Yesterday at 10pm there laid a man in a death position at
Ken-Com. People who were late to their destinations were hurrying in different
thoughts. Three policemen stood beside the man in a critical position. What
came to my mind is that he is a robber and that is his end. If you become a
liability to the world, the world will do away with you.
The man had not been shot. He must have convulsed or a
similar happening. There wasn’t a ready bus and so when I took a turn, I gained
courage to see the man. I could have gone too. He was turning his head slowly
sideways on the cold pathway. The police walked away grudgingly knowing that it
is top of their responsibility to contact any help.
If you fainted in Nairobi, it will depend on a number of
things for you to access care. Nairobi is a busy town, full of motorists and
John Walkers. Ladies knock your stomach sideways as men use their muscles to
hit you pretty hard. When I was a young boy, walking ahead while looking
sideways, I bumped into a man that slapped me squarely on the cheek. I was alone.
I doubt if he would be prosecuted or bitten by my dad if he saw him- or whether
he would beat us both. In the city under the sun, humans walk like robots.
Depending on your attire, people will recognize the kind of
person you are. If they help, you may say a good ‘Thank You’. In the city, the
elites and semi-elites put on suits, business people do a casual expensive wear
of loafers and Mr. Price Jeans. Their T-shirts have expensive choreographs. They
carry big phones. Cheap ladies struggle to show their fronts and hinds in tight
outfits. Bachelors and hustlers are in simple open rubber shoes, old jeans a
second-hand T-shirt and a bag on the back. The urchins and related families
walk aimlessly around doing simple luggage carrying tasks and surrounding any
funny activity like of a conning magician.
Before-I-help-you-I-should-know-who-you-are is the silent
talk in the diverse no-friend no-relative capital. We live funnily. We sound
strangers every time to even the best of our friends. We do not meet to talk
for the sake of talking. We meet to spearhead goals. So, when you faint in
Nairobi, in fright, the ones near you will run away and stop two legs ahead to
look as the seizures work on you. Your wallet and phones will be aimed at
first- to steal or save them for you. Mostly to steal. The city is full of
semi-skilled people and only a few who seem not to be busy may get concerned.
We are very suspicious in the town. I will bump into a lost
child who starts to explain where her home is and before I take him to a police
station, I will be charged with child trafficking. If I stood near a shop
holding my phone, maybe waiting for a friend, I will be asked to step aside,
far into the sun and wait from there for I am not trusted. A poem I wrote
sometimes ago says how I was sent away from a neighbouring court where I had gone
to read a novel from an open field. The place is just no one’s loving home.
The way we treat others is what we least expect from them
sometimes. I have walked from many needy people on the road and questioned self
what if it was me. I have not shown a good example. Secondly, I have no
resources to help. When it comes to outsourcing, for instance calling for
medical attention, I am confidently sure Nairobi will hit that mark in future.
Not now. The authority to assert help for a person is out of reach. What if he goes
to the hospital and doesn’t get attention because he is but a street urchin?
Do not faint on the streets dear one. Keep your seizures and
stress under control. This is a world where having a disadvantage is a definite
guarantee to embarrassment and you can’t access some resources. You will enter
a matatu bus whose people do not speak up when the thing fills to maximum. Day
by day we continue to be less of humans and even minding less about ourselves.
For If you faint on the streets of Nairobi you might die
there. The people do not know you just as they do not know themselves.
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| Picture source: www.dailymail.co.uk. A man walks past a lifeless body in Liberia. Opposite is an ongoing bussiness. |
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