@gashwin ‘s reference to cado rustling in parts of Cendro has made me think about the incredible hypocrisy and primitivity that we find in this country. Yaani we – or rather the majority of us - are just ferked up Neanderthals who’ve got another million years to go before becoming normal humans.
We pride ourselves as being a Christian country, and everybody goes to Church on Sunday. The others flock mosques. You would expect the majority of us to be civilized, caring human beings, right?
Wrong!
For, if we are all good God-loving people who’s this who is always cutting corners and driving corruption?
Who bribes the cops and the judges and school heads and nurses and (fill any position of authority) to jump the cue or whatever?
Who are these who engage in cado, cattle, tea, coffee, maize, etc etc rustling? (In Ndeiya, for example, Deputy Gavana Nyoro and a few of us have just given up on our small maize lots, vile inaibiwa usiku. Who steals immature maize honestly?)
Any where in Kenya you cannot leave any valuable unattended; you go to the loo and your bag disappears. You look away from your beer and you are drugged and robbed. You get onto a matatu and the conductor tries to steal from you.
You take your kid to school and the principle is scamming you through inflated fees. You go to Wakanyama’s na amepaka solid mafuta ya ng’ombe chini ya karai kila kilo is less by 130 grammes, which is why the weighing stones always have to be on.
You go to church and the pastor is preaching 310. You run out and your galfren tells you to lend her 2k or send fare ndiyo akuje kukupa kuma, nikama alinunua na wewe unachuna pesa kwa miti.
You take your car to the gas station and you are sold unadulterated fuel, less two litres of course. Engine oil instead of putting in 5 litres wanaweka tatu-na-nusu. Usipoangalia vizuri jeki na spare wheel zina-Malaysia.
Unaibiwa simu (kwanza Intercon, who steals a mulika there now?) ukienda polisi wanasema uchote kwanza ndiyo wafuatilie. Ukipata simu message zinaingia vile umeshinda million tano, if only you send out Sh3,000 to Dr Ashford Blackwell from Canada working with an NGO in Lodwar.
You want a house in Nairobi, a broker screws you. You go to buy sugar unapata ni makyure na kopa tupu. Ukikula samosa unaanza kulia kama paka. Unakimbia hospitali kabla ufike unaanguka manhole ya kanjo because some idiots stole the cover. Ukililia hapo unashikwa na kanjo eti you are a nuisance.
Unaacha mtoto na maid kazi yake ni kula Cerelac ya mtoi na kutombwa na Wafula yule wa gate. Unatoka na hasira ukienda kwa local barmaid una-inflate bill.
THESE ARE KENYANS FOR YOU, 96.5893495% OF THEM. Engaging in endless petty theft, corner-cutting and all manner of stupid shenanigans.
And yet, every day, EVERY DAY the refrain is: OUR LEADERS ARE VERY CORRUPT. WE ARE POOR BECAUSE OF OUR LEADERS.
It is as if these leaders fall from Mars and land here. It is as if they elect themselves. It is as if we all have nothing to do with it.
Kenyans in the diaspora know that this is NOT the way normal humans live. But here we have normalized just about everything that is vile and primitive, from theft to medicrity to murder.
There is no outrage or personal responsibility, except the common scape-goat refrain: OUR LEADERS…………………………