For Christopher aka “Chris”, Sweden became hell on earth a few days after his KLM flight touched down at Stockholm’s Arlanda International airport. The first thing he could not grasp when “Reality TV” began to feature in his life in Stockholm is the stupidity that soaked deep into his mind even after he was warned repeatedly not to quit his job at the Kenya Commercial Bank in Nairobi to try his luck on a greener pasture that was looming on the horizons of Sweden.
Chris arrived in Stockholm on a three month visa after being invited by his brother Jangili who became tired of him after the young bro insisted that he wanted to relocate to Sweden to “try his luck”. Jangili had repeatedly told his brother that life in Sweden is tough and that abandoning his well paying job, securing a huge Bank loan and selling off his Mitumba bizz to buy a ticket to Sweden was not worth it because he would end up losing everything but he refused to listen.
He was warned by his brother that once he arrived in Sweden, there is something Kenyans called “Mapepe” without which one could not do anything but Chris remained defiant, arguing that if others had managed to survive, he too, would beat all the odds and succeed, just like others whose lives had been transformed because they took the plunge and boarded an aircraft at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to land in some European or American city, laden with hopes and great expectations.
According to Chris, he had “made it” in Kenya where conditions were “much more difficult” and that once he landed in Sweden, he would do “anything to succeed”. Although he was an accountant at a reputable Bank and earning reasonable salary, he insisted that he was ready to wash plates at restaurants, clean “white shit” in toilets, scrub huge sufurias at MacD, change them diapers at a Wazee colony and do “anything else” to accomplish his financial goals because “life must begin from somewhere”. His basic philosophy was that “nothing comes easily”. He was very down to earth, sometimes quoting Bob Marley who said in one of his songs that “where there is a will, there is always a way”.
When he was reminded by the good old brother that he could not do any of the things he dreamed about without “mapepe”, he hit back hard, saying that if his brother had managed to fix them papers, he too, would wire them up because “what a man has done another man can do”.
Besides, his brother was a non performer at home and came to Sweden “accidentally” after the village changaad kwachazz for his ticket so that he could proceed for further education but years after his departure, he is yet to return home as a Doctor to show that degree certificate in Medicine. Instead of studying, the village was disappointed that the brother married a white woman with whom he was reported to have been holding hands as they strolled the streets of Stockholm and kissed in public. Little did they know that it’s the woman who was responsible for delivering Mapepe and that the romantic displays in public were part of the ingredients of “Paper work”.
According to Chris, what he needed was an opportunity “to land at Arlanda International Airport” then he would begin to work out the magic from there. Sometimes when things appeared not to work out with his brother in Stockholm over his planned trip, he accused him of being lazy, stupid, ambitionless and jealous because he had not even built a house at home despite the fact that he has been residing in the land where “money grows on trees” for more than a decade. According to Chris, his brother “was useless”.
When his good bro tried to ask him why he thought money “grows on trees” in Sweden, he answered by saying that he knew several Kenyans who were living abroad and that whenever they returned home for holidays, they were always “stuffed with kwachazz”. He cited examples of Kenyans whom, before coming to Sweden, were “Chokoras” aka urchins but that when they came back, one could see and smell that they had suddenly “become rich”, swung around in taxis 24/7, lavishly treated friends during outings at five star hotels, rained money on their parents and relatives, dressed in expensive attire before returning to their bases in Stockholm, London, Copenhagen, Texas and what have you to continue with their good lives!
Since he had already managed to fix a good job and equally managed to run a well-to-do business, Chris believed that he was already in a strategic position to do better than the Chokoras who could not even make it in Kenya. In fact, he believed that if he could travel to Sweden, he would work so hard that he would manage to build a skyscraper on a piece of land he had purchased some years ago but which remained unused because he could not raise enough capital to develop it.
He was also very encouraged by the fact that every underdog he knew who had managed to board a plane and travel abroad had returned with a new profile of “wealth and opulence”. Under the circumstances, how could he ever fail, he asked himself? If his bro Jangili had failed, the explanation was that he has always been a failure “and everybody knows this”. Part of the evidence was that despite having resided in Sweden for years, Jangili had not even managed to airlift a single relative to Sweden for further studies and better opportunities.
In fact, other top losers he knew too well had even come back with huge containers loaded with posh cars in good condition, desk-top and lap-top computer systems ready for sale, plasma TV sets that could be traded in without much advertisement, projectors, micro-wave ovens, sophisticated machines of all descriptions, electric cookers, expensive clothes, stylish furniture and other valuables before deciding that since they had made “enough cash”, Europe had become a “point of no return”. He was referring to Kenyans who failed “to make their papers” but who had worked illegally, accumulated cash and loaded containers to return home for good “to do business”.
Never again would they return to suffer in the freezing winter temperatures where without hand gloves to cover your fingers, you could scream because of terrible pain caused by the biting cold after temperatures drop to minus 25 degrees Celsius. Kennedy, a returnee from Holland, told him that in winter, the atmosphere is so cold that you feel a “biting sensation” on your ear. “If you do not put on a hat on your black head, your brain can freeze”, he was warned but this did not bother him because his brother had survived many winters, a sign that despite the harsh weather, the situation did not seem lethal as long as one took precautions.
These narrations did not scare Chris because he was focused on the big picture. He wanted to make it to Sweden, make enough money then return to Kenya to explore new business opportunities and get rich so that he could live the life of a millionaire. For him, this was not a distant dream because the evidence was there for everyone to see and what he needed was just an opportunity. It is here that his brother, who was rotting in Stockholm after many years without showing any achievement, was key to his success.
Tired of being pestered, the brother sent Chris an invitation letter and he got his visa to Sweden so that he could travel and begin to pursue his dreams. Finally, Chris landed at Arlanda International Airport where he was met by his brother. They boarded a bus and headed for the Central station where they were destined to transfer to underground train and head to Alby where his bro was living in a one roomed flat. In our next installment, find out the life and times of Chris in Stockholm and how he met a woman paper-maker.
Okoth Osewe
About the Author
Kenya-stockholm never lacks storos. Osewe it seems your “storo-silo” is packed to the brim.I was so glued on my computer screen but the storo ended when it was just picking up.Can’t wait for the next installment because this might be a prize-winning storo.We are not even done with the knife-wielding one doing rounds in drinking dens.
Wacha msela atengeneze KARATASI
Hakuna mbaya !
OK. Osewe, give us a break now until next week. asante kwa kunifurahisa.