Is it time for Kenyans in diaspora to return home?

We all know that aside from a few property investments hapa na pale, it is close to impossible to run anything from abroad by skype, whatsapp and telephone. Hata property if you are renting chances are you will be stolen from. Especially from relatives!

We have all heard the horror stories. Chap sends money from abroad after telephone convo with relatives who urge him to buy a plot and "invest back home." He does so faithfully, and perhaps the title deed even comes out. Then they ask him to send more to construct a maisonette. He sends faithfully each month (and we all know how "small money" abroad is big bucks hapa Kiinya.) They keep sending him picture updates. He does his research (perhaps on Wazoo property threads and online) to make sure his is getting good value for money as nobody likes to be swindled of hard earned money. And yes indeed he finds he is getting a better deal than he ever imagined. At last a year or three later, the house is complete! He is proud of his achievements and his faithful relatives who have been sending regular picture updates. At this point perhaps his "papers" (greencard, right of landing, leave to remain etc) have happily come through and he is finally able to travel home to inspect his property. He has done all the calculations and knows he can now rest easy as he is now finally part of the propertied classes in fast growing Kenya!


Wapi?

As soon as he arrives at JKIA wide eyed and full of optimisim and patriotism, perhaps wearing a Kenyan flag shirt or scarf, he realises something is amiss. The same relatives who had been sending him picture updates on whatsapp and had promised to give him a grand welcome home at JKIA, after his not being in Kenya for 10 years+, are nowhere to be seen. When he calls their phones zote ziko mteja!

He somehow manages to scramble to organise his own transport to the suburbs to inspect his new "house." When he arrives on the piece of land he receives the SHOCK of his life. The piece of land is as barren as the Sahara with not a scrap of stone or decra on it let alone a house. The relatives had all along been sending him picture updates of someone else's house while munching every cent of his hard earned money! The man collapses at this point. The relatives go "underground" for the duration of his holiday in Kiinya, then "reemerge" as soon as they hear he has safely boarded the plane back to Obodo-oyinbo as our Naija brodas say (Uzunguni).

Moral of the story. One really cannot get something done in a big way by staying majuu throughout. Ask some of us we know. Though we were not swindled like the man above, we realised that the big opportunities go to those on the ground. Nobady wants to die in a cramped nursing home abroad using a bedpan and being taken care of by a Haitian manoki. No matter how much money one makes abroad. Home is where we should all belong. Why make kaburu countries rich and more prosperous with your talents and expertise rather than come do the same for your fast growing country? Yes Kiinya has its issues..corruption, shidas etc etc but it is still home and diasporans should come help make it better. You may say remittances are also contributions - yes they are, a huge part in fact, but we all know 90% of remittances go to school fees and basics and not really into transformative investments.

My parting shot, rudini home! Opportunities galore. Standard of living is way higher for the same amount of money. Let me explain. Majuu food is crap and we all know it. You all miss the delicious organic food hapa. Majuu you will never have a househelp or a nanny, nor will you ever have loads of leisure time to jienjoy your family and life in general. Working shifts like crazy or corporate gigs that take 80 hrs of your week away is not a way to live for the rest of your life. Deep down (if you are not in denial) you know home is where you should be.

Ni hayo maoni yangu tu!

http://www.magicalkenya.com/

Hatukuji!

You got to see things from our perspective.

First: quite a few of us have no legal status and the further we stay from immigration the better.
Thanks to whatsapp we can see photos and clips of our shags.

For those who have it all and jobs, income... we are now used to functional societies, common sense and discipline.
We cross the streets when lights turn green, we do not jump the lights, we say excuse me and thanks...
Our kids study in schools where right is might, not might is right. Their grade is their grade if you get our drift.
The kids mainly born/ brought up here will not recognize your country.

We are not imprisoned by status and keeping up with joneses here. We do not flaunt the little we earn.
The smaller the car you have here, the more respected you are. Better still if you have none;
you ride bicycle to work; in front of the Prime Minister, next to cabinet minister and right behind the police chief.
The only siren you hear is from ambulance not from chase car of the fat egghead minister of roads who want to beat the traffic.


Yes we have been conned by relatives over there. Theirs was a cheap shot; they did not have plan B and they now cry to us like babies.
We moved on; now investing with institutions ran by honest people. Reits in Europe, Asia etc give us passive, honest and perpetual returns.

Of course we miss home. The food, idleness, where been fat is cherished and where you never have to reminded that you are black on daily basis.

To be fair: let us list for you the irreducible minimums for our consideration.

Designate an area for building a brand new, well outlined and planned city.
We have in mind somewhere near/ next to Tana River Delta.
The land must be sold to investors logically...with controlled and limited developments.
The city should have all trappings of a city: commuter, light rail, tube, bicycle lanes and should be friendly to pedestrians.

City streets should have 1 lane for gasoline vehicles for every 3 for electric cars.

The city inhabitants should be by invitation only.

You claim to be a technologically advancing country: can you please infest that city with robotic policemen like they have in places such as Dubai?

Make the city the global center for leisure. Tourism should start and end in that city. Therefore you need to train your service providers, hotel attendants
to treat black people like humans.

If you do the above: in 5 years we shall all come, with or without our children and we shall help Kenya curve its slice of global cake.
Forget your focus on manufacturing (you are 30 years too late) and the other big whatevers which will just add slums to the cities and groom the next lot of neo-dirty-money

In this world you exploit what you have: you cant beat china in making stuff, cant beat us (majuu) in mechanized agriculture, cant beat israelis in technology..
but you have what they all do not and crave for - beautiful country with wildlife, beaches, mountains, awesome weather...perpetual summer and dare I say...curves! make yourselves the world destination of leisure. If Dubai, a desert can do it...you too can.

Check in with us when the basics of above are in place.

Or leave us alone to develop majuu for our children and their children.

Its quite difficult for people huko majuu to return to Kenya, the truth is every minute spent majuu pulls you back miles behind your counterparts you left in Kenya. If you are majuu and well off economically, its coz you put off starting a family. If you start a family, then you end up with zero savings that will not allow you to relocate to Kenya. The other big challenge is career growth, many majuu don't have decent jobs, infact I can bet 80% of people in diaspora (esp. US) lack transferable skills that they can bring to Kenya, so again relocation back is a no..no.. So as @Conquetador puts it, hawarudii.

Unfortunately, its similar to the way many shags people migrate to Nairobi, get dead end jobs, live in slums and decide that cannot go back home.

I have experienced life in Kenya and majuu so I know what I am talking about