The Cape Cod Bicycle War by Kahora Billy;

Author:Kahora, Billy; [Kahora, Billy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2020-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

WORLD PAWA

Jemimah Kariuki is becoming Chinese.

‘Charity begins at work,’ she says at every desk she stops at in her workplace, Domestic Revenue, ExtelComms Inspectorate. She licks her lips – a nervous habit from childhood – trying to recruit members. A few have promised to join the Chinese venture, Kianshi Multi-marketing, that she has just signed up as an agent for: Mama Kitu, the Domestic Revenue manager’s soon-to-retire secretary, who has a sausage and ‘Buru Buru free-range’ eggs business; Bob ‘just call me Bobby’ Onyango, who offers green card opportunities for a price, and who starts asking Jemimah whether she can hook him up with red cards to go to China – Bobby says he needs a new product and he sees potential in their working together; Assumpta from Engineering. Then there is Silas, the intern from Domestic Revenue, and Dennis Wafula from Wires and Cables, who needs something on the side to help him pay school fees for his twelve children.

‘The new Kenya is Dholuo and Gikuyu. Working together. Kenyatta na O.O. Oginga Odinga. Kenyatta Mboya – Okuyu meets Kisum City,’ Bobby says.

Many at the office who have bought green card promises from Bobby are yet to go to the States and are disappointed. Soon, the office’s informal marketplace can’t stop whispering about Jemimah’s new Chinese thing. Wires and Cables, who have shiba’d from the bribes they have gotten from stolen copper cables, start deriding it. Accounts starts looking for small ways to deduct her salary and clip her wings because of this latest sign of Jemimah’s irritating ambition. All the messengers want in but are unable to cough up the Ksh 500 they need to join the Chinese scheme.

This is how it works: Kianshi offers the best consumer products from China at very affordable prices based on flexible payment instalment plans; agents receive Chinese goods upfront based on how many members they can sign up. Jemimah is determined to be the number one Kianshi agent of all the twenty-five based in the city. She met the head of Kianshi Multi-Marketing in Kenya, Han So, five months ago and has since gained his confidence. Recently, Han So asked her to come up with a more identifiable Kenyan name for Kianshi. She was his choice for that select assignment among many other Kianshi hopefuls.

Later, at lunch, Jemimah stands in the queue with other junior clerks from her department, at Mama Jacinta’s. The kiosk has a smoky stillness and midday sunbeams bullet through the recycled wood walls. Once in a while, there is a large crack as the iron-sheet roof suddenly expands and contracts from the lunchtime sun and a cloud of hot githeri washes the interior. Bessie, Jemimah’s work best friend, is closest to her in the line for food. Bessie’s back is to the counter, so she does not notice she’s holding up the queue. Assumpta, tall and beautiful as always, stands in front of her. As she listens to Jemimah, three cheap suits from Accounts breeze past her, get their lunch, hungry eyes on Assumpta.

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