By Charity Katio Otieno
(And you want me to invest my hard-earned money in that ****hole?!)
I’m not a dumb person and neither is my lovely husband Fred. Fred has lived up to his Luo stereotype and has a Doctorate in Biochemistry that means he has a PHD just to make it crystal clear.
Wifey here using the words of the famous musician P.Diddy … I ain’t doing too bad myself, a Bachelors of Science in Nursing earned through sweat and tears while simultaneously parenting my two lovely children.
This two Kenyan uproots were making plans to hopefully move back home mainly to be close to family but also to enrich our own and hopefully infuse some of the knowledge and skills learned. This is when a friend (who we will call Tom) of my father in law approached us about buying an apartment in the prestigious Easy Park apartments in near Nairobi.
Tom was trying to offset some hospital bills and needed some cash. Being the smart people we are, we got a team of lawyers and drew out a payment plan for this beautiful three bedroom apartment. I pinched myself every night and I had officially grown up. I was going to own a roof in my homeland and a ritzy one in my books.
Since we are not sitting on a mountain of cash, we needed to get to work and make a regular work week 80 hours instead of the 36 I was working. There was peace in knowing every single penny was accounted for and several lawyers were signing off on my hard earned nickels and pennies.
So like clockwork, we would take Tom and his wife the money we had agreed upon every month. My lovely father in law Richard would meet Tom wherever he was with lawyers in tow and if Tom was too sick his lovely not so lovely wife now would come pick up the cash. If you Google easy park apartments ,those bricks don’t come cheap, so between having to refinance one of my cars and getting a ten thousand dollar loan and our long work weeks(at these point hubby was working an extra online job)we were determined to come up with the pennies.
I had become one of those nurses who could not pass on a shift for overtime. The payments were done on time and there was no missing a heartbeat, we were immersed in this like a cult and this dream was going to come true. We felt lucky despite the hard work and were thankful for the opportunities. The process took about six months and the place was pretty much paid off and was time to get the famous keys or so we thought. Dealing with Kenyan offices is beyond any word or words can describe, to call it frustrating is an understatement. Tom had not paid taxes on the property for years and we needed to pay that since he obviously wasn’t going to dish that cash out.
That was just the beginning of the hiccups.
All we needed now was for Tom to sign on the dotted line and then like a bad dream, our greatest nightmare happened. At this point everything was all clear and for those who were born in third world country know it takes a lot to get everything cleared. Tom went into a diabetic coma. The signature was going to have to wait little did we know that we were never going to see it. And those keys were jingling from a distance and they were would never come anywhere close to our ears. We prayed hard and my mother double tripled her prayers. We wanted Tom to get better, this stranger just needed to get better enough to sign our transfer document. A little thereafter, Tom died. He was gone. Gone with our dream house, hope and all our money, this was more than a nightmare. Not to sound cold hearted but all we wanted was for him to come back for three seconds, sign our document and then go hang with his creator but that wasn’t going to happen. We tried to be respectful and let the family bury their father before we started asking to what was ours.
And then like a bad story, Tom’s kids came out of nowhere. They were evil. They were nowhere to the evil stepsister in the Cinderella story- they were worse. They were the most entitled pieces of garbage one would ever meet. Richard my father in law now had to deal with this witches. They wanted to keep the apartment and the money paid to the dad and they were not going to stop at anything. They were going to show us how to really treat that piece of gum under your shoes which is how they viewed us—useless scam that needed to just vanish. These kids were unstoppable. They were bold enough to look at Richard and tell him if he doesn’t walk away, they would make him disappear. This is someone old enough to be their father, and was their father’s friend. They have never heard of the world respect. It doesn’t exist in their books.
In response my father in law said to them in Swahili “kijana hii Kenya unafikiri ni kubwa, itashrink ushangae” meaning boy, this Kenya you think is big, once you commit a crime it will shrink so much you won’t believe it. These people were going to go beyond the unbelievable; they were going to make their pledge come true.
Like they say, if it’s too good to be true, then its too good to be true. Lets call this evil people predators and make it a noun. Predators’ came calling on our dear Richard in the nicest way possible from nowhere. They wanted to meet at the apartment and have a “talk”. So Richard made his way to Easy park apartments (nothing easy about acquiring this apartments despite the name—the irony of this was not lost in my books).
Standing in that apartment, Predators’ said they needed to step outside for a minute. Richard was left standing in the middle of this house by himself when an eerie feeling came over him. He dashed out of that place so fast more than his aging legs would carry him. He got to the gate and here came a car full of narcotics police. He asked the security guard at the gate where those policemen were headed to only to find out they were headed for that same apartment.
They had done the unthinkable, planted drugs in the apartments and called the narcotics police so that they can have my father in law Richard arrested. There is a God out there. He had escaped by an hair and if caught, he would have rotted in that jail after we would have had to mortgage or sell our house, cars, kids clothes and maybe our kidneys. There would have been no way to get this poor guy out of the dungeon that is Kenyan jail. This was the epitome of evil and I can’t wait to post their pictures and names on every website once I get them. This was clearly going to be an uphill battle. At this point, case was filed in the court system. Predators’ had made it clear they were keeping it all. There was no trust left and no negotiations that would ever happen outside the courthouse. My poor father in law had to meet these preditors in court and the battle had now begun.
Their mother had disappeared into the background. Unlike when she made herself available to collect the money, this woman suddenly had no voice or face. She was in the same pack with her predator sons and they were one and the same. No remorse or olive branches were getting extended here. We were going to fight like the proverbial tooth and nail. These Predators were out for blood. And so we needed to work more hours, pay more lawyers and get with the program. Time to fight the big egos and whoever said that looks can be deceiving was totally wrong, Predators were wrong and we were going to show them. Richard had dropped his life and he felt the responsibility of saving the situation and regretted ever introducing us to this people. We were going to sell the only other piece of we owned in Athi River to make some payments and everyone’s life can come to a standstill.
It was week after week and months of court cases and lawyer fees. This was not going to be easy. We were now here working to pay loans and trying to make ends meet after cleaning house (bank accounts) to cover costs that we didn’t know existed before this ordeal. The demands Predators were making were not only ludicrous but also cold and calculated. We deserved nothing according to their screwed up brain cells and they were going to try and keep it like that. Their best attempt to concede was saying they would give us two little pieces of land in some God forgotten place surrounded by sewage that was worth not even an eighth of what we had put out. They were shocked when we passed on that since that was a favor they were trying to do us. There are bad people and again there are really bad people.
Like they say, there is an end to everything, after weeks of court cases, there was a judgment. But oh no, Predators’ were not going to hear that and so they went to a different court to stop the judgment from being passed. Stalling this whole thing and paying lawyer fees is something I guess they don’t mind doing. A ruling was made in that other court and we could go ahead and hear our judgment. Drum roll for judgment, we won….don’t be too happy for us but at that time we were going to get most of our money back.
Not all of it but some was better than none at this point. I just wanted this whole thing to end. I wanted my life back. I was okay with paying the loan I had taken and extra payments for the refinance for my car. The emotional toll in my family had driven a huge wedge for a while and we had been through the ringer. My husband who is and will forever be my best friend had done his best to keep us floating. I will forever love this man. I was done with Predators but boy oh boy was I mistaken, they were not done with me. No sooner was the judgment passed than the Predators filed an appeal. Sorry to break your hearts readers, there is no happy ending, I’m writing this on the eve of my first court day (today is 2/20/14).
My lovely untiring father in law Richard will represent his lovely children in court this Friday (that is the judge doesn’t decide he needs a day off and moves it to next week or a month from now and you would be shocked by how often this happens) and many more weeks and months to come. My lovely mama will still get up at five am everyday to pray for us.
We will continue working as hard as we can to pay lawyers and court fees. Life like they say has to go on. Bills will still be paid, mortage will not be late and we will still make lexas favorite meal which is rice and beans thank God its cheap but Matthew will still demand his Buffalo wild wings bacon cheeseburger(not so cheap). Life in the Otieno household with be partly on hold and partly in motion.
Me and my lovely husband will visit our favorite hang out joint and down a few cocktails, enough to drown the sorrows of investing in Kenya and but also keep us sober enough never to put a penny in that country ever again.
(Will keep all of you updated as this nightmare unfolds, you can follow my story on googleplus
https://plus.google.com/u/0/101467605989580241587/posts or facebook me if you are my friend)
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