Holiday!!!

Why lie!!For most of us today is a day off, tomorrow is a holiday and if we can get our heads around it, so will Thursday. 3 days that you don't have to account for to HR. 3 days to chill, eat, drink and be merry and then if your head, stomach or "clande" allow, you drag yourself to the polling station and vote. Kenyans love unaccounted for holidays. Just random days that occur in the middle of months that have no gazetted holidays. We don't particularly need them to do banking and go for medical check-ups but it is one extra day to do our "biashara" on the side. And by biashara I mean everything from women, actual business and children. If you can meet your personal clients at the locals next to the station, the better.

It's strange how 3/4 of the working population in this country have more meeting after 5p.m and on weekends than on normal 8-5 "working" hours. I have workmates who love meeting office clients outside the office. 20 minutes with the boss' client and then dash off to your own clients and meet them for an hour. Technically, you're still on your way to the office. You just took a small rest stop on the way. We may not have the conventional 2-3 jobs as depicted in the western world ("My man got 2 jobs. I don't need your drama!")but 75% of Kenyans have more than 1 job to their name.

That is why we love holidays. We love the fact that you don't have to sneak out of the office to go downtown to buy supplies for your business. We love them because you can go clear your Chinese imports from the airport (or Eastleigh, whichever is your preferred border point) and we love them because you can now shamelessly ask for rent from the "vibandas" you spent all your money building a year ago.

So I can safely predict that the next 3 days will see more business being done than in the last month. Especially since it is not a long enough holiday to run off to coast and do some serious damage on your liver and sleep patterns. So as we go into our unplanned for but extremely exciting holiday, all the best in your new and clandestine businesses. I hope it bring you more than you hoped for.

Happy referendum week!