You know the feeling. Fresh out of school. Full of ambition. Can’t wait to go out into the real world and be an adult. It’s an all too familiar story in this here our “Kanairo”. We all want to make money, live a great life, and make an investment that made a lot more money, lots of it!
In between promises from our well-off uncles of “You just finish school and bring your CV, a job is always waiting for you.”, and the mythical newspaper ad, “Earn 16,000/= — 20,000/= from the comfort of your home”, I knew hustling would not be in my vocabulary.
So this one time, I get a call from one of my old friends about how they finally have an investment opportunity where we can make insane money. Everything they said after that was a blur as “All I Do Is Win” played in my head. I felt like I had just won a marathon or landed a superstar movie role. I was ready.
They ask me to get ready later in the week. We would be going to our first investment meeting in a building in the Nairobi CBD. (I’m horrible with building/street names that don’t start and end with Times Tower or Afya Centre).
I meet my pal in town and we pull up to the place and it’s packed with those plastic seats that are specially reserved for the Nairobi folk at upcountry functions. I thought we had mistakenly stumbled on someone else’s ‘ruracio’ but alas, this was the actual location.
The function is ongoing and other “millionaires” are sharing their investment testimonials. My radar started going off when I thought they didn’t look the part, but hey, I’m not a judgmental person and we were all mesmerized by Mr. Jobs’ $270 turtleneck and The Zuck’s $300 grey t-shirt. Anyway, ‘Looku ni Moto’, it must be a rich people thing.
I was almost sold on the dream. I just wanted to know, how? This is when things took the wrong turn. We were informed that we had to make a hefty deposit to get the tools of the trade. What were they you may ask? Tea flasks, glasses, spoons, and ‘the latest revolution in vegetable peelers?’ I was confused.
One glance at my friend and I knew he had bought into it. It was too late to save him, he was too far gone. The horribly photoshopped BMW still with its German registration number had him in a trance. I knew I had to act fast.
You know how it goes, look for the exit, plan your escape route and set your alarm for 5 minutes later as soon as it rings act like it’s a matter of national importance, and quickly rush to the exit to ‘look for the network’. As soon as I exited, I did not look back. I did not want to meet my pal after. I went home and took a nap.
To date, I always remember and laugh about how I narrowly escaped making my worst investment…
The day I almost paid to hawk cutlery.
(…In case anyone’s curious, my pal did it for a whole 48 hours before deciding he was better off going to driving school instead. As I write this, I’m thinking it’s time I give my old pal a call and introduce them to https://ndovu.co/ 🤔)
