The evolution of smoking in Kenya

By Ted Malanda | 7yrs ago | 3 min read

Young people coming of age in an era where stuffy smoking zones, always tucked near the toilet, separate social misfits from society would never believe that smoking was once cool.

In days gone by, a man with a cigarette dangling from his lips in a movie always shot all the bad guys and walked away with the prettiest girl. These days, the man who lights up in a movie never gets the girl and always gets shot by the good guys!

As crazy as it sounds, people used to smoke in buses in this country. In fact, the only rule was that smokers were requested to sit near the bus windows in case a baby was aboard. For the longest time, aeroplanes had smoking sections where one could puff like a chimney.

Then, cigarette packets made no mention of cancer, impotence, gum disease or miscarriages and deformed children. Instead, they spotted young, socially upward and beautiful couples looking gregarious in beautiful settings: at game lodges, beach hotels or standing next to big cars and always laughing and brimming with happiness.

That was the period when senior politicians were photographed smoking. For others, like former Vice President Moody Awori, smoking a pipe was a signature symbol, a mark of leadership and class. Today, it would be unthinkable for a head of state to be seen holding a lit cigarette.

Not that smokers were popular before that. In my grandfather’s time, when he visited the homes of people who had ‘flown’, that is to say people who were so saved that they were already in heaven, the tukutendereza brigade always singed his seat with flames to remove saitan. Visitors who lit up in people’s homes were hated but no one had the guts to tell them off.

Secret smokers

Smokers also had a bad reputation. It wasn’t said loudly, but the habit was associated with conmen, petty thieves, liars and lazy, irresponsible and unreliable vagabonds who preferred sunning themselves like lizards and spinning mostly false wild tales to working. Girls from good families were advised to shun smokers like the devil. Many are the young men who courted teachers’ and pastor’s daughters without letting on that they were smokers. They would smoke in secret for years, till three years into the marriage when they got caught hiding behind a granary with the sinful thing in their fingers.

And then the smokers’ world came tumbling down. They banned it in public transport vehicles, in hospitals (yes, patients once used to puff away in hospital!), airplanes, offices and streets. Heck, they banned it everywhere.

But this smoking thing therefore explains several things about Kenyans. First, although the ‘democratic space’ for smokers has dwindled, people smoke more today because the economy is bigger, there is more cash to burn and we have become greedier. While my grandfather could puff when and wherever he wished, he barely smoked more than four sticks in a day because he couldn’t afford it. He took a few puffs, nyongad the stick and stuffed it in his coat pocket. The darn thing stunk to the heavens but I doubt anyone had the guts to bring that small matter to his attention.

The second thing about smoking is that illustrates how much women are liberated today. In my grandfather’s time, only old women smoked, and with the burning end of the stick in their mouths. They smoked while seated, in the homes. You wouldn’t catch an old lady puffing away at the market. When I was in college in the early 1990s, it was virtually impossible to see a girl puffing on campus. They hid in the toilet.

That young women, some barely 20 years old, smoke openly, ‘like men’, shows how empowered the girl child is!

The last thing about smoking is that it illustrates how lazy and idle we have become. In my grandfather’s time, a man was too busy working to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. But our generation, which spends a whole day lounging on the sofa flipping through TV channels or watching pirated movies, has all the time to burn lungs. That is why the old man died of old age, in spite of smoking and drinking daily for over 60 years.

Ironically, whereas we are more health-conscious today and have access to better health facilities.