The Reality i die With, My leaders would never See!!

 The alarm rings but I don’t want to get out of bed.

My back still remembers yesterday. Every bag of cement. Every lift. Every bend. It sits there like unpaid debt—right between my shoulders—vibrating every time I breathe. It rings again. I hear it. Ignore it. Rings a third time like it pays rent in this room.

Why should I wake up?

Why should I?

The work and the reward have refused to know each other for years.

I work for a private individual. Minimum wage on paper. Less in spirit. Fifteen Thousand Five is what am paid. Sounds like money until deductions happen and reality clocks in before you do. By the time everyone takes their share—government, levy, deductions I don’t even understand anymore—I remain with thirteen thousand and a headache. My wife and five kids are back in ushago. 

Recently I took a loan to lease a small piece of land and plant maize. Rain looked at us, laughed kidogo, then never showed up.

Still—I wake.

Not because I want to but because i have to. 

Because children wake up expecting breakfast whether your dreams survived the night or not.

Who will feed my family when i die, i smile —not because I’m happy—but the thought of what I would leave behind....the hardship and tear of dreams unrealized in a will.

I shower quickly. No tea. No bread. The three hundred shillings I made yesterday doing extra work lifting cement kwa koroga had to go home immediately. Sijui atanunua unga ya kunywa uji ama sukari ya strungi. Maybe both if God is also budgeting.

I can’t afford a boda. Not because I don’t plan well. Wacha hizo motivational speaker nonsense. I simply cannot afford a boda. 

Hata matatu ya mbao.

By the time I arrive at work, tiredness is hanging on me like a second shirt.

I’m just changing into my uniform when they call me to the manager’s office.

Immediately my spirit leaves my body kidogo.

“Nini mbaya tena?”

I walk in.

HELB.

A letter has come.

One thousand bob monthly deduction.

Or else.

Or else what? They arrest my dreams?

I sit down quietly and feel tears somewhere behind my eyes, but men like me don’t cry. We swallow things. Pride. Tears. Hunger. Sometimes even ulcers.

“Nisawa boss.”

I cant even remember when i applied for helb. Ooh! It's that time Kucceps for Tvet was launched and I thought maybe life would change. So i went back to school. Someday my children would say “baba alijaribu.”

Never finished.

Never used the money.

But here we are.

I’m now repaying hope with interest.

Damn this country.

Housing levy has already humbled me enough. I used to stay in a 3k house. Then deductions started. I moved to a 1500 one-room.

The irony?

I moved into a smaller house because I’m contributing to bigger houses.

One day curiosity beat wisdom and I went to check those affordable houses. Brayo wa cyber took me through it—and not because I can’t do it myself—but because I lost my mkopa smartphone in town the other day.

Pickpockets walikuwa hawana huruma.

I was carrying chapati mbili choma in a small plastic paper bag, minding my own poor business, when they appeared from nowhere like government deductions.

“Mzae tuko mboka,” One shouted.

Me, hungry and innocent, heard, tuko na mboga.

Nikajibu confidently, “Ata nishanunua hii hapa…”

Before my sentence ended, slap! Caught me smack in the face at the same time the chapati disappeared from my hand with such speed I even doubted if I ever had it.

“Mzae leta hela.”

“Sina kitu wazee.” blinking so hard i could feel the sockets objecting to the intrusion, 

Slap tena. The first one had disoriented me, the second one made me submissive

Nikatoa simu.

The pin ilikuwa nyuma ya cover like every responsible broke Kenyan.

They checked Mpesa.

Fuliza ilikuwa na limit ya mbao.

Slap nyingine.

At that point hata dignity ilitoka kwa body. I Literally relieved my self right there.

Jesus!!

I could have sworn mmoja wao alikuwa ananipiga na side ya wet panga. Those were not human hands

But simply that's how my Smartphone changed ownership

They even took my Chapati Choma. Damn them!!

Left me hungry, phoneless, and somehow still owing people money.

Back to affordable housing i tell Brayo proudly, “Mimi niko na watoto watano. Naona three-bedroom itanifaa.”

He clicks around.

Then BOOM, 4.1 million.

I laughed so hard Brayo thought I was choking.

Then i did a quick mental mathematics that's like 2,730 months or 227 years if I pay 1,500 monthly! Jesus!!

I could live with that,alafu niwachie Gabu my first born aendelee kulipa, I think. Naambia Brayo chukua hiyo. Maybe after all i can leave them a little inheritance

Not land.

A mortgage.

Then Brayo asks casually:

“Mzae uko na 400k ya deposit?”

I stood up.

Logged out of hope.

Left.

Staki tena kabisa.

Then there’s SHA.

Used to pay five hundred for my parents back when NHIF still remembered poor people existed.

Now twelve hundred.

And somehow they still go to hospital and leave with Meloxicam and prayers.

I paused it.

Wanted to restart.

Then they told me I must first clear arrears for previous months plus a full year.

I said wacha nibaki na ugonjwa yangu.

By evening my body is tired to the soul. My clothes smell like sweat, debt and hopelessness.

As I walk home I do mental calculation in my head the way poor men do every evening.

I calculate and recalculate until numbers become insults.

I’m left with maybe five thousand this month after the deductions and loan repayments.

Maybe.

If no emergency remembers my address.

Itabidi nimetuma yote home then beg landlord for more days ya rent. Maybe nipige vibarua over the off days and catch up. 

Food God will provide

Maybe.

Life ya “maybe.”

As I reach my door all I can hear in my head is Wantam presiding officer saying:

“For development we must sacrifice.”

Sacrifice?

Who?

Me?

You drive cars we buy.

Fuel cars we pay for.

Sleep in houses we built.

Eat food we taxed.

Then tell us sacrifice?

My God.

I open the door.

Drop my kadunda beside the mattress.

And suddenly pain.

Sharp.

Violent.

Right in the chest.

I grab my shirt.

Miss the chair.

Collapse on my knees.

Cold sweat.

My body knows before my mind says it.

Heart attack.

I fall backward and stare at the roof.

Then my phone rings.

I turn slowly.

My son.

His name flashing on the screen.

I remember.

I had promised him I’d speak to my boss.

Maybe get him a job.

Because college had to wait.

Because fees are expensive.

Because dreams now come with monthly deductions.

The phone keeps ringing.

I want to answer.

Tell him I tried.

Tell him I’m sorry.

Tell him not to blame himself.

Tell him not to vote for men who call suffering sacrifice from air-conditioned offices.

Tell him don’t sell his future for 500 bob and a campaign cap.

Tell him choose leaders like your life depends on it.

Because it does.

But my arm feels heavy.

My chest heavier.

The ringing gets softer.

And as the room slowly fades into darkness…i hear my wife shouting

" Run away from the Light!"

What light? i wonder as i fade away, all i see is darkness

As Chávez once said, “Once you educate the people, you cannot make them unlearn.” We have seen the future, and the future is ours. They think we don’t see. But we are faceless, and yet, we see.

Gods of Taita Taveta, let’s make it in our own image. Next Saturday, stay tuned for our next episode. We are now on Facebook @Alve Mwaregha.

For any queries or information, reach out to us at Voice of Taita Taveta @doctalve or email doctalve@gmail.com.

— Voice of Taita Taveta