Information technology is the fastest growing sector in Kenya. It is not only creating jobs but also churning out young millionaires like confetti.
But 40 years ago, the place to be was the posho mill sector. Anyone who owned one of those rattling contraptions became a tycoon and went ahead to invest in plots, farms and the first village motorcar.
It’s only at the posho mill that one could seek jobs in the village. And as the mill grew and spawned more business offshoots, so did opportunities for employment.
Employment aside, one key role of the posho mill was that it was an IT hub.
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Working in close collaboration with the water spring, it is at these two places that information was gathered and spread by women, through men.
Gossip
I know men pretend that gossip is beneath them, but when they mumble to each for hours at drinking dens, who do you think is the source of that information if not their wives?
But the ubiquitous posho mill was not just about employment and information gathering.
Unknown to fathers of the time, to a generation of village boys, the posho mill was what Kenya Cinema was, or what Facebook and Twitter is to city youth — a place they met and mingled with members of the opposite sex.
Sorry, I got that wrong. There wasn’t any mingling.
The boys leaned on the pillars and pretended not to stare at the girls who pretended not to notice or care.
It was a very strange way of courtship, where you secretly transmitted your feelings by telepathy. That is why when the girl invariably eloped with a guy who owned only the clothes on his back, everyone went, “Haiya! You mean she was playing with that boy?”
These days, your daughter rushes to the kiosk, buys a packet of maize flour, rushes back home and locks herself in the bedroom.
Mobile phone
When the rest of the world is asleep, her heart beats wildly because she is chatting with her boyfriend on Twitter, WhatsApp or Facebook, on her mobile phone — the new employer and social and information hub.
But they differ. In the posho mill days, you bought the girl you loved a handkerchief or a piece of sugarcane and she eloped with you.
Now, you buy her a cool phone, send her airtime and then she elopes with a guy she met on the Internet. Nkt!
