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Residents of Ol Kalou town receive goodies donated by the government ahead of the July 16 by-election in Ol Kalou constituency.[James Munyeki, Standard]
News from Ol-Kalou, the remote hamlet in Nyandarua County where a by-election is in the offing, reflect a radical and radiant disruption of social order. It’s campaign season, following the death of former MP David Kiaraho. Cows are not being milked because the farmhands are busy counting the shillings and cents received for standing in political gatherings and waving cheerfully.
And fields that require tilling are overrun with weed because workers prefer bedlam in the townships to the solitude of the farms, engaging in backbreaking toil. And the pay is better.
Owners of small eateries that dot the township are using clean, renewable gas to cook, offered for free by the government. “Tumekula kukula,” one woman told a local TV, implying she had eaten her fill. “I wish for this campaign to go on for the whole year.”
