Mantalk: Let’s face it, Kenya: We are a drinking nation

Kenya sit down. We need to talk. Aiii. Surely, we cannot be drinking every day. You know what I’m talking about. You’d be surprised at the number of functioning alcoholics we harbour as a nation. Speaking of, do me a favour please, put that drink down. Thank you.

First things first: congratulations on electing your new leaders. Lakini I’m not kidding: where I am right now, people stocked more on alcohol than food. Everyone who is anyone is calling me for drinks (not that I am complaining). Comrades, when did we become the official drinking nation? We are too happy for a sad country. Is this what makes our hearts sing? 

I’m not one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse nor am I a woke wastrel but, I’m worried. With pombe, we do not seem to care where the bar is, only whether anyone can pass it. And because we are living in the puritanical age, alcohol is considered a vice. A widely accepted vice nonetheless. “Kila mtu ako na pombe?” 

Like fire, (and gossip, and prostitution), alcohol is the one thing our primate granddaddies and mummies have been engaging with for eons. The first time I had a beer was in 2007. I was in class 7. My uncle made me sip some, and it tasted like burning isopropyl—the devil’s piss(Children’s department please do not come after my uncle. I have since forgiven him). I spit it out because I wondered how could an adult of sound mind drink that. 25 years later, I understand how an adult of sound mind can drink that. Uncle Jim, look who’s the connoisseur now?

There is too much blood in our alcohol. How did we get here? Just go around...you won’t miss someone who wants to buy you a round. You know them, affable young men of foul mouth, wild hair, and wanker-mag reading habits. The ones who you call Kiongos! Chairman! Mhesh! I remember some time back I was invited to a funeral (problematic wording, I know). Later on, we had to pass by the bar to “see off” the departed. It is what he would have wanted, my host graciously told me. We poured something small on the ground for the ancestors, for the culture. We left the local in the wee hours of dawn, inebriated and hand-in-hand like Jesus and Judas when each knew the other’s secret.

If you ask me, I don’t think we know what to do as a country with our leisure time. We don’t have any social activities. My generation is famously known to despise exercise in the guise of ‘nobody-is-making-it-out-alive.’ Any idle time we get the first thing we reach for is the bottle. When it comes to the bar, we know how to set it. It’s as if it’s illegal to be Kenyan and sober at the same time. Is it?

Oh, and there’s something for everyone. Wine for the faux-sophistiquée, beers for the watuz, vodka for the novices and cocktails for the ‘I-want-to-drink-but-si-sana-because-I-have-church-kesho.’ There is even the eye-roll–inducing fragile masculinity fancy-umbrellas mojitos. See? Connoisseur.

I am convinced Cana or Galilee or wherever the saviour claims he was turning water into wine was not in those places but hapa Ndumberi. The Messiah was a Kenyan because why was his first miracle that of making wine? I mean, he is the Son of God and all he could think about was “Gee, let me turn this Dundori water to wine?”

Wines and spirits have shot up (hehe) like a Mafia connection. They are now competing pound-for-pound with churches. Messiah, see what you caused?

Kenyans make friendships on the virtue of alcohol. Our emotional turmoil, which is buried deep beneath alcoholism and puff daddy leather jackets and shirts hanging out like the tongue of a thirsty spaniel—is only as strong as the drink on the table. I know of young men who have a kindred relationship with their Mama Pima than their baby mama. Here, you will find Mama Pima serving cheap alcohol in all its various forms: chang’aa, busaa, keroro, gauge.

I’ve seen members of my larger family struggle with alcohol. I know the weight of a bottle. I’ve grown up in its shadow. I’ve seen people close to me who straddle the gossamer fine between teetotaller and habitual blackout drunk.

Small Story

God knows I have made my share of mistakes with alcohol. I got a tattoo I didn’t need (or want). But sometimes finding your limits requires you to go past them. Through trial and error, the opinion polls have it that I am happier with a little alcohol (so long as it is not zero because haha!) 

I think every man deserves that one time in their life when life hands them a proper ass-smacking (ideas: job loss, heartbreak, dating a “cat parent”) where they get piss drunk till they say things that will haunt them for the rest of the life. The problem is, for some men, this is every day.

However, I understand. For us young men where does one turn to? There are hardly any jobs to write home about. The cost of living is so high it has its own cost of living. The — yes-I-am-about-to-say-it — ladies are getting empowered and rather than become stronger, we want them cut down to size. It’s a lose-lose-lose situation. And so, we turn to the bar, for that temporary relief, that sudden high with sharp lows, when we can bury our problems deep within the crevices of our heart and not even a cardiologist could poke them.

One thing I love about this country though is that we are under no illusion that we are under any illusions. We know ourselves. Here’s the rule of thumb; if you like the taste of alcohol, you’re starting to have a serious problem.

What is it that good ol’ geezer Clay Muganda likes to say? ‘I’ve been sober for a few years which calls for a drink?’ Yeah! Like a church without God, Kenya without a bar is an urban illusion. And that naturally leads me to this itch I can’t scratch: Do we drink because we are Kenyans or are we Kenyans because we drink?

[email protected] @eddyashioya