in Whacky WorldJuly 5, 2014
Rahab Wairimu is almost 100 years old. Although her true age is in doubt, she says her first child was born during the era of muthirigu (an old Kikuyu dance style of the 1920s started to protest a colonial ban on FGM). Despite her advanced age and diminishing eye sight, Wairimu swigs alcohol like youths in their twenties would do. She rises at dawn to visit chang’aa dens in the village. Locals have nicknamed the dens Casa B S. Some of her drinking partners are her great-grandchildren.
She is popular among the drinking gangs and is loved immensely. They buy her the brew liberally and frequently say cucu heo ngirathi ni nguriha (give granny a glass and bill me). The speed with which she swigs the fiery spirit may leave strangers agape. On the village paths, I meet another centenarian. Unlike Wairimu she doesn’t drink but lost her two sons, daughter in law and two grandchildren to chang’aa. Her son, in his 70s, is also lost in the chang’aa dens and is a victim of bed wetting.
Many young men have lost their future and lives in these dens, which also serve as brothels of a kind. Sex is available here for as little as Sh50. Unprotected sex is rampant and many are HIV-positive. A lad in his mid-twenties enters the den presently and orders a bottle. I am told that he is HIVpositive and suffers from TB, too. He is too weak to walk and karposis sarcoma has started taking a heavy toll on his skin. Unlike cucu Wairimu and this youth, those who brew the stuff are rich.
They own plots, apartments and their children attend the best boarding schools. A visit to the nearby cemetery surprised me. The average age on most gravestones is 37 years. In the small village of only 64 acres, there are more than twenty brewers. Crime rates are as high as the death rate. Ever sleepy Welcome to Njathaini village, near Starehe Girls High School five kilometres from Kiambu town.
The wreck has spread to a nearby estate where the rich stay. Their children are now getting destroyed by free flow of drugs and cheap liquor from their poor neighbours. The headmaster in a nearby public school experiences real challenge. The classrooms have more than 80 pupils each. He narrates a sad story of a female student who is ever sleepy. Her mother sells the brew and supplements it with prostitution. Sometimes the poor girl is sent outside when her mother’s customers come calling at night.
Majority of those who did class eight exams last year had below 100 marks. I meet Paul, an orphan aged 26. He has TB but does not take his doses regularly. He still smokes and is now scrawny as chang’aa, TB and smoking have taken a toll on his health. His woes began when his girlfriend, who was selling chang’aa here, died of HIV-related causes. He is too weak to walk.
David, Paul’s cousin, is another sad case who was discharged from hospital recently, over similar woes, but has gone back to the chang’aa dens. Two other young men, also related, died the same week. Every month an average of four people, mainly youth, are buried at Ndumberi cemetery near Kiambu town. The village is surrounded by vast coffee estates owned by rich farmers. The residents have been providing cheap labour here.
The advent of gates communities and highrise apartments had rendered many youth jobless. The children of the tycoons are getting caught in the web of alcohol, cheap sex and drugs. Some are American-educated graduates. They prefer sleeping in chang’aa dens to their father’s mansions. A look at demographics is surprising. 34 year-old women look like grandmothers.
They become mothers at 15. Their children, trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty die in prostitution and others from police bullets when they venture into crime. The son of a High Court judge, a a graduate of a private university, is among those who are trapped in the addiction to the spirit. Drug addiction cuts across the rich and the poor. Apparently, the rich also cry.
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