Why are our African relatives unreliable?

Earlier this week, I met a man whose story made me think  long and hard. Two years ago, he was going through a very difficult phase, one that drove him to become suicidal.

At his greatest hour of need, just when he was about to give up on life for good, he went to social media and poured out his heart to total strangers.

Before he took this drastic decision, he had appealed to his relatives for financial assistance, and even though some helped him, they did it ‘shingo upande’, insulting him even as they handed him the money, wondering why he didn’t have a job like everyone else.

He therefore could not bring himself to return to the same relatives and beg them to save his life, after all, they thought he was a nuisance.

That is why, on that day, he took the drastic step of going on social media, risking ridicule to plead for Sh20,000 to pay his rent arrears, failure to which his landlord would kick him out the following day. Within days of sending that desperate tweet, total strangers, moved by his story, had sent him over Sh200,000.

This story reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend sometime back. His father run a retail shop when they were growing up. They grew up in the rural area, where relatives tend to live within walking distance of one another’s homes and where families run their small-scale businesses a stone’s throw away from where they live.

This friend told me that in spite of his father’s shop being the only one in the neighbourhood, their relatives would walk all the way to the shopping centre, quite a distance away, to buy bread and other necessities, rather than buy from his father.

And no, his commodities were not more expensive than those in other shops. It is strangers, people not related to them in any way, that kept his father’s source of livelihood going.

Why is it that we are so reluctant to “promote” those we are related to yet are willing to generously spend our hard-earned money to buy from strangers yet a relative sells the same thing we’re buying? And why is it that it is easier for strangers to see and respond to our pain than it is for a relative, who, ideally, should be more responsive to our needs?

Most say that their friends are more reliable than their relatives, that if they were in a life and death situation, they would go to their friends first.

I also wonder whether this “thing” is unique to a certain demographic, because there are other ethnic groups in our country whose sense of kinship is so strong, they would never think of buying or spending anywhere else apart from a relative’s business. As a result, their businesses thrive because they have a loyal and regular clientele. Those of Asian descent come to mind. Their strong sense of community perhaps partly explains why their businesses are so successful.