People of Ol-Kalao say: It's our turn to eat, but don't think with bellies

Residents of Ol Kalou town receive goodies donated by the government ahead of the July 16 by-election in Ol Kalou constituency.[James Munyeki, Standard]

News from Ol-Kalou, the remote hamlet in Nyandarua County where a by-election is in the offing, reflect a radical and radiant disruption of social order. It’s campaign season, following the death of former MP David Kiaraho. Cows are not being milked because the farmhands are busy counting the shillings and cents received for standing in political gatherings and waving cheerfully.

And fields that require tilling are overrun with weed because workers prefer bedlam in the townships to the solitude of the farms, engaging in backbreaking toil. And the pay is better.

Owners of small eateries that dot the township are using clean, renewable gas to cook, offered for free by the government. “Tumekula kukula,” one woman told a local TV, implying she had eaten her fill. “I wish for this campaign to go on for the whole year.”

It used to be called the “stampede,” when hordes of men and women migrated from one campaign rally to another. But now the roles have changed: Virtually all government offices have migrated to Ol-Kalou, meeting people at their point of need.

Their many needs have been catered for, as “caring” politicians supply foodstuffs for the hungry, mattresses for those who have been sleeping rough; even elderly women who probably never wore shoes all their lives were supplied some. Turns out most shoes were outsized, so the old damsels walked barefoot clutching their new shoes.

For the youths in rallies, a “facilitation” fee was due. In regular lingo, that’s called crowd renting, and the going price for the season is Sh500 to Sh1,000 per head. All one needs to do to qualify is wear the colours affiliated with different political formations.

At macro level, a university has been inaugurated, at least on paper, and that’s how all academies begin, and boats have been deployed to a local dam. It’s unclear how they will be used, though it’s probably in anticipation of El-Nino flooding. They’ll boat people to safety. And a new Affordable Housing scheme will shelter the homeless.

It is unclear why these goodies were not availed earlier to those in need. All government bureaucrats interviewed said their “field visits” were part of a long-term plans to engage with the citizens.

They swore by the gods of Murima that the new projects should not be mistaken for inducements to sway the electorate in next week’s by-election.

I have no reason to doubt the government. In fact, I suspect it’s only a matter of time before Prezzo Bill Ruto announces that a State Lodge will be built in Ol-Kalou to ensure he can access the community easily in his “development” forays. This time, he will not require to construct an airport as all roads in the locality will be paved.

There are various inferences to make of the Ol-Kalou by-election campaigns, the most obvious being that locals can distinguish between kura (voting) and kula (eating). Obviously, people don’t think using their bellies, they use their heads.

Which makes the idea of the government’s activities being viewed by locals as “opening a kiosk” where free meals abound, is quite interesting.

It’s not so much the food that would draw people in, even though the jingle of shillings in the pocket would help one access a cuppa, but the kiosk is a site where social communion is possible.

Think of our food kiosk as an equivalent of Theatre of Dionysus in ancient Greece, where philosophers and playwrights and citizens clashed over ideas. So, those who converge in food kiosks in Ol-Kalou would be having their minds nourished, as are their bellies.

Many would be asking if their benefactors think “eating” once, would mean they would never have to eat again. More immediately, they’d be thinking where their next meals will come from, and why those going to polls think so lowly of them, as though they use their bellies, not their heads, to think.