Before you move to Africa, you hear nightmare stories of people getting cheated out of money. It is often the cultural differences that come into play; it’s not always just blatant thievery. We’ve found ourselves in a little money nightmare these past few months concerning the purchase of some furniture.
Most of the furniture in our house we’ve had made by craftsmen on Ngong Road in Nairobi. Thousands and thousands of pieces line a two-mile stretch of road with many dozen craftsmen willing and able (sometimes!) to create pieces that you request. Our first carpenter did solid work for us, but he was attacked and chased away from his business in Nairobi during the post-election violence of 2007. Since we lost our go-to guy, we’ve had less luck.
Most recently, we wanted to get separate beds for our growing sons, so we took in some pictures off the Internet of some design ideas. We also wanted a few small tables. We chose a worker, and he surprised us with a quote of 10 days to complete our job. We were thrilled. We gave him a down payment, which is customary, and waited cautiously. We would have been satisfied with 3-4 weeks, but he was promising less time.
After two weeks was up, we got a call from him saying that we shouldn’t come pick it up yet. His father died “up country” (most people in the city these days have strong roots in rural areas around the country), and he had to return for the funeral. He was asking for more down payment because of funeral expenses. We said no, having already given him a higher pre-payment than we usually do.
And this event is what has kept us from picking up furniture for over three months.
Our carpenter, as the male figure in his family now, was responsible for paying for the funeral and sharing his “wealth” as a city businessman with his poor, rural family members. And I’m not just talking mothers and siblings—I’m talking aunts and uncles and close friends and neighbors too. The tragedy brought him home, and once home, he had no hope (culturally) of getting out of there with the shirt on his back.
To put it more succinctly, our down payment is now feeding distant relations hundreds of miles from his carpenter shop and NOT being used to create the furniture we ordered. We’ve called him, we’ve threatened, we’ve pleaded, we’ve texted, we’ve showed up unannounced, we’ve sought help of Kenyan friends.
But here we are still. No furniture and out a good chunk of money. We haven’t given up hope that we’ll get something someday from him. This is just how it works in Kenya. My kids sleep on the floor because our craftsman had a loss in his family. A ten-day project becomes a three-month fiasco (and longer, for sure). We all share in one person’s loss. This is the African way. Like it or not.
