Nairobi's 'rich' beggars

After a day in the streets, they retire to a night of high living and eager women in the slums, writes MICHAEL ORIEDO

It is six in the morning and the city of Nairobi is beginning to bustle with human activity. Hundreds of people walk hurriedly as they rush to their places of work.

Along Tom Mboya Street, a disabled man dressed in tattered clothes labours to push his wheelchair. One can detect from the speed he is wheeling that he is also rushing against time. Soon, he arrives at a spot on the busy street.

He disembarks from the wheelchair, folds it and spreads a tattered piece of cloth on the pavement. He then sits on it.

Like many other people, the man has arrived at his workstation.

He thereafter wears a piteous countenance as he starts begging. Soon, coins and notes start falling into a tin beside him.

The benevolent pedestrians believe that he will use their money to buy food and other basic needs.

Interestingly though, the man will use the money to fund his ‘lavish’ lifestyle. At the close of business, he will spend a huge chunk of it on alcohol and prostitutes.

That is the double lives some beggars live. During the day, they sit on the streets begging for help but in the evening, they are ‘lions’ in the areas where they live.

Their heavy purses roar thunderously attracting women who help them spend.

Grace Waithera, a resident of Korogocho slums where many of the beggars in the city centre live, says it is common to see the beggars drunk and in the company of prostitutes.

“The women know that the beggars have plenty of money, which they make easily on the streets. So they help them squander it,” she says.

Most of them make as much as Sh2,000 a day. Such an amount of money elevates them to the status of ‘millionaires’ in the informal settlements.

At dusk therefore, when the beggars are returning home, women wait for them at the bus stops.

“They will help them push their wheelchairs and cajole them into spending the night with them. But their main target is money,” Waithera says.

She says most of them end up with the women in the numerous lodgings scattered in the slums.

“Some of them live in the lodgings where they buy meals, pay for accommodation and lavish the rest of the money on their girlfriends. This is a life that most of us living here cannot afford,” she says.

Different person

While in most cases women prey on the beggars because of the money they have, Waithera says others are just serial womanisers.

“They change women like shoes. Every evening you will see them with a different person. The woman will help them spend their money during the night and disappear in the morning. But it seems they never learn,” she says.

Residents of slums and the adjacent areas are also used to seeing the beggars dead drunk.

“You will find some lying by the roadside singing or shouting obscenities at passersby,” Simon, a resident of Kariobangi, says.

However, while some drink changaa, others buy beer. After ‘work’, they invade bars and drinking dens in the area.

Simon says some of them become benevolent to the point that they buy people they find in bars beers indiscriminately.

Ironically, after all the indulgence, they return to the streets to beg in the morning.

Bottles of beer

“There is one who is known to be generous with his money. Whenever he enters a bar in Kariobangi, he first buys beer for anyone who helps him disembark from his wheelchair,” he says.

The man then asks the waiter to fill his table with bottles of beer. And when he finishes one, it must be replaced with another. “If this does not happen, he gets annoyed. Those waiters who know him ensure that they replenish his stock every time he finishes a drink,” he says.

Simon says that knowing people prey on them because they are ‘rich’, some beggars have become clever.

They identify trustworthy people and employ them as aides. They then pay them a salary every month.

“The aides help them to perform their day-to-day activities. They will take them to the city centre in the morning and pick them up in the evening,” he says.

That helps to ward off ‘scavengers’ who may want to target the beggars for their money. And for this work, the aides earn handsomely.

Traffic jams

“I once knew of a beggar who was paying his aide Sh5,000 every month besides giving him other allowances depending on how good the day was,” Simon says.

According to Simon, the helper’s work involved taking the man to the city centre, placing him at a safe spot on the streets, walking him during traffic jams to beg from motorists and guiding him home in the evening.

“With those duties, he protected his employer and both lived modest lives,’” he says.

Andrew Kyalo recalls an incident few years ago, which made him stop giving money to beggars on the streets.

On that day, Kyalo says he had travelled to Nairobi from Ukambani to transact some businesses. Kyalo had hoped to conclude the business that day but could not.

“This compelled me to spend the night in Nairobi because I could not travel back to Machakos and return in the morning,” he recalls. Like many other people in his predicament, Kyalo booked a lodging situated in one of the backstreets of Nairobi.

Drinking alcohol

“I went and found all the single rooms booked. When I was about to leave, the caretaker convinced me to use the double room assuring me that he would not bring anyone else,” he says.

However, in the middle of the night, he was awakened by noises in the room. He looked around only to see a woman lifting a man from a wheelchair and placing him on a bed.

“I could not believe my eyes since I recognised the man as a beggar I had helped on the streets earlier in the day,” he recalls. He later witnessed the man paying the woman a lot of money.

The next morning, Kyalo says he met the same man sitting on the street begging.

“He pleaded with me to give him some money but I dismissed him. I reminded him of the incident and he coiled and looked away,” he says.

Simon observes that most beggars who live double lives are men. “You won’t find a female beggar drinking alcohol or engaging in sexual liaisons. Most of them are responsible. They will use the money they beg to buy food for their children and save some,” he says.

An official with Nairobi City Council’s Social Services and Housing department says that because of the money they get, some beggars are able to snatch other people’s wives.

“While probing the increase of begging in Nairobi streets, we found out that where they live they lure peoples’ wives into sexual affairs with money,” he says.

The children’s officer says that they also discovered that some of the beggars live good lifestyles. They resort to begging to support their expensive lifestyles.

“In one house, we found a huge television set, sofa sets and a carpet. The house was well furnished. The man’s children also attended a good school,” he says.

The officer blames Kenyans for encouraging people to beg. “Individuals have taken begging to be their work because pedestrians are generous. They will dress in tattered clothes to arouse sympathy from people who will give them money but they live well and spend lavishly,” he says.