adopted from; http://afyanet.wordpress.com/
It is now slightly more than a year after I made big move from the
country to the great city under the sun, Nairobi. It has been the
greatest year in my life in so far as learning new things is
corncerned. And this is why I have decided to write to my fellow
villagers in the city and share some experiences as well as explore
the various ways in which we can make money. In all, I wish to discuss four things.
The first is language. Fellow villagers, please note that there are
very many people in Nairobi who do not and will not understand that it
is not my fault that my ancestors decided to do away with the letter
‘L’ (though I do concur with them that there is no need to have two
letters that sound almost the same). The Nairobians also do not seem
to support the idea by my friend Omondi’s relatives that there was,
and still is, no point in calling fish, fish when you could just as
effectively communicate by shortening the name to ‘fis’. For this
reason, fellow villagers, let us learn to write (sms) more and talk
less. The saving both in money and embarrassments are bound to be
great if we do.
My second point is to do with vehicles, or in simple Nairobi language,
cars. I have learnt that anything on four and more wheels is either a
car or a mat (matatu) in this city. I have also learnt that people in
Nairobi will travel across town and pay good money to see cars (the
type of which we have been paying to travel in) paraded in what is
called the ’concours de elegance’. I now believe that a few of us,
fellow villagers, stand to make very good money in domestic tourism by organising for trips to Gatundu etal to see the old model Chevloret
pick-ups and Bedford trucks. We could also use these same vehicles to transport the urbanites there and charge a premium for this classic
travel.
Not surprisingly (to most from the village), my third point is to do
with food. I (and hopefully most of us) had, mainly through the mass
and popular media, heard of Pizza (pronounced as pitsa and not Bithaa) and Capuchinos(most probably misspelled). These had however remained foreign to (all of) us. But in my year in Nairobi, I have not only had the great honour to sample these foods but have also learnt that it is possible to pay a person who has most probably never tasted a food, to stand on a busy road advertising this same food. I am also still to find a joint that sells tea in a glass and king sized chapatis for ten bob each as they do back home. It would therefore be a great economic venture if any one of us villagers would set up such a joint.
The last thing that I wish to discuss for now is medicine. This is one
area where am proud to note that we villagers are way ahead of our
urbanite brethren. For one, we learnt quite early on that herbs like
Muarobaine (Fortious medicines) and Kieruma (Aloe Vera) can cure any disease (including suspected diseases). The Nairobite is only now catching on to this, interestingly the awakening is starting from the buses (particularly those destined to Kawangware, Rongai and
Kitengela). The ‘doctors’ in this buses however seem to have gone one better that the villagers and have discovered that provided you
package the same ‘thing’ in different packages, you can sell ‘it’ as a
painkiller, toothpaste, ‘dawa ya kuongeza nguvu (za kiume, kike na
hata kitoto), dewormer and even as a beverage. At this rate, the posh
hospitals (where they take your height and age, test your blood
pressure, sugar lever, heart rate e.t.c. regardless of whether you
went there as a patient, was escorting one or had just come to pick
your girlfriend) may either have to close down or start stocking these
super drugs.
With that my village mates, ret me finis and hask that you put your
khoments hapa chini.
Found this article very hilarious and i had to share it with you
guys!! check out more of this articles at http://afyanet.wordpress.com
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Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 05:03:15 -0700 [07:03:15 AM CDT]
From: KAMAU TIRUS
Subject: Dear Nairobi Villagers -A must read-