Here is a story of love and crime ...
Jon as he was named by his single mother had just finished his secondary education. He was now facing the reality of being out there. Taking care of yourself as his mother was very keen on keeping a promise of not supporting Jon after his schooling to somewhat give him freedom. So now he has to sort out his phone bills, cloths and only the rent and food is what his mum is offering to him.
But there is a truce as the mother said if he failed his exams she will kick him out, she is fed up of taking care of grown up men. Jon's father was no different no wonder they separated, he wanted to be taken care of.
Good news is that if he passes his exams his mum has promised not to kick Jon out and he retains his privileges of shelter and food. Jon is pretty much finger crossed as he surely knows failing the exam is a likely reality. He would rather the world ends before the results are out.
He never wants to see the fury in his mother's eyes when she learns that her son just wasted four years worth of school fees that would have been put to better use. Like for example his mother buying her favorite junk, pizza with extra onions that makes even the driest mouths to salivate. Those
are her desires and chocolates too. Oh! She loves those, her yellowish set of molars are a testament to that addiction.
She also struggles with the holy herb and all if she could just save what she spends on rolls of weed she would be on a Forbes most VIP list. But what she goes through as a single mum on a low wage in this scorching economy only God has the right to judge her. She has really tried putting a son through school actually she is the only one who's son has seen and been to a
secondary school exam room.
Welcome to Mathare, the so called slum. But without it the economy would have drowned. So it plays a huge role in national development, more than the leafy suburbs do. That is why such places never develop according to me though,it is a conspiracy to fund the government. Apparently I find
that in low end settlements tax is higher than in the opposite places. Take for example an open market attendant pays daily fees where else the on the other side they pay only annually.
Anyway Jon and his mum live here. All mothers from this part of Kenya always depend on the their sons to rescue them to the high life of meals that have courses rather than nutrients. So Jon being in a tight spot has to survive or hustle as it is known in the ghetto. He goes about researching and
finds that environment related businesses are hot cakes for the youth. Self help groups sprouting from every corner everyday to get the grant funds' share.
With drugs being the in thing in Jon's neighborhood almost all the self help groups have closed shop due to corruption allegations and members wasting their fund on drugs. Some childhood friends of Jon had the only functioning group and garbage collection outfit. They do not do the collecting in the hood, as there is no profit in that.
The model is to serve the leafy suburbs like Muthaiga, and they dump the wastes back to the ghetto. One man's garbage is another's fortune so is a win win situation kind of mutual benefit.
They apparently were scouting to get Jon to join them, but he was always busy studying. During school holidays his mother would lock him up in the house for him to finally get bored and study and that helped him not get hooked to drugs. And he also had a mentality that he was not that low and cheap to join a garbage collecting outfit. He kind of was influenced by the books and saw himself at a higher status but reality hit him hard after finishing school.
