Snapshots: Nairobians die for funeral chamas

I was not surprised when I read in the papers that the reason Capital Markets Authority have its coffers and safes combined bulging with cash thanks to unclaimed assets, is because Kenyan men and women would rather die than write a Will.

The story, if you didn’t know, is that writing a Will is something akin to inviting death to your living room all by yourself.

It means that even if all the flats in Karen and Ruai combined belong to you, you don’t just write a Will, as doing so will give the impression (to the grim reaper) that you think what you have eaten is enough.

We fear death, yes, and in as much it is there and we know it, let it just come on its own, but not after an invitation in the name of a Will!

The insurance guys, thinking they are too clever to a fault, decided to introduce death and funeral insurance policies which my clansmen dismissed as soon as the news reached my small village.

One wag, who happens to be a particularly respected one down there, posed that contributing money that would be used in your funeral is something practically the same as ‘organising’ your own burial, which, according to him, is an abomination everywhere in the world.

How can anybody ‘organise’ their own funeral when the bolts and nuts in their heads are supposedly tight, and they are not suffering from any terminal illness either?

But there is a problem. While most of us would never write wills nor have this and that insurance policy ‘smelling’ death, we have chamas.

The first thing I was told by my close relations immediately I ‘landed’ at the Machakos Country Bus from my village was the importance of being in a chama. As long as you are in this big city, ‘you never know what will happen’.

There is one particular chama which has unparalleled reputation because of its efficiency. It was started in late 70s when I was not even a rumour, and it only comes in to ‘help’ you when either you or your spouse passes on.

In that case it takes full responsibility, paying bills left, right and centre from the mortuary (you may need another chama to sort you hospital bills out), the casket, transportation and feeding mourners!

That amounts to a tidy sum of money if Mathematics was your favorite subject in school.

The interesting bit is that even if it was malaria, or say elephantiasis of the scrotum, that you are ailing from and you had no cash for treatment, this chama will not listen to anything of the sort.

It will wait until you die then come in full swing! Meanwhile, as you struggle with your typhoid you are not supposed to default your monthly payments.

So we always want ‘death insurance policies,’ ladies and gentlemen. When relatives pass on the first thing we ask is: alikuwa kwa chama yeyote? (was he in any self-help group?).

If the answer is yes, then people can start breathing comfortably. But if the lout was not a member of any chama, then worry sets in because the guy is not ‘covered’.