Nairobi residents are allergic to clean surroundings

Muthurwa market. If there was a trophy for those who care little about their environment, Nairobi residents would win it every week, nay every day, because nobody knows how to litter better than them.

Many years ago, I wrote that Nairobi is health risk and a tinderbox waiting to explode because of the haphazard ways in things are done. Several experts complained bitterly and said that I was giving Nairobi a bad name and that I did not paint the city in good light.

I fought the urge to respond that painting the city well, and even lighting it up was the job of the then City Council of Nairobi which I figured was light years behind in cleaning the city.

But I remembered that keeping the city clean is too important a task to be left to the authorities alone and residents too must do their bit and should not turn every open space, even fire escape routes, in to a garbage dump.

If there was a trophy for those who care little about their environment, Nairobi residents would win it every week, nay every day, because nobody knows how to litter better than them.

Truth be said, Nairobians are allergic to clean surroundings and dustbins annoy them to no end.

A Nairobian will walk majestically, with bin bags, to a place where a dustbin is, and instead of making use of the contraption, will dump the garbage next to it then walk away, whistling, and feeling satisfied.

Nairobians also hate drainage systems or sewer lines and they do everything within their power to ensure that they are clogged or blocked.

Free-flowing rain water or sewage cramp their style and they go to great lengths to ensure that any contraption meant for easy flow of water is blocked.

It is not easy to understand why Nairobi residents never make use of designated garbage dumping grounds and have to create several mounds in every open space, but I want to vouchsafe that social scientists will say that it is to do with their minds.

While Nairobi’s motorists have narrow minds but have to use wide roads, and needlessly cause traffic gridlocks because their narrow minds can only operate on narrow spaces, Nairobians dump garbage everywhere, and block everything because they do not have open minds.

Of course the authorities cannot escape blame because their employees are also Nairobians who have never understood why they should keep the city clean, but the residents should demand better.

There is a hitch though: They can only demand better (services) when they have the presence of mind, an open one of course, to take the first step in taking care of, and making use of the rundown facilities around them.

Nairobi residents never miss the opportunity to whine and rant when their residences are flooded during the rainy season.

They blame everyone and everything, more so plastic bags, but they are aware that the plastic bags do not carry themselves to their houses, and neither do they dump themselves on every open space before blocking drainage systems, sewer lines and storm drain pipes.

Ironically, Nairobians love and hate plastic bags. When they go shopping, they do not carry their own bags, and they love it more when supermarket attendants pack each item in its own plastic bag.

They feel happy when they walk out of the supermarket with several plastic bags even when the items they purchased could have easily fit in one.

As a matter of fact, they never tell the attendants to pack all their items in one bag because they always harbour this feeling that some of the goods they bought are toxic and deserve to be kept away from the rest.

Attendants understand the narrow and clogged minds of Nairobi shoppers, so, when one, for instance, buys cigarettes, condoms, chewing gum and a tub of peanut butter, the attendant puts each item in a small plastic bag, which he/she then dumps in a bigger plastic bag, and the shopper will be happy and will not remember that cigarettes are bad enough already, and condoms or gum or even peanut butter cannot make them more dangerous than they are.

These paper bags end up in the nearest sewer line or storm drain pipe and clog them, and when the rains come, the houses get flooded, and the unhappy Nairobian takes to the social media to rant and rave at the authorities without remembering that he/she played the biggest role in clogging the system.

All is not lost though. Nairobians can still unclog their minds before the rains come and stop throwing plastic bags all over.