THE GHETTO PHILOSOPHY

 Poverty makes people jittery especially to the rich but to the poor, life in the ghetto makes its occupants ‘rich’ in their own bragging rights. Survival tactics. With all the tactics people have devised for a living, it has shaped the people character, giving birth to many a kind of breeds. I grew up in the hood characterized by prostitution, drug abuse, gambling and all the vices one may think about. I still wonder how I escaped all these. Its a mystery. Sample this social stratum from my hood.

Untapped talent

A breed of girls with beauty that doesn’t auger well with their brains. They maintain their beauty luster under the harsh slum condition and given the opportunity of growing in the leafy suburbs, be sure they will attract their fair share of admiring glances whenever they pass. Their curvaceous body set them apart from peers.

Untapped talents are party animals and clubbing is on top of their agenda, coupled with some few cash drawn from prostitution. Yes, these girls are the typical prostitute in the ghetto. Not their choice, they are victims of circumstances.

Wannabes

The sophisticated, handsome and elegant boys of the ghetto world. Clad in the latest fashion from proceeds acquire in illegal business of selling drugs, acting as assistant personnel. They spend every day gambling as part of making a living. They date the untapped talent (when not in prostitution) in a spellbound like relationship. The unwritten ghetto rule dims them as compatible.

Jenny Walker

Mothers to untapped talent, who were equally the replica of their daughters while growing up. Their synonym is derived from the habit of them sleeping around with every man who is perceived ‘loaded’ with cash. Her children each have different fathers (talk of a mother of all ‘nation’). Jenny Walker day’s occupation is that of a liquor seller a viable ground for hunting her target-loaded men. She will keep the man as long as there is constant flow of money. And lots of it per se.

Lone rangers

The brightest brains in the ghetto, always quite, reserved, and polite. In the hood, they stoically suffer their peers teasing while at the same time tolerating the bullies. Their self-esteem is completely dented that sometimes tends to affect the school performances. The lucky ones end up all the way to the university while the unfortunate drop out of school due to lack of fees. This always leads to depression and resort to drug use or an unorthodox way for survival including mugging.

Mama Boi

The typical housewives in the ghetto under the veil of ignorance. Barely out of their teens probably married after dropping out of school due to lack of school fees. Have the demeanor of being faithful and submissive. Carries pregnancy every year, literary breastfeeding while pregnant. The husband to Mama Boi is a typical ‘mjengo’ guy (menial worker) who works very hard to feed his unnecessary large family of many children. To supplement the husband’s income, this ‘young mothers’ possesses an entrepreneurial skill. Opening up small business of a grocery with bold inscription ‘MAMA BOYI KIOSK’.

The Divas

Mostly educated, beautiful and ambitious to match with the brains. Possess the independent tag and strive hard to live life on the first lane. Their dates? You are right; they date the rich man sons from the well-off neighborhood. This attributes of a go-getter have seen them branded as gold diggers while in reality they just want a class that will ensure they climb up the ladder.

Jobless Corner

They lazy around in a strategic place, with a cool shade, protecting them from the scorching sun. This becomes tunnel to gossip and wishful thinking. Jobless Corners are a bunch of gossipers who refuses to work but rather choose to beg from familiar faces. Puffing like chimneys, and drinking cheap liquor to stupor from the day’s collection of begging. A life of vagrancy and despondence is their middle name waiting patiently to inherit an inexistence wealth.

Young Rich

Heir to a family fortune, thus they become rich without even raising a finger. The family owns strings of business within and without the hood. They only needed a basic education to control the family fortune. Some married early while others chose to explore with different sizes and shapes the world offered. Partying is their way of life, unwinding from a busy week of business transaction. Known for being sufficiently philanthropic, supporting the local struggling football clubs financial and sponsoring the orphans through their education.

Empowered

Are defined by their zeal of working hard to achieve their set goals. Books! Ooh boy, they are learned fellas who act as role models to the Lone Rangers. Kind is their heart that enables them interacts with everyone. Girls in this bracket are what most men would say wife material type.

Looters

The looters are the typical school dropout due to their own volition even after much sacrifice from their parents. The opportunity was there but they chose not to school chasing over shot term pleasures. Spend their day gambling and at night turns to be muggers. They perfected the art of pick pocketing in case the mugging job dries up. Live by the mantra of getting rich quickly or slowly die pauper.

 

STUDENT LEADERS A TALE OF RAGS TO RICHES

The tale of campus politics is a case study in its own way as it revolves around a means to an end. It is a lucrative deal but a dangerous affair at the same time. Lucrative in the sense of, the money-minting tunnel, from the various business and tenders around college. The danger part comes in when student leaders brush shoulders with the administration the wrong way. A tough affair indeed as the notorious leaders may kiss their education goodbye.

A story is told, of a student leader in a university, in the North Rift part of Kenya who was feeding from hand to mouth during his days as a ‘normal’ comrade. He had no sense of fashion, kept a low profile, and made friends with not so cool people per the campus lingo. He even had a ‘village girlfriend’. And he had this itchy ambition of being part of the student governing body.

When he announced he wanted to contest for one of the dockets in the student leadership hierarchy, his move was applauded, and embraced by the majority student populace, who could identify with his social status. It meant great mobilization for votes and definitely a win in favor of their man.

The campus election body was satisfied that each candidate had meet the threshold and organized for an election. Comrades voted and the results were ready to for announcement after the tallying process. You have guessed right, the man was among the candidates elected for the big post. At the students’ center, his supporters of over 500 sang, chanted, and prayed celebrating the win. The candidate marshaled his supports for a mini rally in the wee hours of the morning, shortly after the results were announced. Probably to thank them for that elusive victory that he had attempted in the last election, which he lost miserably. He stood tall on a makeshift podium and began chanting the age-old incantation, comrade power! They responded in unison, with a hollow sound that slowly gained volume by sheer force of repetition.

 That victory had to call for a celebration.

“That morning after the celebration, that was the last interaction with ‘our man’ says John one of the comrade supporters. He promised us a part of the pie, once he joins the student leadership position.”

Details emerging, he had acquired power that made him so proud and arrogant. This made him secure the classy friends. Out goes, his fashion sense of a village farmer and in came the latest designer clothes in the market (the wardrobe had to change you know!). Ooh! and the village girlfriend? She was thrown into oblivion as there was need and pressure to acquire a more classy girl per se (or is it a digital woman?) to match up the new acquired status. There were claims his ‘village girl’ financed part of the campaign after she thoroughly convinced her parents how she urgently needed some emergency cash for an ‘academic trip’ (Oh boy!!!! the heartless  nature of men).

A typical lifestyle of a student leader in campus is that of luxury, living a high-end life that is fantasy to a normal comrade. They instantly become rich going by the string of business they own. They enjoy all the lucrative deals including the tendering process of various service offered to the student fraternity.

A vicious circle that raise its ugly head every academic year when elections, are held to choose a new body. Every new body reads from the same script-, “it’s our time to eat.” Nevertheless, that is what the perceived role models (politicians) have been doing since independence, the day’s politician. What do you expect of the seed? University student leadership, a tale of rags to riches and on the extreme cases it is rags to riches and back to rags.