Ah, the beautiful art of Bongoland retirement…!


Recently, we have been hearing a lot of ‘noise’ from several society quarters regarding the poor welfare of many a depressed retired civil servant of our good old Bongoland.

This scribe is only a four months old retiree but he is already wishing that someone somewhere would make some noise about his predicaments!

Although he is a dogodogo of only 49 years of age, this scribe found himself an Instant retiree because the modern management of the company he was working for didn’t think twice when its investor forced it to choose between chesi and technology.

Technology won hands down. It had to. It could do the work of three Chesi for the salary of one, never get sick hence needing an ED or go for a twenty eight day annual leave! chesi had to go.

Well, there I was. An instant redundancy-induced retiree. Don’t ever wish to be that. There is a kind of dejection and despair coming from being an employed, morning to evening busy person to being a domestic version of the famous Askari monument at Samora Avenue in your very own home.

Just a month of being an instant retiree, and all the signs of you not being wanted at home will be there. Yes, because all your children will be at work and school, you now will find yourself alone with the woman of your life for the past twenty or so years twelve hours a day-light and twelve hours a moonlight.

Now, gone will be the days when you were employed and you only met her early in the morning and in the evening if you were ought to pass a watering hole before reaching home. The woman of your life is now all yours twenty four hours a daylight and moonlight, seven days a week and retirement happily ever after!

Being used to working and office life, soon enough you will find yourself bored and start following her around as she goes about her house chores, not only peeping over her shoulder at everything she does just like that Supervisor back at your former office, but even giving her advices on how make the floor more clean!

Her body language will be will telling you she’d rather be left alone but you are too ignorant to household politics to notice this. Not even when she actual sweep off your lazy feet from the carpet and it is only because they are joined to your torso that you do not find them outside in the dustbin!

Yes, you are an Instant retiree. You will find fast enough that in the early days of your fast forwarded retirement most of the time you will be obliged to turn off your mobile phone when you are being a statue at home.

This will be for stopping those mischievous but harmless SMS from friends and former costumers you have not informed about your instant redundancy being seen by the woman of your life. Harmless? She definitely will want to know more about a message telling you; ‘We Kibaka! Nije uninunulie lunch?’

The good thing is that with all this, she still will be on your side. This you will know the day her mother and sister comes to visit and asks her why you are not at work and you hear her mouth mumbling things to the effect that you are not at work because you have joined the Open University which is Open to whatever day you want to go to class!

You will only be left to wonder if she is doing this because she does not want people to know, at least for the time being, that she is now married to a destitute or because she does not want us to be turned into a wafadhili and contribute 60% of our teeny weeny retirement package to offset the relative’s matatizo budgets!

And all this is just after only four months of retirement with a lifetime of it waiting for him out there. Help!