By Wambui Muriithi @wambuiMN
Christmas season is here, the time for long lost Kenyans to return home for the holidays. Some have been in the Diaspora for almost a year, others for years, they all come to spend the festive season with their families. You will recognise them by their fresh faces, big hair and equally big sunglasses.
Some have this French Montanna look going on, others always dressed in a way that will make Kilimani Mums rethink #mydressmychoice. Interesting, cool, comical and a dangerous lot are some of the words used to describe these ones. Interesting mainly because of the comical stunts they pull when some pretend to have forgotten Swahili and their mother tongue.
They have to walk with a translator every time they visit their relatives upcountry, never mind they left the country speaking fluent mother tongue. Dangerous for the idea that they will derail you all season and leave you hanging when their plane takes off to the States as they prefer calling it. But then again, they can be cool and fun to be around.
They come back home with all kinds of things that friends ‘souve’ themselves, not to mention loads of money to take you out anytime you please. Bottom line, they are the hottest commodities in town. So it may be the happy season, but 28-year-old Andrew Kariuki is not a happy person.
Why? He has been nursing hangovers every afternoon in the office, apparently his two ‘boys’ flew into the country last Friday. “Sometimes I suggest we go to restaurants instead of bars but even then, they order alcohol. So I get derailed for at least one. But it’s never one for the road,” he says.
Kariuki says that he has resorted to sneaking away from them, but that’s usually at around 3.00am. “The next day while I am dying at work they send me pictures on Whatsapp. They’re chilling by a pool. I am already tired of them, it’s a love-hate relationship,” laments Kariuki. Take for example, Anita O, who lives and works in Australia.
Anita has been saving for more than a year to come visit during Christmas. “The money mainly for buying things for friends and family. I don’t know why people take offense if you don’t bring them anything.” However Anita fails to understand why people christen them with funny names yet they’re still Kenyan.
But Judy Njuki, a Kenyan in the Diaspora who has embraced her situation and is the blogger of the popular A Summer Bunny blog, says that all the hullabaloo Kenyans at home like to bring up about those who travel home for the holidays is meaningless. “People love to hate summer bunnies and I think it is unnecessary, besides, we all need each other.
If people knew what we go through, no one would hate us. I just think it’s sad and unnecessary and we’ve committed no crime,” she says citing the reactions of disgust thanks to their acquired accents. “Seriously how can an accent piss one off when so many local Kenyans twang?” she asks. “I save a lot of money to take friends out.
No one ever says no,so they shouldn’t complain.” Njuki says that socialising is something they miss and they love that almost everyone is game anywhere anytime.“Until you know how it feels to have someone throw a banana at you,” she speaks about the racist culture abroad; “My friend, I think you need to let me buy you a drink in peace.”
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