ka-chupa!’
As for survivors like Abura’s son Prince, especially if one has a chronic condition like sickle cell anemia, you will find no relative, let alone friend, wishes to take on such a heavy burden, and the boy will be abandoned like a wild sick animal; unless of course he has an old grandmother in some backwater village, to take him in. It is the story of a hard and heartless continent.
Sometimes you will even find some wannabe taking off with harambee money meant for school, hospital or a burial.
I remember when my own kid brother passed on (and some famous folks actually send cash, like lady Zahra Moi and Governor Alfred Mutua), a well off cousin decided that since we had raised excess cash, he may as well ‘jirudishie mkono’ by refunding himself for his earlier generous contribution.
If you think you are covered just because you have 5000 friends on Facebook, try getting sick, and you need half a million bob for serious treatment.
Ask them to each send just a hundred bob to help you. As they used to say, shock on you! Utakufa with your Mpesa account so light it can float on your phone. The best insurance in a country of wannabes is this – stay healthy. Jesus is still your pal. I think.
