What they Say and What They do

Yesterday I got a long mail forward about the risks of employing a 'housie' (or maid, house help, mboch, domestic servant etc) The story told of a girl from meru who almost killed her employer in the process of robbing her of all the household valuables. It even had an ID and photo attached. Indeed recently I have been hearing a lot of stories about these very much needed workers doing all manner of wrong things and my good friend tells me of how he used to buy extra soap every week due to this pilferage. We have always avoided having an extra help in the house and have tried to do most things ourselves but sometimes it becomes just too difficult especially with the traffic jams of Nairobi. These days the earliest you can get home is 1930hrs and the earliest you must leave the house is 0600. This means that the housie is as necessary as your own job and also that they have all the time in their hands to do all that they want in your house. You basically rely on one simple thing only: their integrity.

Integrity is a word I have blogged about several times. When I saw the mail about the meru girl, I wondered why she was being sacrificed that much. I was sad because it was the same time, the PM was being cleared of maize scandal, Uhuru was going on clean about the 'error' which her has since repeated. But why am I going on about politicians now? closer home at the place I work, I was getting sad stories of senior managers who cannot keep their hands clean and who spend all their time and skill trying to outwit the company and thereby do the same as the meru mboch, kill the company in the process of robbing it of all its valuable things. one friend confessed to me how jalous she was of a former school mate. a mere 27 year old who she was telling me was already driving a range rover sport and owning his own apartment in Kileleshwa all because of 'connections with the right people in the right places!'

When will the rain stop beating us as Kenyans? why must we continue this way and who is benefiting? There is a popular saying in kenya: Where you work is where you eat. and people have taken it literally to mean you have a carte blanche to steal from anyone and anywhere as long as you are not caught.

Away from things corruption. Yesterday I saw the news about the group of Kenyan Luo elders visiting Southern Sudan to be in touch with their brothers and sisters who remained behind and I was strangely reminded of the unity thing. the strongest unifying factor is often a common threat or even common hater. M7's careless outburst about the luo may just give a good reason for the now diverse community to unite. all the way from DRC, to TZ to uganda, Sudan, Kenya and Ethiopia. Now that is one unity M7 may not really want to encourage.

But what are people saying about the Kenyan diasporians coming back to Kenya and wanting dual citizenship due to the economic downturn? They can never tough it out anywhere. They escaped to the west when things were thick in Kenya and even insulted Kenya and her governance. Now things are thick yonder and they are scampering back to relative safety!