The holiday season is here. Despite the relentless threat of the ongoing pandemic, please enjoy yourselves as you richly deserve it.
December brings nostalgia to many, reminiscing over a past that inevitably looks better by effluxion into the mists of times gone. The melancholy is well founded because the quality of life then was just superior.
I grew up in the wide countryside spaces where doors had no locks because serious crimes were rare. I miss the serene bygone era and rue the crime-ridden life of today. Machetes and dogs in those days were to scare off a stray wild animal from feasting on livestock.
In contrast, judges now feel Kenya is so dangerous they have to order that one rich citizen should be armed with so many guns of such a high calibre that may not scare off US Navy Seals but would certainly give the Taliban second thoughts about picking a quarrel with him.
For the rest of us ordinary Kenyans who do not have guns, we have to wallow in insecurity and hope God protects us.
Christmas in the past was as authentic as in fairy tales. It began weeks in advance as our mothers, aunts and neighbours sourced ingredients for the once in a year ‘feast of feasts’. Millet was brought out of granaries and crushed on grinding stones to make the flour for traditional brews. Special dresses and shirts were washed and pressed for the big day.
Church choirs put in the practice for enthralling songs. Soon, relatives in the cities descended on the village with their ‘airs’ and ‘sheng’ that lasted a few days before the sneering at their 'funny’ speech made the accent disappear like magic as they reverted to the proper ‘r’ and ‘kh’ drawls the Luhya language shares with French.
Christmas was a day of unending fun, from prolonged church services followed by meals with friends in each other’s homes feasting on chapati, fried rice, smoked beef, chicken stew, local vegetables simmered in milk, as well as cake baked in a traditional oven. For a fleeting day, these meals displaced the ubiquitous ugali.
Christmas wrapped up with raucous dance parties by teenagers, the constant din of music dominating evenings. Men siphoned their brew late into the night. Children listened to aunties and mums telling stories and played games of all manner under the watchful moon, twinkling stars and blazing fireflies.
Nobody lacked food in the village as it was a tradition to turn to neighbours for assistance, whether it was the labour to till farms, the men’s muscles to forge clay for house walls, and the women’s hands to create smooth cattle dung paste to plaster walls. Children ate anywhere they happened to be when a meal was served. Parents did not worry about the safety of children because people were honest, and the community collectively cared for children.
This social safety net based on self-help and communal unity meant nobody was so poor as to lack basic needs. Economists, who measure monetary consumption or expenditure to determine the welfare of people, called these village people enjoying their Christmas poor because their doctorates did not equip them with skills to measure the happiness on their faces, and the love in their hearts.
These tranquil village people, content with what they had, were in reality rich people. A deeper analysis would find the villagers were well nourished, were as fit as a fiddle, had adequate farm produce, brimmed with happiness, loved their neighbours, and gladly slaked the thirst of strangers.
So this Christmas, try and recreate a bit of that happiness and charity we all know is within us, by doing some good for the less fortunate.
The immense social capital of the villages of the past anchored the prosperity of people. Government services such as healthcare then were much better, largely free and delivered at a lower per capita cost because there was less stealing of national resources.
The community unity, self-help and better government services are all unravelling dramatically. Kenya now has real poverty because people depend on individual means, rather than the social cohesion that hitherto secured them. When shocks such as illness, disability, unemployment, old age and death strike today, many people are on their own, even when they have millions of social media admirers.
The real community that enveloped and protected people is gone. For this reason, the proposal by the former Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, to enhance social protection against such shocks through government social assistance for the needy, and establish robust schemes for health, maternity, disability, unemployment and retirement safety nets is vital to ensure all Kenyans prosper.
This holiday, travel safely, mind other road users and come together with family and friends to enjoy without contributing to the unacceptable fatalities and disabilities that arise from road accidents in Kenya. Most Kenyans do not have health insurance.
There were only about 10 million principal members of the National Hospital Insurance Fund by March 2021, a figure that has stagnated in the last two years, due in part to increased work layoffs and reduced voluntary contributions as businesses collapsed.
The cumulative NHIF members and their dependants constitute about 23 million people leaving a majority uncovered. Healthcare is very expensive and catastrophically drives many Kenyans into penury every time a loved one falls ill or is disabled.
County and national hospitals provide basic services, often sending patients to private specialists, laboratories and pharmacies for further treatment at a hefty cost out of their own pockets. It is imperative that healthcare reforms are instituted urgently.
These reforms should include free healthcare funded by the government for predetermined essential diagnostics and treatments, improved working conditions for healthcare staff, and expanded contributory health insurance for formal and informal workers, as well as social insurance paid for by the state for indigent people.
Caring for others is a longstanding tradition, although modernity is weakening the foundation of community cohesion upon which it is founded. Let us not disregard the welfare of others like the corrupt politicians who are very wealthy but cannot stop stealing from the people, imperilling sick children, pregnant women, accident victims, starving people and many others who lack public services because resources have been pilfered.
Kenyans should reject these politicians giving handouts from the money stolen from them because the corrupt will seek to recover these by even bigger heists from national coffers once they get the offices they covet. Ensuring corrupt politicians are not elected is the best gift you can give yourself and bequeath to posterity.
Let us all be compassionate, protect children, and care for those who are unfortunate this holiday season. Let us have a good time, reanimate honesty, nurture love and give ourselves the bright future we all deserve. I wish you all a joyous Christmas, and a prosperous New Year.
Policy analyst based in Geneva, Switzerland. These are his personal views. @sisulet
