Date Posted: 2/19/2013 3:55:55 AM
Posted By: dmthuo Membership Level: Bronze Total Points: 45
The lunch break is a dilemma to many Nairobi residents as the hard economic times take their toll. Gone are the days when one could afford to take a friend out for lunch without much fuss. Today everyone is keeping the purse strings tight. Everyday more and more people are herded to the concentration camp of poverty where liberation is only by the contents of one’s wallet, pouch or purse. Sporadic fare hikes and increase in commodity prices have complicated the situation even more. Some people have resorted to walking to and from work. Lunch has become one of the casualties of financial adjustments that have to be made to make life in the city more bearable. Nairobi residents are determined to survive despite the harsh economic times. They have therefore devised ways of whiling away the lunch hour with or without food.Those who are busy with deadlines to beat bury their heads in the workload to shift attention from the rumbling emptiness of the stomach. In offices where there is less to do it is time to catch up with the news, or do some reading for the few among us who long to have a reading culture in the country. For others it is a good opportunity to catch a few winks of sleep on the desktop. When there are a few shillings to spare yet not enough to afford lunch in a hotel, a snack with a soda or a packet of milk from the shop downstairs fills the void of the lunch break.There are a few privileged workers who still enjoy the mid morning cup of tea at the expense of the employer. A snack sneaked into the office is a good accompaniment for the free drink and a safeguard against the mid-day torment of an empty stomach especially when delayed until close to lunchtime. Mongrels, stray cats and street families must be feeling the effects of the prevailing hard economic times. The supply of choice leftovers they used to enjoy from the dustbins in the backyard has dwindled. Instead of being thrown away, the leftovers are packed and carried to the office as the following day’s lunch. This may explain why some people mainly ladies carry an extra bag beside their eternal companion - the handbag with all its mysteries.Necessity really breeds invention. Some ambitious caterers have noticed that people are no longer going for lunch to their outlets, which is bad for their businesses. To keep their heads above water, they have decided to ambush their customers from the office hideouts. Just before dispersing to your excuse for not having lunch, a lady carrying a laden basket enters your office an award-winning smile splashed across her face like a beacon. This is after successfully eluding city council askaris who prey on her and extort bribes. The warning on the corridors prohibiting any form of hawking in the building does nothing to deter her mission. Once beside your desk, she proceeds to explain which special delicacy she has made today and how nutritious and cheap it is. She continues to put a display before your hungry eyes. The aroma of the food tantalizes you to the point of submission. Your earlier vow of avoiding lunch at all costs so as to rein in on expenditure is broken. Your situation will be complicated further if your colleagues have already bought the food. She will make indirect attacks on your ego by making faint indications you are the odd one out. If you are hard to catch she offers you credit. With things made look so rosy you decide to take a bowl so as to fit among the others. You console yourself that since you toil for the money alone you rightfully deserve an occasional treat.The lady will leave you on your meal and dashes to make her rounds in other offices where she has more clients. Later when she comes for her bowls and her money she presses for orders for the next day with the best charm and kindness. It is when she asks for her money that the reality of the status of your near empty pocket hits you like a punch. You look for excuses to postpone the settlement of your bill until later but none is convincing enough to dent her determination to get her money. You pay for the lunch silently vowing to ignore her tomorrow.Out on the streets ways of the lunch break abound. The all time favorite is window-shopping. Shopping malls and the proliferating exhibition stalls provide good cover for the broke city resident. You will see them walking into different shops with the airs of a millionaire and enquire about this or that item from the sales representatives who are eager to make a sale and boost their commissions. The ‘shopper’ will bargain like a serious buyer and even tests the goods on sale, but when close to concluding the deal he or she will find an excuse, like ‘I will come back later’ or ‘Let me go withdraw some money I seem not to have enough’ and gets out of the shop as fast as possible leaving behind disgruntled shop assistants. There are some cunning ones who do not want to embarrass themselves. They will keep the shop attendants at bay by saying ‘kuangalia tu’ which actually tells the shop assistants to keep off. In most of the cases the shopping is for items that your meager pay packet dreams to afford when it grows up. Then you swagger back into the office at the end of the break as if you were treated to lunch by a king.Almost on every street outside the central business district there are people selling fruits from handcarts. Various fruits are mixed in small bowls into what is popularly known as pudding. Beside this they sell an assortment of home blended juices. People from offices and even passersby stop by for a quick bite to quell the riot of hunger in their bellies. Due to the constant harassment by council employees on the streets this business is now taking refuge in the numerous exhibition stalls. Walking the streets outside the central business district area, you will encounter young men with bunches of ripe bananas precariously balanced on their arms offering a quick bite cheaply and conveniently.The men who used to roast maize on the pavements outside office blocks have not closed shop yet. They have only shifted base from the CBD where they were declared persona non grata by city fathers for allegedly making the streets dirty. Now you will find them in new locations away from the city centre. You will also notice that they have diversified into other edibles such as yams and sweet potatoes so as to keep up with competition. Being rare these tubers command a following.The ladies’ loyalty to the packet of chips has not wavered a bit. The proliferation of chips outlets in the city – except on Kirinyaga road – is an indication that the demand for this commodity will always be on the rise. Both ladies and men queue to consume the tasty snack without regard to medical concerns about the consumption of fatty foods. Ladies are concerned about maintaining their figures to the modeling shapes yet they can’t divorce the packet of chips.In the old section of the city are places where food is very cheap. Many people unable to afford the food in the modern food joints in the other sections of the city flock these places for lunch. Along Nairobi River are shacks which provide an alternative for the low-income earner. In this vicinity are women who cook food in the estates and ferry it in plastic buckets to the back streets where they sell it at amazingly low prices. There you find boiled maize, chapatti, ugali and githeri. The hygienic standard of this area are questionable but this does not seem to bother the thrifty and hungry patrons at all.As the body hungers so does the soul. Numerous places have come up in the city where those who hunger in the soul gather for replenishment. Sometimes those who are physically hungry but have no means of calming the pangs of hunger join the throng of worshipers to seek solace from the word of God. In these gatherings men and women of God
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