After I completed my primary education, I got circumcised to mark the beginning of my young adulthood. I was to attend secondary school but when my father retired, school beyond standard eight was not going to happen. My next move was to find ways to support myself. I had a thingira (a one-bedroom house) at the time, and I was used to living away from my mother’s house. Together with my fellow classmates who were not going to secondary school and others from the circumcision group I was in, we took time to explore life outside school. We used to wear uniforms in school – a shirt and shorts, but no shoes. After school, the dress code included long sleeved shirts, khaki trousers, and shoes. I knew not to ask my parents to supply me with these essentials, so I decided to work for them.
Since I was underage and could not get the Kenyan national ID, which was needed to get a stable job and earn better income, I got casual work in farms near our home. My work included weeding and plowing. I earned enough to buy a long-sleeved nylon shirt, khaki trousers, and shoes. One of the more popular habits was smoking cigarettes (kīraikũ). Kīraikũ is made of dry tobacco crushed and rolled in a piece of paper torn from a magazine and lit with fire or matches for those who could afford them. The higher income people would buy a classic crown bird cigarette – this was a sign of wealth – and they would show off by placing a cigarette pack in a visible nylon shirt pocket. With a ten Kenya shilling note next to the packet, and visible to others, one would gain the reputation of being a rich guy.
Our favorite entertainment pastime was dancing – but with no public facilities available nearby, we held dancing parties at a friend’s house, usually one who owned a radiogram. The host would allow their favorite friends to attend the party, and the host usually had to have a lady be his partner. The parties were usually held on Saturday nights, and we danced all night then made our way home on Sunday morning. We were very dust because of the dirt floors, and we would avoid being seen by other people as we headed home. I would make sure my lady partner made it home before anyone in her home woke up. She would sneak in without being seen, and I would head home and sleep all day. I never went to church.
After working several different jobs, I got a stable position in a coffee factory, and my hard work impressed the manager. I finally got the national ID and was eligible to pay tax. I earned Ksh. 52, and the deductions included ksh. 4 for tax, and Ksh 2.50 for pension. Since we grew our own food and I ate at my mother’s home, I had a lot of money to spare. I gave my mother Ksh. 20 and the balance was enough to cater for my living and socializing expenses. When I met with friends, we would always buy some mandazi and tea. One mandazi (made of wheat four, water, baking soda, sugar, mixed to a dough then rolled to a flat sheet and cut into small pieces, deep-fried till golden and served hot or cold) cost ten cents and a cup of tea also cost ten cents. I always had more than enough money to use until I got paid again. I did not know how to save for the future, and no one told me that I could keep the money in a post bank or invest it to gain more cash.
During Christmas time, there was a lot of celebratory dancing, and I did not want to miss them. After I finished my shift on the twenty-fourth, I went home, got ready, and joined the others for the festivities. I was on duty on the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth, but I never reported to work until the twenty-seventh. I was fired. I had worked in the coffee factory for a year and two months.
My supervisor was my uncle, my mother’s brother, and he was angry with me. He said that he would not lose his job to retain me because I never respected my work. I went home and told my mother the story, hoping that she would talk to her brother to reinstate me. Instead, my mother replied, “If it were my job, I would have done the same thing, getting rid of you.” She stated that she was once a young girl, and that beautiful girls were always there, and that dancing was the norm. For it to continue” though, she said, people must work. She said that she thought I was not on duty when she saw me at home on those two Christmas days. I was home for two weeks trying to look for another job when the senior manager at the factory realized that he had not seen me for several days. He called me into his office and told me that he liked me for my hard work. He described me as a quiet guy, and unlike most of the workers my age working in the factory, I spent time focused on my job, and I did not play or joke with the others.
Instead of reinstating me, he gave me a job in his kiosk, which was next to the factory. My job was to make tea at the booth. He gave me a room to live in near the kiosk. I had to wake up by six am in the morning, and with the help of an older guy employed before me, we made tea in a big pot known as rũrīnja (big enough to make tea for a hundred people). One cup of tea cost ten cents (kīng’otore kīmwe), and I was paid Ksh. 52, with no tax or pension deductions. I served tea to my former coworkers, who mocked me for losing my factory job. I would not say I liked the job, but there was a beautiful girl working in the shop next to my room. We liked each other as coworker friends, and her company made me stay at the job longer than I needed to. I would take her home with me, and my sister would tease me, asking if she was the girl of my choice. My mother would tell me she was gorgeous and that I should not let her go. I wanted to be interested in my mother’s sake, but I was not ready for love or marriage just yet.
I was preoccupied with the thought of leaving the kiosk and getting a more lucrative opportunity in Nairobi. I had watched my father come home from Nairobi looking immaculate, with well-ironed clothes, black shining shoes, and a fabulous jacket. He looked different compared to the rest of us who lived on the farm and worked in the coffee factory. My brother also worked in Nairobi and was always well dressed. My brother-in-law worked in the municipal council of Nakuru (MCN) in the engineering department, and he appeared to be a wonderful and elegant guy.
One weekend after I got my monthly wage, I decided to visit my brother in Nairobi. His wife was going to visit him that weekend, so I joined her. In Nairobi, I found out that my brother lived in a tiny room with another couple. There was barely any space left for me to fit in, and I did not feel comfortable sleeping on the floor in the space where the others would step on when they got out of bed. They cooked their food outside the room, and this made me not like Nairobi. I had no money to return home, so I waited for my brother to get paid at the end of the month so that he could give me the bus fare. I now began understanding that the stories of homeless workers in Nairobi that I had heard in the village could actually be true. According to the stories, some of the workers would sleep in the street. In the morning, they would wake up, shower in the toilets, and put on a suit and tie. They then went to work.
I went back home disillusioned, and on my way to the house, I passed through the kiosk to see my former colleagues. They were really happy and excited to see me. When the manager heard that I had passed by the kiosk, he came to our home to offer me the job back. I asked him to give me time to think about it and that I would let him know when I made up my mind. As I was thinking about going back to the kiosk, my sister told me that her husband had a job for me in Nakuru. I joined my sister when she traveled to Nakuru. My brother-in-law let me call him KK. He lived with his son in a tiny house in Abongoloweye Estate 4. He got me a place to live in Bondeni — a one-bedroom mud house. The house had no space to cook, was lit with the kerosene lamp, and water was fetched from a standard tap set up outside for all the tenants. KK’s son had lived in the same house before but had moved to his father’s house when his mother went to live on the farm after her father-in-law passed away. She went to manage the tea farm because KK’s brother had not finished school.
I was hired in the engineering department of the Nakuru Municipal Council as a casual laborer, and was on probation for six months. My assignment was to dig a hole at the municipal water joint for the other staff to connect pipes supplying water for customers. The head of the engineering department was a white man and the assistant was Indian guy. The rest of the workers were black. I earned Ksh.184, and the tax was Ksh 4. When the probation period ended after six months, I was hired as a permanent employee and signed the appropriate forms. My wages were raised to Ksh. 210, Tax Ksh. 4, and NSSF Ksh. 20.00, to which the employer also contributed Ksh. 20.00. KK, for the first month, gave me money for breakfast and lunch and in the evening, I went to his house for supper. After I got paid, I contributed some money for food and rent.
KK used to go to a busaa club after work. One day I decided to join him. At first, the drink made me feel some discomfort. I had not drunk alcohol before, and busaa gave me a headache. However, once I got used to it, I got comfortable. It was cheap; half a pint cost twenty-five cents, and two pints were enough for me since I drank slowly. A group of Luhya people played music (isukuti drums) in the club. The beer was made illegally and was deemed unsafe for consumption in other places in the neighborhoods. Law enforcement cracked down on these places regularly, but KK had told me about the clubs that were free from the crackdowns. KK showed me grocery stores and some of his friends’ shops where he had been a customer for many years
When KK left the municipal council job for a job in the government income tax department, he moved to a new house with his son, and I moved into his old home. Many of my neighbors were parents to people my age, and they had come to work in the municipal council during the colonial era. They were born and grew up in town. When they retired, the white man allowed the sons to replace their fathers in these jobs. My new neighbors had grown up in Nakuru, and I got to enjoy good company as well as education about the town. Unlike my hometown, where people were from the same ethnic group or tribe, Nakuru consisted of various tribes. We communicated in Swahili, as English was only taught from standard (std) five or intermediate class – standards five to eight. We did not work on weekends, and on Saturdays, many young people near my house gathered outside to talk and play cards. I did not like playing cards because I had seen men become addicted to the game and fail to perform essential duties in their families. As I was growing up in Kirinyaga, I saw a man take a machete to go cut grass on the farm. As he passed through where others were playing cards, he placed his machete on the table and played from morning till night. He then went back home without grass to feed his animals.
As we socialized, the young men’s popular topics involved love and intimacy, the girls in town, the best place to get the best girls, as well stories about unfortunate incidents related to girls in the town. I noted that most guys from my home area preferred marrying girls from home – Kirinyaga – instead of those they met in town because they feared that they did not know their cultural background.
One grocery store owner, an elderly lady, gave me her piece of mind. She told me that money will never accumulate to a significant amount for me to be ready for marriage. She stated that money comes and goes and that I needed to work for something – my wife and my child – so that I could see what I was working. I worked for one year and two months before I went back home. During the Christmas holiday, I spent time in Kirinyaga at my sister’s house. My parents had moved to Nanyuki, and I did not know anyone there yet. I had a greater chance of getting a wife in Kirinyaga since I was born and raised there, so people knew me, and I knew them. By the time I headed back to Nakuru, I had a wife.