– By Crazy Monday
ONCE retirement hits, all the perks that come with being employed are gone *Some are abandoned by their families and left to fend for themselves
*Perhaps the only other exciting time in the life of an adult besides college life is retirement. This is an opportunity when you have all the time in the world to rest and pursue leisurely activities freely. *Unfortunately, for many men, as Crazy Monday has discovered, retirement is a torturous time.
IT IS a dog’s life for retired men. From adjusting from ‘loss of a stable work routine’, the associated sense of purpose and importance, to getting used to boredom of waking up and sunning yourself like a lizard and staying at home daily.
Needless to mention the lack of enough money with which to ‘exercise power’ at home and the consequent marital issues due to inability to assert authority and lack of meaningful and engaging activities to replace work. Many men tend to be exposed to boredom and a sense of purposelessness, which leads to depression. To say the least, it is an awkward fish out-of-water experience for many.
For Mzee Njoroge, his cows are the only company he has, since his wife of 35 years flew to Denmark to be with their daughter, her husband and their ‘new-born’ grand daughter seven months ago.
In what has become a daily ritual, he will feed his cow and then head to Karuru, a nearby shopping centre — a row of shops in the Kiambu County township much smaller than what he was used to in his glory days when he worked with a prominent bank in the city — to indulge in his favourite drink, equally far removed from the finer whiskies he used to partake.
There’s nothing in Mzee Njoroge’s life to suggest he once straddled Nairobi like a colossus, sampling its social and nightlife.
In between, he brought up three daughters and a son — who have long stopped communicating with him, except when they must. Only his wife enjoys the privilege and the invites for city and overseas visits. Njoroge’s tribulations are an illustration of why many men approaching retirement age feel apprehensive, and for a good reason.
“My dad never survived three years after retiring to a home he had built in Ngong, on the outskirts of Nairobi,” says Antony Murimi. His old man had been a senior civil servant from the generation that went to university when a tertiary education equalled the good life. After his undergraduate studies at Makerere, he landed a government scholarship that took him to Europe for post-graduate studies.
When he came back, a job in the higher echelons of the civil service and the good perks of life awaited him.
“He used to hang out with the who’s who of the time. I remember going with him to Nairobi West where he would chat with his buddies over a glass of his favourite Glenfiddich Solera Reserve whisky,” recalls Murimi.
He had bought some prime land in Ngong’ town and built a three bedroomed house. But life changed — drastically — when he retired. The stimulating company of his peers was no more, their place now taken by farmhands and the township’s layabouts.
The Special Reserve whisky was gone, too, replaced by potent brews that he consumed daily. Murimi remembers going to visit his dad and wondering what had happened to the intellectual he once revered. His conversation was mundane. He looked shabby and despite several warnings from his doctor, he still drunk himself into a daily stupor. In three years, he was gone.
Neglected men with ‘tourists’ for wives
Murimi’s father had an excuse. He was a widower. His wife’s death barely a year after retirement and the resulting loneliness could have sent him into depression. But many men are uprooted from their careers and social lives into what easily becomes a life of desolation, hand to mouth survival and, in some cases, quick death because they feel neglected, lonely and bitter.
Nicholas Musungu, a 63-year-old retiree based in Bukura in Kakamega County, says: “Life changed dramatically after my retirement. My job, which defined me, was gone and for some time, I didn’t know who I was. I was devastated to learn that my sons had to be prodded by their wives to call me, yet I know they are always calling their mother.”
“Their mother, on the other hand, treats me like a nuisance and an intruder. She avoids our matrimonial home at all costs; she is always visiting distant relatives and the children or she is at keshas (religious night vigils), weddings and funerals — all in faraway towns,” he complains.
Poor Musungu is left to fend for himself for days on end. He looks emaciated and aged while his wife grows round and her skin glows. With no one to talk to, the old man ends up in the company of his animals and the evening tipple as a matter of necessity.
At his age, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Musungu to prepare meals for himself. To make life even more complicated, his wife somehow systematically managed to incite the children against him. They all resent him.
Apparently, he was a bad father who never had time for his family, he has since been told. He cannot remember when he last talked to the children he painstakingly took to prestigious private schools as a father should to his children.
“They were fed lies about me. They don’t talk to me or assist me financially. When their mother gets a cough, they send air tickets, but when it’s me, nothing. She lied to them that she is the one who paid their school fees while I fooled around with other women. How could she have managed to educate them on her salary, which was peanuts?” Musungu wonders bitterly.
Dealing with runaway kids and torture of raising grand children
54-year-old Mzee Oloo on the other hand chose to take matters into his own hands.
“I looked at these fellows and realised they were playing with me. So, I sold a piece of land and used the proceeds to build a rental house that brings me a little income. And then I married another woman. You should have seen the hullabaloo that followed!” the old man from Gem in Siaya County recalls with a chuckle.
“Sons I had not seen or spoken to for months suddenly drove home in big cars and sat me down to an angry meeting. They wanted to know what that ‘woman’ was doing in my bedroom and why I had sold land. I reminded them that it was land I bought with my sweat and that I had a right to sell it. I asked them to their face who they thought was ‘rubbing my back’ when they kept their mother in Nairobi for months. None of them had an answer,” he laughs.
It should be no surprise, therefore, that many retired men even become suicidal. Retirement, for them, is like the old lion in the jungle, which discovers that its pride of dotting lionesses is gone and that no more will the wife place choice steaks before him and watch him eat to satisfaction before she takes a bite.
But it’s not just the well to do that suffer. Mzee Oliver Matundura complains that his homestead is full of grandchildren and that as a result, he rarely gets well fed. “There are seven grandchildren here. Their mothers abandoned them and went either to get married or to work in towns. By the time I wake up, they have drunk all the tea. During supper, they finish their portions and start staring at my food. I have no choice but to pass it to them. Look at me. I don’t eat well,” he says.
Hamida Mwanamisi, a 62-year-old woman from Mumias, says she has no apologies to make for abandoning her husband, Ismael.
“I raised this children on my own — selling chang’aa and firewood while this man enjoyed the good life in Nairobi. He even squandered his retirement package and married another woman who now has six children. Why should my children feed the children of a harlot he collected on the streets, yet he never did anything for them? When I needed him, he was not there and I see no reason why I should sleep in his bed at my age,” she says.
Gender wars might be on for constitutional offices in Government with women getting the shorter end of the stick. In many marriages, women are still seen and not heard. But in retirement, they all have it mapped out. Theirs is a coup de tat that sentences the former dictator to years of loneliness, penury and an early grave. Elderly men can, however, successfully adjust to retirement and spare themselves this agonies by developing hobbies; staying physically active, through walking more; volunteering in charity or church activities and staying in touch with other people and creating social networks.
THE BEAUTY OF CLASSMATES
1. Classmates Are Family.
– Avoid Things That Divide Family.
2. In Class You Would Always Be ABUBAKAR, EMEKA and ADEWALE etc Despite the PhD, SAN, Hon, Chief, General, Prof, Mr, Dr, Rev, Ustaz etc.
3. Check On, Reach Out To Classmates Who May Be Less Successful.
4. Achievements Are Processes Not Destination; Everyone Has His Time.
5. Class Groups Are Not Places For Intimidation But Co-operation.
6. Classmates Are Not Political Or Cabal Groups
7. Be Humble and Sincere With your Classmates, They Knew You When You were Nobody.
8. A United Class Is a Successful Class, No Matter Who Succeeds First.
9. Never Treat Classmates Like Employees..
10. Be Kind To Classmates, Table Can Turn in Future.
11. 💰 Money Can’t Buy You Classmates’ Support When You are In Trouble.
12. Forgive Classmates’ Mistakes ,They are Human.
Many years ago I was working as a clerk at a faculty in one popular university in Nigeria, then I saw an advert for NDA (Nigeria Defence Academy), I have always loved to go to NDA so I applied, submitted my form and was called for admission examination.
I had to travel to Kaduna all the way from Osun State, I have a distant uncle that was resident there then. I wrote a letter (no telephone at the time) to my uncle that I was coming to sit for an exam in Kaduna and would love to stay in their house.
I didn’t get a reply to my letter even as my departure date was approaching. I became so worried because I needed to go anyway, as I was talking to a colleague in the office concerning my fear of where to stay, our office cleaner who was a Hausa man overheard us and in his broken English interjected that he knew someone right inside NDA.
Who could he know there? *Is it not a cleaner like himself*, I unintentionally said it out to his hearing. “Oga no o, the commandant op za NDA na ma classmate and ma priend”. In his bad handwriting, he scribbled the commandant’s name on a piece of paper. “Just mention my name’s por am, him go helf you.”
I reluctantly collected the paper from him, not because I intended to make use of it but because I didn’t want him to feel bad.
The next day, I set out on this long journey by train from Osogbo. I got to Kaduna a day later towards evening. Upon getting there, I went straight to my uncle’s house only to find out that they had relocated from that place and no one knew their new address. I became stranded and it was getting late.
Around after 7pm, I made up my mind to give my cleaner’s contact a shot. I got to the gate of NDA and mentioned the name I was given. To my utmost surprise, everyone in that bit, recognized the name and one person was promptly detailed to take me to his office.
I gave the paper where Kabiru wrote his name and that of his friend to the secretary who took it inside. On sighting the paper, the commandant shouted from the office and followed the secretary outside to usher me in. “Where do you know Kabiru?” “He’s my colleague in the office, Sir,” I answered.
“Where is he? How is he? Hope he’s doing well?” This man was asking me many questions in an obvious excitement.
The look on his face confirmed to me that Kabiru was his beloved friend. He asked me what I came to do in Kaduna and I said it was for the NDA exams. “Wow, do you have where to sleep?” “No, sir.” He immediately called someone to take me to his house. On getting to the house, I was lavishly entertained.
This man came late in the night and he woke me up and took me up on tutorials for the next day’s exams. After the exams, he personally drove me to the park the next day.
When I got back to the campus, I began to look at Kabiru with a different eyes. How on earth does this man know such a powerful person? Needless to say, my name was number four on the list when the results came out.
Friends, I put it to you today that relationship is a currency. Every man needs another man to move up and that man may be the neighbour you look down on, maybe the taxi driver you so despise or even the house help you think is a nobody today.
Relationship is a stream of income. Everything in life actually reproduces on the basis of relationship. Those we know in life matter. *Most of us are talented but we need a cupbearer that will tell Pharaoh that there’s a Joseph that can interpret dreams.* we need our old school mates irrespective of their status today.
Hook up with your class mates in the primary, secondary and tertiary schools alumni.
There are some heights you may never get to in life until someone tells someone about you even in church or mosque. Therefore, shut the door on relationships gently. You may need to use it tomorrow.
Let us take our relationships seriously. Even if you meet online, don’t look down on anyone. You never can tell which of the relationships will be your own key to success.
Share your story or advertise with us: Whatsapp: +2347068606071 Email: info@newspotng.com
