Where beggars dress like royalty

By SOPHIA BARAKA

Everyone in Obama-land is smart and plump or slim and healthy. With only a few exceptions here and there, like a tick stuck behind the ears of a sickly cow, it is hard to tell the difference between the rich and the poor on the streets.

Beggars and homeless individuals look as smart as anyone who has a good job. Perhaps the only difference is that they do not drive cars, except for those who have no homes and live in their cars. But I would categorise that lot as the homeless car people, a story for another day.

 This spirit that makes beggars and homeless people hard to detect or isolate from the rest of the crowd is called “America Smart”.  Americans donate some of their most beautiful clothes to the poor. There are empty bins on every street where one can dump all the extra baggage in their wardrobes from clothes, underwear, bras, shorts, trousers, stocks, shoes, bedding, suitcases, beers and sodas, soaps, perfumes, socks, blankets to toys.

Celebrities like First Lady Michelle Obama, President Barack Obama, the Bushes, the Clintons, Winfrey Oprah, Celine Dion, Lady Gaga, Whoopi Goldberg, T D Jakes and many others donate some of these clothes. Ordinary families donate, too. America Smart encourages one not to keep or hoard items that they no longer need and share it out with the rest of the community. One can also give away something they love and need.

The spirit instructs that when one gives, one receives — for what you give out to the world is what the world returns to you. Some beggars wear rather expensive designer clothes, shoes and handbags that cost Sh850,000. This is because most celebrities wear their clothes only once in a lifetime.

 Clothes aside, the Obama-land system offers food stamps. One can use these to pick up cold meals from particular stores. Some churches also turn their halls into dining halls during the week. They serve delicious hot meals like hamburgers, hot dogs, sausage rolls, kebabs, cheese steaks with lots of cheese, cold juice with ice, water, cookies and bread as they dish out clothes and rice, chicken, toiletries, takeaway toothbrush and toothpaste.

I am ashamed to say that I have always taken advantage of America Smart even when I did not need it. I have not bought any clothes for the last five years. I eat on food stamps even when I have a job. The only reason I buy food is because they do not serve my favourite dish for free anywhere — wet fry frog meat.