NAIROBI, KENYA: This month, Nairobi has been freezing with the sun setting without ever being seen, more like the long dark winters in temperate regions. We have reacted by putting on heavier clothes.
Some have argued that such cold will have biological consequences with a spike in births nine months to come. (The met department and maternity hospitals can provide data to see if the two are correlated). A study by academics from University of California, Los Angeles and Georgia State University showed that weather has an effect on exam grades. A rise in temperature lowers school performance. Can teachers and lecturers react to that?
Back to the cold weather. Hustlers can only carry so many layers of clothes on our backs. The alternative would be ‘carry fire’ in old sufurias or metallic buckets as we did while grazing in the African savannah. Their counterparts, the rich and affluent have more choices.
Weather seekers
They do not need to ‘carry fire’; they can heat their cars or immigrate to warmer places, if only for a season. In Kenya, the coast is their choice. It is not clear to me why Kisumu has not attracted as many warm climate seekers. Gilgil and Nakuru are also havens of warm weather seekers.
Mombasa remains the best attraction to both locals and foreigners. I noted last week that a visit to Mombasa healed my cold. It has sent me thinking about my retirement home. The coastal city has attracted foreigners for hundreds of years, more for trade than warm weather.
The affluent can also afford another home, and live in different homes throughout the year. They do not need to be in one place like hustlers. It is another story how the affluent make their money. It could be inherited, hard work or in some cases nepotism or corruption.
Living in different homes to the dictates of the weather is repeated in other parts of the world. Florida is the warmest state on continental USA. Lots of Canadians escaping the harsh winters have home there. In Japan, Okinawa is subtropical and so is Hainan in China. The former Soviet leaders had houses or dachas in the warm Crimea. Ecuador has even a special visa for the warmth seekers, who want to retire there and enjoy the tropical heat. Kenya has not fully exploited her location atop the equator.
We thought weather equalises us, but it brings out the differences more, with the extreme weather bringing out extreme differences. Such weathers reminds us of a simple fact, economics is about choices and being a hustler gives you limited choices even on how to react to weather. That’s perhaps enough motivation to work harder in your hustle so that one day you shall have choices on what to eat, what to wear, who to marry, where to live and even how to react to extreme weather.
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