Happy New Year! We have every reason to misbehave

When a year is on its way out, it should never be allowed to go quietly. Just ask Kenyans. It is not a simple matter of saying ‘toodles!’ and letting the door smack December in the buttocks. A year does not sneak out the backdoor or dangle from the ledge, fall into the backyard thicket before limping away into blackness. Not if we can help it.

Kenyans have never needed a second invitation to party. Back during season two of the pandemic, when Covid was still hanging out in bars past 7 p.m., we found a way to party, whether that meant drinking from the boots of our cars or congregating in each other’s houses. Remember that time we were supposed to be celebrating the return of the Safari Rally, but the highlight of the event was how fast we ran out of condoms? Sherehe is our middle name.

It gets even more comical. When the wife gets pregnant, we party. When the baby is born, we party. Baby is now a year old? We throw a birthday bash in its honour and drink ourselves senseless. If we could wretch stale beer all over the poor little bastard, we could. And matanga? Bring the beer bwana!

And so, in keeping with character, we are happy to help the year make some noise now that its time is up. We understand that it needs to rage against the dying of the light. We get it; it must break things, jump onto tables, rip its shirt open and scream into the heavens.

All of which we interpret as an invitation to drink. To imbibe poisons of varying lethality. If we don’t end up passed out in a trench somewhere, then we’re not doing it right. If we don’t wake up feeling like actors are re-enacting the Battle of Winterfell in our heads, then we did not understand the assignment. That stretch of days between Joseph booking that manger and the calendars reading 1/1 is chaos personified. If we die we die, right?

I understand the temptation to overindulge. End-of-year celebrations are born out of a need to say ‘good riddance’. For some, it is a chance to finally apologise to their bodies for all the sleepless nights, all the sukuma wiki and all the orgasms that never were. For others, it is a chance to revisit resolutions and marvel at just how childishly optimistic they were. And for most, it is an opportunity to pretend the passage of time has enough significance, that the new year will be different from the last.

There’s a lot to drink about. We’re coming off a year when the world edged even closer to the end of times. If the fact of a 21-year-old suddenly finding 102 million shillings idling in her accounts does not drive you to the bottle… all while the only millions you own are in your scrotum. Or the visual of the man formerly in charge of your county grunting appreciatively at breasts on video… maybe even the knowledge that our nurses struggle with exams just like the rest of us. We have never needed an excuse to drink, but if we did, this year provided us with plenty to choose from.

And there is another year of madness to look forward to. Covid is proving to be that ex we made the mistake of introducing to our mothers, and now she won’t move on. She keeps coming back with a new weave or differently-shaped eyebrows and hoping we forget the time she set our clothes on fire.

There is the nonsense parade of an election cycle coming up as well. Which means the amateur election pundits are about to descend on us. Not that it will end with the election either; going by the last one, someone is going to get a Head of State commendation for eating njahi from a green carrier bag, there will be a tense stare-down between the ‘winner’ and the challenger, Uhuru Park will be reopened just in time for a swearing-in ceremony, and the rest of the year will be about political repositioning. Who knows, they may even tell us you need a Huduma Number to buy condoms next year. Or proof of vaccination.

Drinking, therefore, is perhaps the most natural response. There is barely any point calling for moderation. For once, I endorse ‘sherehe’, the Kenyan version of it. Life is for the living, as they say. We should celebrate the madness that was 2021, because the way these years are going, 2022 is going to be just as insane.

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@sir_guss