Some 2 years ago we used to frequent a joint on Sundays to have our favourite meal, ugali and some nyama choma. My dad used to take us together with my mum and we would have a good meal. It was along eastern bypass on your way to ruiru. It was a 3 minute walk from the bypass stage (those who stay along utawala and ruai can relate). The owner of the business was a Kisii and he used to make some pretty good tasting nyama choma. My dad used to call him Mogaka I guess that’s what Kisiis like being called the way you can call a Kamba ‘Kasee’ and a Meru ‘Vaite’ or ‘Murume’. Together with the Kisii kachumbari ‘obosontoto’ (only Kisiis can relate) the meat together with well made ugali would leave you completely satisfied. The place on Sundays was usually packed to the brim and to Mogaka business was good. People liked the place that on Sundays you had to wait for people to finish then you get in. The owner of the joint was called Mwangi and because Mogaka was making some good money out of the business he became jealous and doubled the rent. This meant that Mogaka had to either pay the increased rent or move to another place. Since he couldn’t pay the increased rent and pay his workers he opted to move out and look for another joint. Meanwhile Mwangi smiled from afar and thought he could implicate what Mogaka used to do but he was wrong very wrong. The next time we visited that place we found some people who my dad didn’t find familiar but he opted to order meat anyway. The meat came and we were rather disappointed the meat was prepared poorly, full of bones, ugali tasted like aloe vera and it was very expensive. Actually we didn’t eat anymore and my dad told a waiter to call Mogaka to talk to him. “Hatujui Mogaka ni nani mkubwa ni ule pale”. My dad went and had a chat with him and Mwangi treated him rather badly, he paid and off we went dejected. As we were about to go we bumped into a waiter who used to work for Mogaka but he got employed in a 5 star hotel in Thika. My dad asked him where Mogaka was and he told him of what had transpired. We went to Mogaka’s place and we found him at work. His new place was a bit dance as we walked for close to 30 minutes to access it. Mogaka then told us what had transpired that made him move. We ordered as usual and ate. It was a Sunday but it was not that packed like when he was in the previous joint. A week later complains started arising of how Mwangi prepared meat poorly, had poor services and he charged expensively. Some hopefuls followed Mogaka to his new place. The last time I was in that place is that Mwangi’s joint was closed since he had poor services. Mogaka continued with his business but it was not as vibrant as it used to be before he moved. Jealousy killed his dream to grow bigger and contribute to the society.
After high school my friend Mutua and I approached our neighbour Mr. Otwori to help us run business from his shop in the CBD. He had a big space and we saw he could give us some of it we operate with chipping in on rent end month since we didn’t have the millions needed to lease a shop in town. We started a movie shop and Mr. Otwori operated his photocopy business from the other side. It was not a smooth ride but business started picking up slowly and we started making some good money. We even got some decent orders to burn movies and series to people most of the time we were busy. The movie shop even helped me lay some kungurus back then. Kungurus used to order a movie or a series and if we didn’t have it she would leaver her number we get back to her when we get it. The fisi in me usually led to me banging some of them hekaya for another day. Mr. Otwori seeing that we were making more money than him he came and ordered us to take our stuff and leave immediately without any explanations. We tried to reason with him but he refused adamantly and so left. I know he was protecting his business but jealousy played a part in him throwing us out. It was after our second month and the money we had made was not that much to support us open another business and that’s how it died. We paid some few loans we had taken to start the business, returned the burner and stock of cds to the owner since we had borrowed from someone and paid him as per the agreement as we had leased them and with personal needs on the way I spent the money and that’s how we closed shop. Jealousy killed our dream.
Nozy customs a famous matatu designer in Nairobi started from scratch and grew his business to what it is now. He had rented a yard in Ngara where he was operating from and when business was so good the owner of the yard became jealous of his success and wanted to eject him out. He wanted him to surrender the business to him and bring him back as a business employee since from being the business owner. If he couldn’t do the above, then he had no option other than move out of the yard. Since he had come from far he told him to go fuck himself (he didn’t say that but you can get my point he told him hiyo haiwezi) and he moved out. He was in an episode of Lion’s den on KTN where they wanted a 1.5 million shilling investment. The money was for him to purchase a yard to work from and he got the deal. As for the previous yard he worked in, the owner ate his jealous.
Where we stay there was this Kamba guy who usef to own a shop. He was called Mutua. Mutua was one funny man. I could go there and tell him “nipe mara moja” and he would come back with a bottle of sour milk and I will tell him si hii and he would be like “mboss si umesema nikepee mala moya na ndo hii nimekuletea”. I would clarify that its mara moja ile dawa ya kupunguza kuumwa na kichwa, " mblo si ungesema ni ndawa". Mutua was liked by many since his business practices were clean and legit. But due to jealousy from a fellow shopkeeper Karanja, Mutua ended up closing shop after Karanja reported him to the police after that he used to sell bhang which was untrue. For Karanja, his shop was vandalised in the dead of the night after people knew he was the one who reported Mutua to the police for a false crime. His jealously killed both Mutua’s and his dream. Talk of mwenye wivu ajinyonge.
From the above incidents is that most people don’t know that you can’t separate a service from its owner. Wenye wivu wajinyonge!!
I am a Kikuyu. Unfortunately, I hardly find a decent restaurant ran by a Kikuyu where I can get quality and tasty food. Almost all hotels owned by Kikuyu’s (medium & small ventures) have bad food because they are either not talented in cooking and like cutting corners. With time, customers notice that shit and business goes down the drain. You are more likely to get served with a samosa which has more onions than meat in a restaurant owned by a Kikuyu. Greed is on another level. Call it stereotyping, but I generally wouldn’t recommend dining at a hotel ran by a Kikuyu because the menu has zero creativity/variety, the food is crap and the customer service is mostly shit. I said it. I can’t eat garbage just to promote a conniving kinsman
Hio 5 star hotel ya thika ndio sijui bt what I know is if a luhyia is your competitor he will try and get some kamuti from the village which never works anyway sio hii madharau ya hadharani
Beshte yangu aliongezewa rent and he had come and built the biz on premises that was neglected biz changed hands a few times finally it became vacant mwenye hio nyumba alikaa more than 1 year without a tenant even now the current tenant ana struggle
We are sometimes lyk crabs in a bucket. For a business to become successful it takes a lot of iterative learning, business acumen, and sometimes talent and great interpersonal skills from the entrepreneur to bring it to that stage of success. You cannot replicate this success overnight. And its not jealousy, but unchecked greed.
Kenyans, most Kenyans think because someone else has it together, they too deserve a piece of that biz too. Seen those guys who open an mpesa shop next to another one? won’t even talk about the pubs, churches…it’s just a reflection of how greedy the society is.
