Lamentations of an economy-afflicted sister

By Milly G

What wouldn’t I give for an indulgent daylong care-to-the-wind shopping spree! I miss the times my sister and I would set aside Saturdays for walks around Toi Market hunting for jeans; or for sunny outings in town, weaving in and out of shopping malls; or at Sarit Centre picking that one-off piece of pricey negligee or that really classy blouse that I’d been eyeing for a while. I’d then cap the afternoon with some nice Italian ice cream cup or a cold drink at a not-so-ordinary joint. I’d walk in to Books First and walk out with Toni Morrison, Arundhati Roy, Steven Covey, Obama, and a Kwani journal for good measure.

The other day I tried buying a Sh1,500 tome, Pills, Planes and Politics, the Wisdom of Imre Loefler, and found that I needed to budget for it for two months. Thankfully for such rich food for the mind and soul, and I did not regret sacrificing food for the body in form of tea breaks spent catching up with girlfriends at the T-spot. As priorities go, shopping for clothes has had to be relegated to the boot, as my equity fund savings, which I’m really tempted to kick out the window, takes the back seat. In Obama-speak, I need a bailout plan.

Truth be told, times are very hard. Nameless may not have won a BABA Award for ‘Salary’, but the song’s choice lyrics are becoming more and more relevant to us: "I am struggling to make my way. I am hustling night and day. Ninatafuta salary oooooooh.!!!!" Who isn’t?

The salaries are running, the bills are chasing. For the same amount of money we lived on comfortably, we now barely make ends meet. Everything has gone up, but the income.

So let us look at the options we girls are exploring for bailouts.

First, if you are exclusively in jua kali, the sun seems to have dropped an inch. Chances are you can hardly sleep. You toss and turn, juggle ideas in the night, and hope that you get a brainwave of where to get that elusive contract, or how to win that life-saving tender or how to get that client to stop hoarding and pay you.

Strike the water

If you are employed, and the waters are just not parting for you to cross into the Promised Land, you may want to strike or you may choose to practice commercial horticulture on the side of the water you are stuck on. If you choose to strike the water, you will approach your boss round about that time in the year when your salary is supposed to be reviewed and tell him or her you need a pay rise, and he’s likely to offer you a blank face at best or false promises at worst. Before the recession hits you, it has already visited your boss, so don’t expect any saving grace that-wise. So instead of wasting precious time, see how else you can use your current resources to make the extra buck by probably selling modems or airtime or herbal vitamin tablets or shoes or whatever. When the Prime Minister threatens that you must not have any parallel briefcase office or kiosk if you’re employed, show him your pay slip and let him be the judge.

Kenyans will hustle doing many things as long as salaries remain low and the Pope fights contraceptives. Some Kenyans have so many mouths to feed they might as well be running charities. We call them dependants, and in true African form, they stay with us for long.

Other option

If your gods are at home, you may find a better job if yours is in ICU. But hardly anyone is employing. A more feasible option is to create your own jobs by selling your expertise. Teachers call them private tuition, doctors call them locums, and architects call them pjs. They are the bane of every employer, but most people do them to make an extra coin.

The other option is to seek a fund. This one is for the leeches. If you strategically position yourself, you may come into money through other people’s support. That’s what NGOs are for, tapping money from the West that is lying idle or that has been allocated to a very abstract place — the Third World. Equally parasitic is the gold digger who hooks any rich man with a kitty allocated for entertainment and makes her withdrawals. That’s what stress-free banking is all about! The upside of this situation is that the term recession will be alien to you. The downside is that, thanks to the recession, there are no such men left.

So I guess we are back to hustling night and day.