’If you are born in Korogocho, you are a chokora, ' he said without fear of contradiction. Weird, very weirdly so and added, ‘It doesn't matter how you look at it, that’s the plain truth so what you ought to do is shower, wash yourself, make yourself clean and then, maybe you can then sit with us.’ He stressed further just so his intention remains clear. A friend once told Saya, a lady I know, that if she was born in Korogocho, she was a chokora. Korogocho is a shantytown a little to the North East of Nairobi. It is a place of contradictions - abject suffering and indomitable hope but it all depends on your vantage point, really.
Saya’s friend only saw Korogocho as the home of chokora – destitute indigents who could never shake off the stench of their poverty. To fix this, he sternly prescribed, “Shower, wash yourself, make yourself clean and then, maybe you can then sit with us.”
In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe puts it in the proverb; if a child washes his hands, he can dine with the elders. Achebe was referencing Okonkwo for gains and achievements he made at a young age unlike his father, Unoka, a virtuosic flute player considered a failure in a society insanely obsessed with material gains. So, he meant not the washing of the body but riches. Riches as that which grants social recognition.
So too Saya’s friend meant that money is the escape from the ravaging Korogocho poverty. Only money washes the chokora tag off you. Only money can make a person out of a chokora.
I am convinced he thought he was just cautioning Saya as a friend he used to know back in the day. And that’s why he felt obliged to be so offhand. He thought he was helping. I cannot really blame him. For some reason, asking for help is not easy in Nairobi. There is a vulnerability that makes asking for help seem like weakness. While many would rather suffer in silence, chokoras would not. They reject such contradictions society foists on its people.To them, it’s all hypocrisy.
Just the other day one was bragging about how he is the first from Korogocho to have attained a PhD. Congratulations! People deserve to celebrate their achievements. But there is a way of doing it to inspire and challenge others rather than condemn and look down on your community.
Koyo Kouo, the director and curator of Raw Material, calls it; first and last syndrome of elite Africans. She describes it as a tendency common with those Africans who attained academic degrees (notably earned abroad). Because of this they see themselves as better than other Africans who are not as educated. In postcolonial Africa, history only recounts instances where elitism has only been used for political manipulation to oppress poor Africans. Yet it seems we have learnt no lessons. Saya is still being told to wash up and maybe be less chokora than she is.
We need to talk. We need serious conversations about the scourge of elitism, here. If we labor under the misguided belief that everyone who makes it does so on their own sheer will and hard work, we forget all the structural privileges that make and break people. Because if you are from a privileged background whose father was chairman of the local church. If your father was in charge of scholarships and charities, and through his influence you received a scholarship and managed to attain your elite academic qualifications, where could you possibly borrow the high horse to start telling Saya she needs a shower?
Maybe all Kenyans and Africans of simple means are born in the proverbial Korogocho. In them, the elite will only see unwashed, ignorant, peasant chokoras– much like the colonialists when they came for their “civilizing mission” of colonialism.
Yet chokoras are human, completely human. Chokoras courageously take on uncertain days and spring up each day still in the mire of poverty but hopeful, nonetheless. At the very least, they need our respect for their bravery. Even if they were not brave, they are human, completely human and that will always be enough. Sometimes it is wiser to hold off giving unsolicited advice unless asked. If we care and are concerned about others, we should look less at how they look or live their lives.