A ‘Christmas fundraiser’ with a mkora called Tommy Chura
What you need to know:
- Meanwhile, Tommy Chura had set up the emergency WhatsApp group ‘Save Safara from Suffering,’ with himself as the Admin – and parachuted 1,003 people from all my WhatsApp groups – friends, former colleagues, a few relatives, cronies from EPL football groups – into the group, to save my life.
- I had chosen Hiatal Hernia as the condition I was suffering from – as it sounded both serious and mysterious enough, but also anal like leprosy, to discourage visits from the well-meaning.
By Mike Safara
As a hustler, when you find yourself at the end of your rope, you are likely to hold onto any straw to avoid sinking at sea.
It was almost Christmas, but I could already see Njaanuary lurking around the corner like a mugger waiting to ambush one at night.
Neo's fees to pay, rent, and Lora had made it crystal clear that if I wanted to spend Christmas with my son, it would have to be at their ushago where they always had a gigantic family reunion at their parents' place – with all her many loud siblings, two of them winter bunnies from the USA, nieces and nephews, aunties and uncles, in-laws and lots of dead goats and muratina as they kept up a three- day family party.
"Kuja na shopping ya mathe, and be ready to also buy a goat or two like other normal people to compensate fathe for his animals ..."
The way I saw it, sometimes, it seemed like the sly old man, now in his mid-60s, used X-Mass as a way to 'auction' his goats to us at prices far higher than the market rate, so we were actually paying for his Christmas feast. A real hustler, that father of my ex.
"Did you even tell your people that you left me, Lora?" I asked her, suddenly recalling her folks were staunch Catholics who abhorred divorce.
"Do you want to spend Christmas with your son, or not, Safara?" she said sharply. "And keep that story under wraps, chini ya maji? I don't want you ruining Xmas for fathe and mathe with your Book of Lamentations and Revelations."
I opened my mouth to ask her how long she planned to keep up this marriage charade, but closed it again like a fish. Xmas with Neo was at stake here!
After I hang up, I found myself scrolling through my phone.
As a former marketer, I had trained myself to save phone numbers, hundreds of contacts, most of which I would never dial in my life.
‘Tommy Chura.’ The odd name rang a bell! We used to accidentally meet at a kibandaski when we both worked in the Industrial Area, me for the cheap muhindi fertiliser sales company, him for some company that dealt in hospital equipment – not sophisticated stuff. Face masks, drips, gloves and gowns, simple things.
And Tommy Chura had been fired for stealing this stuff from the store, and selling it cheap directly to clinics, dispensaries, and hospitals.
‘Tommy,’ I said, when he answered the phone, ‘It is Mike Safara.’
‘Ha ha,’ he laughed. ‘Yule msee wa manure wa Inda. Niaje, bro?’
‘Do you still have those drips and face masks and gobbledygook?’
‘Naona rusungu yako bado iko juu, mkuu wa manure. Ndio. Ziko.’
Within three hours, in the bed of my bedroom, I was rigged up to a drip, and face mask, and other impressive things, looking like HDU-man.
Which was the whole idea!
Meanwhile, Tommy Chura had set up the emergency WhatsApp group ‘Save Safara from Suffering,’ with himself as the Admin – and parachuted 1,003 people from all my WhatsApp groups – friends, former colleagues, a few relatives, cronies from EPL football groups – into the group, to save my life.
I had chosen Hiatal Hernia as the condition I was suffering from – as it sounded both serious and mysterious enough, but also anal like leprosy, to discourage visits from the well-meaning.
Not that many folks would wish to visit me – with word out there of my jobless status, I was now a pariah, and I was hoping for the guilt of not wanting to call or visit the ‘sick Safara’ (impressive camera pics, Chura took) would inspire my ‘friends’ to open their wallets, and send Mpesa in lieu of an uncomfortable personal visit. You would be surprised how stingy Kenyans are, even when the spirit of Christmas is in the air.
If it’s a hospital bill, they are scared that if they give once, you will be on their case as your medical bill mounts. But if you are dead, then the money will flow like a flood for your final sendoff, as you cannot die twice!
To kill the time as we waited for the Mpesas, Tommy, who really did look like a frog with his stout frame and big mouth and bulging eyes beat stories. Mostly about his many love conquests.
The way he got out of breath just moving his toad-like girth about in the room, I could have bet my rent he was a Two Minute Man at best. One minute more of ‘bed-minton’ and he would be dead as a dodo in whatever lojo he took his lovely ladies to.
Chura did save the day, at the end of the day, with his brilliant idea to ask everyone for just a hundred bob for my immediate ‘life saving surgery’. In no time, we had raised Sh44,340, and I was over the moon. If I was an honest man when I was employed, the hustle for survival has finally turned me into a fraud.
As I gave Tommy Sh20,000 at his croaking insistence, although originally it was to be a third of whatever we netted (so he should have taken Sh14,780 only), I thought of my little lad, Neo. Would he be proud of the conman I now was? True, times were hard and the government clueless on how to get citizens out of their economic mess, but did it justify this kind of skulduggery on Safara's part?
I resolved, then and there, that the next hustle I would pull after Christmas would be something real and legitimate. Something I could take honest pride in, for myself, and my boy.
