Kenyans' middle-class anxieties

by Tom Odhiambo

We’re in a bar. Shouldn’t we be looking relaxed?

The Kenyan middle class is on the rise, or so the financial pages in Kenyan media will tell you. But, as we know, there’s no one more anxious than a member of the middle class, and it’s no different in Kenya. So, what makes Kenya’s middle class folk so anxious? Why are their brows so furrowed? What's on a middle class Kenyan's mind?

A popular Kenyan columnist calls the middle class the “middling class.” He means it as mockery, but you can’t mock Kenya’s middle class enough. They have inserted themselves somewhere there, wherever it is, that makes them feel that they live between the leftovers of human existence that the NGOists make money in the name of and the rich. Rich Kenyans are happy to just remain anonymous as the rich. Indeed you’d be hard pressed to know what rich Kenyans look like. But that’s a story for another day.

So, the middling class of Kenya, how goes life for its members today? This is supposed to be the year of jubilation in Kenya. Fifty years of freedom from colonial rule! Yes, the Kenyan flag has been flying for a half century. And the Kenyan middle class has been on the rise, or so  the financial pages will tell you. But what does a Kenyan middle classer look like, right now? Or rather, what is the social life of an average Kenyan middle class Nairobian?

Nervous drinkers
If you sit in a bar in Nairobi, especially today, you will see a man or woman sipping their drink worriedly. They will be looking at their watch. They will be caressing the glass of wine, as if trying to decipher the glass-maker’s intentions from the pattern-less glass. They will only go to the toilet when their glass is empty – they fear being poisoned should they leave the glass half full. If they pick their phone it will be to complain to a friend, family or colleague about the hassles of life in Kenya today.

Gotta see and be seen, you know. Interior view of a Nairobi Java House outlet in Nairobi, much-loved by the city's middle classes. (Photo: Image by: NOOR KHAMIS / REUTERS)

Status anxiety
Yes, the Kenyan middle class is a cornered and besieged little crowd of men and women, daily worried but absolutely fantastic at hiding the disappointments. Let’s start with the status thing. The men and women we call middle class in Nairobi dream of living in American-suburbia-like homes but all they often get is a flat. And the flats are really flat for there is nothing around the neighbourhood except more flats and flats and a neighbouring slum. The symbiosis is a fair deal for all and sundry. The middle family gets cheap labour. The poor fellows get daily wages for working in the flats.

Gotta look the part, what?

Crime anxiety
So, life in these make-believe suburbs is more about watching TV and vegetating on days when one is not at work. Consequence? Poor health and lifestyle diseases or some other such affliction. The middle classes hang out at home and watching bad TV programmes - mainly Mexican soap operas or senseless local productions - because they’re scared of crime. The whole neighborhood is one regimented camp, gated, with guards (endearingly called askari) and signs warning about the compound being “protected.” But the protection really only extends as far as one’s double locks, on double doors.

Flats as far as the eye can see, but at least we're safe behind locked gates. (Nyayo Estate, Nairobi)

When one ventures out, to drive to work or a social function or to pass time at one’s preferred entertainment spot there is always the worry that the carjacker will get you or the police will racket you. Either way one will nurse ones drink without much of the merry one left home planning to make. The carjacking is mainly because the economy offers too much hope but few opportunities. Many Kenyans want to drive but can’t really buy a car from the showroom. They are just too expensive. Secondhand car dealers are spread all over Nairobi and the country.

Blow harder, man! Police at work with Alcoblow. (Photo/ JEFF ANGOTE)

The damned cops have it in for us!
The police are the alter ego of the carjackers, really. For they have recently introduced some gadget called Alcoblow. Apparently too many Kenyans are dying on the roads. The accidents, the government claims, are caused by drunk drivers. The government doesn’t provide evidence to back its claim. The government is the government; its claims are true. So, should one stay at the bar too long and sway to their car, there will probably be a cop hanging just around the corner to invite you to “blow air.” Some random reading – the government didn’t explain how it decided the average inebriation levels – and you will be hauled into a police car. Your car will be pulled to the police station. There you are, with your claims to middle classiness!

You will spend the night in jail, probably next to a carjacker, a murderer, a rapist or a conman. Or pay a police bond. Or just bribe. Whatever option you choose, you will remain bitter that the policemen are only targeting the middle class since they have no access to exclusive clubs frequented by the rich and won’t enter pubs in the poor neighborhoods. So, here is a government that can’t pay the cops well devising a legal way to tax the middle class again. Grrr!

My God, private schools cost a pretty penny! (Photo credit: Joan Bardeletti/Picturetank)

The burden of expectations
It is not worth elaborating that the men and women who live somewhere in the middle of the Kenyan class ladder are burdened by the expectations of their relatives. Obi Okonkwo in Achebe’s No Longer at Ease never had it as trying as the ‘middling’ Kenyan class. Cousins’ fees to pay; parents’ needs to take care of; in-laws’ wishes to satisfy; colleagues and friends’ dreams to keep up with; personal desires to own a car worth its name, to have a townhouse, to take the children to the newest school in town, to join the gym, watch one’s weight or waist, go on holiday etc.

As do weddings!

Optimists with credit cards
But it will surprise you when you land in Nairobi that these mid people actually tolerate these conditions. They seem even to thrive in them. They confront every crisis with the sort of optimism only the European evangelists of the 19th century who fought demons, mosquitoes, yet-to-be-discovered fevers etc. exhibited. They will borrow loans to pay for a wedding. They will drink on credit to wipe away tears of job loss. They will pay for extra tuition for a child who is clueless at school. They will study for an Executive MBA just to better the boss. They will go to all lengths just to make this cliché sound true. These men and women carry the spirit of Kenyanness proudly, in some sense. A spirit of relentless hopefulness where hopelessness reigns. And so I am not surprised that international business media always rate Kenya as potentially an emerging market for international investment; for here the core dream of free enterprise is very alive.