The problem of being too accustomed to comfort

Eddie Fondo. That’s what my Uncle J— calls me. If you are from a certain period and of a certain age, you will recall MDJ Eddie Fondo, that veteran Voice of Kenya radio presenter who was running the ‘Chaguo Lako’ show, a music-request programme.

These were the days when radio DJs were the real superstars, before bathtubs, when we bathed in metal karais, before we used Garnier, whose acne-removing powers cannot, even now, compete with gunia.

Uncle J— tells me this was how they used to communicate, sending their greetings to friends and relatives over the radio. It was nusu ya kuonana, when Kenya was a single-party state, and Sh5 was not a coin, but a banknote. KBC was the only baba na mama, and the then dictator-president Moi stopping over to buy food would become a presidential event.

Ask any of your elders, and they will tell you: Moi was so macho, people would stand in the sun for hours, dancing and waiting for the Mzee to pass and give them a cursory glance.

You must be asking, so what? Well, it’s because I am in the lift at Avenue Hospital and I am thinking of why they put that soul-snatching muzak corporate pop, and not a rerun of those old shows. No, I am not sick, thanks for asking. I am here to see my uncle.

The lift is large, and that means we have fit a 15-aside rugby team in here, and the poor lift is struggling with the weight of responsibility. No matter. I paid for parking-per-hour, told the guard to watch over my “baby” and finyad a Sh50 corruption note in his hand “just-in-case”, then proceeded to the restaurant where I paid for coffee.

The restaurant is inside the hospital, in case you are wondering. We are also paying for an after-care nurse off the books. In cash, like Indians. This is late-stage capitalism.

Back to the lift

I am going to the wards. Gen Pop. The maternity ward is on the 3rd floor. I am not going there. Do you think Moi would enter a maternity ward? No. But I think if the mothers heard Moi was passing around, they would each name their child after a variation of Moi: Moipei, Moises, or just Moi, but with a French accent.

Anyway, my mind is all over the place because I suffer from sudden bouts of claustrophobia. I am trying to distract myself, but lifts are designed to trap you in with your thoughts, a mental cage fight, like Foreman and Ali, Messi and Ronaldo, Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards. At the first ding, I want to get out, only to realise someone has pressed the button for the first floor. First! I expected a drowsy patient or a pregnant woman, but no. It was a man. Average height, a creeping baldness, nice watch, could use a better shirt, envelopes in hand, but a man still the same. Why he chose to use a lift to the first floor beats me. He wasn’t wearing any scrubs or hospital gown or even a hazmat suit. He looked fine to me. I don’t know why I was irritated, but I was. Isn’t the world a funny place? Not in the ha-ha sense, of course.

A man any less righteous than me would have gone over and given him a proper ngoto on his head. But this lift took six or so minutes to come down, and what did I know about patience? I want to blame it on modern convenience, but everyone does that, so I am not even a reference point in that regard. I could say it’s just poor upbringing and intolerance, but they could say that about me too.

This is the problem of a low-stress life, which raises expectations. In a low-stress life, the little stress that does occur is all the harder to accept. Hence our hair-trigger reaction to governmental failures that our grandparents would have shrugged off. It is a movement born of ease, not just of pain.

Recently, we were spitballing with K— and he said the only reason our parents never had things like therapy or communities is that they worked all the time and never had time to reflect. Rumination often leads to depression.

Those who say things said it better: the devil makes work for idle hands and all that jazz. K—, by the way, runs a delivery business across Nairobi (and its environs, his words), and he says he has noticed a growing number of people demanding their packages be brought up to the door, me included. He tells me many other things which I can, but won’t, tell you. I also suspect K— works for the NIS. Something about his haircut.

By the way, the lift is here; that means so are we. I have also thought of a way of extending their lives, the lift that is, not the patients’. Scrap the mezzanine and first floors. We can debate the second floor over a game of rock, paper, scissors. Or Russian roulette. It is a hospital after all.

This will ensure more middle-class Kenyans walk, and more men reduce their paunches. It’s also a vital lesson in life: taking the stairs in a world accustomed to taking shortcuts in their lives and careers, or in other words, using the lift. I am not claiming to be a modern-day Buddha, but I would understand if you do.

Later, I’ll ChatGPT and find that Eddie Fondo died in 2017. I’d feel a profound sadness. A parasocial relationship based on a shared moniker. Imagine that. Maybe it’s true what they say. It is only by keeping death nearby that one can truly live. Then I think about my uncle, and how one day, perhaps, he too will no longer call.

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