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'He must be sick and on some kind of medication in fact it could be AIDS, if it is not that then definitely his wife has threatened to leave him - but definitely those are the only reasons otherwise it is abnormal!'

Many of you must have heard similar sentiments expressed before and what is the person talking about? A friend of his who had walked into the bar and ordered for a soft drink instead of his usual beer had generated all this vehemence. Yes vehemence for shortly before the above statement was made the gentleman in question had been forced to go and sit at another table so as avoid the increased preassure to have a beer, and the snide jokes about the actual reasons he was refusing to have any.

"No I don't want a drink - I don't drink alcohol, no I'm not sick; no, no no - why can't you take no for an answer? Why can't you respect my right not to drink alcohol?"

This scene is constantly and frequently re-enacted in different bars all over Kenya every day. The drinking culture in Kenya seems to state that if a man does not drink alcohol, then he is not a man or there is something wrong. There can be no other reason.

Thus a man can walk into a bar find a large gathering of 'friends' and join them and be made welcome. Though nearly all of them will be smoking cigarette's and there will be packets of the different brands littered all over the table or bar counter, hardly at any time will he be offered a smoke. In fact whether he smokes or not would not elicit any comment from them. But dare he decline an offer for a pombe (alcoholic drink); dare he order a soda and immediately, all hell breaks loose.

" Eh, ehe eh! Ni nini mzee? Wewe ni mgonjwa au ni bibi amekuwa mkali, ah?" (What's wrong man? Are you sick or your wife has become strict?) Others will even answer for him by explaining to their friends that it is okay. 'He only has a hangover. As soon as he polishes off that soda you will see him ordering the usual. Actually let me just order it and have it waiting here on the table for you when you finish that soda. In fact let me get you two. I know how you like them nice and cold!'

But still the man refuses and now some of the hostility becomes open. 'What is wrong? You have quit or oho... you have become saved eeh? Suddenly you are a Holy Joe and alcohol is bad eh? You think you are better than us now? So why are you sitting with us bad people? Then comes the final barb - can you and you soda go and sit some where else. We don't sit with men who behave like women.

That then is the crux of the whole matter. Ones' 'maleness' is brought into question when you do not partake of alcoholic beverages. You are made to feel odd a freak! How that makes you a woman goes back to the role women played where alcohol was drank in the early days of our forefathers. What, where and how much they drank and even if they were allowed to drink was a strictly controlled affair as was the whole culture of alcohol use.

This memory then, however dimly, still seems to be embedded in our cultural psyche - but only as a dim memory hardly understood and not worth dredging up.

The advertising of alcoholic beverages by the media does not help either. The implication from Kenyan ads is that 'after a hard days work' the place to 'discuss the events of the day' and relax is a bar drinking - alcohol. We are bombarded with this image in the print and electronic media as well as billboards. Wherever one turns you are being bombarded with smiling men and women who have seemingly found 'inner peace'. The youth and women especially are targeted by a number of sweet tasting alcoholic brews which overcomes the usual problems they (in fact anybody) usually has when they first taste alcohol - the foul taste. No! These people simply tell you that you have to take these drinks 'when you absolutely have to be cool'

And so the culture of drinking in Kenya is reinforced subtly or not so subtly in some cases. Should you at any time for whatever reason desist from having an alcoholic drink at social gatherings eyebrows are raised. Even girls and ladies who don't drink are scoffed at by their fellow females and urged 'come on try just a little bit, it won't hurt you. Stop being such a sissy!'

Parents after having drank the whole week after work in various bars or in their homes, when they are finally forced to take out their families over the weekend go to a place where alcoholic beverages are sold. They end up meeting the same buddies they have been drinking with the whole week and while the hapless children are left to the mercies of the face painters and other entertainment for you children 'so that you can relax without worrying as we look after them for you.'

One cannot even drive into a petrol station without being enticed to come take a seat and "have one" as we fuel up and clean up. This is really a typical case of 'one-for-the-road' as five, six or seven beers later our Kenyan friend now feels comfortable enough to drive home.

Enter another actor to make it all easier for you to be part of this culture. The mini-pack (little and some not so little-sachets of alcohol sold very cheaply many of dubious pedigree and most with extremely high alcoholic content. This makes the youths dream and parents nightmare of 'availability, accessibility, and affordability' come horribly true. Now there is no way to control where alcohol is sold, who buys and when they buy. From supermarkets to kiosks to hawkers sitting on pavements selling sweets, the mini-pack has gleefully taking its place in the Kenyans excessive alcohol imbibing culture.

Now people sip anywhere any time and you who does not drink alcohol becomes an odder and odder creature. And for you the recovering alcoholic sorry. But you will have to weather this bombardment as best as you can. After all you should know alcohol is bad for you. Well I do. Yet it is precisely these kind of images, this kind of bombardment, this subtle brainwashing that this was how to enjoy life, the constant subliminal assault on the psyche, this is precisely that got me started all those many years ago when I went to first form.

At least in my time the slogan was baada kazi.. (after work) relax with X-beer brand. Now almost three decades later they have upped the ante and make it look patriotic to drink X-brand by changing the slogan to 'X-brand my beer, Kenya my country.' Now they don't only want to make you feel odd, they want to make you feel a traitor if you don't drink that brand or one of their other 14 other brands.

We must not leave out sports, no, no! So they sponsor football teams and name them 'X-brand football club' The brand logo is placed on the teams football shirts in the brand names colors with the billboards all over the stadium. As if this were not enough they now even sponsor sportsnews on one of the stations as well as sponsoring some sports programmes. So all through sports news you have to suffer seeing the brand logo in the upper left hand corner. All thiss after having just gone through business news sponsored by yet another brand with its logo displayed prominently in the corner.

Result gradually, kids grow up absorbing this constant message and start drinking because it is so normal in Kenya. In fact they grow up feeling it is abnormal not to drink alcohol in Kenya. Sadly with the youth today binge drinking (where you consume many drinks in quick succession or one sitting) has caught up. They feel if they dont drink until they puke, and fight and blackout, then they have not drank. (Go to any major rugby tournament or musical event especially if you doubt this.)

Here again there is no shortage of venues or events to practice their binge drinking skills as they are constantly blessed with all manner of competitions (currently 'pambazuko') where basically the brewers are telling them that the more you drink the more chances you have of winning. This time they didn't want to risk attracting only the drinkers of a particular brand so they have included all the brands in the competition. Oh and the rules are simple. Buy a beer look under the top and then listen to the radio, or watch the tv, in the evening or read the paper the next day and if all those are too slow send an SMS (short message service) to one of the mobile service providers where you will get the winning number. Phew talk about instant gratification.

So while in the bar your number is drawn as you are drinking. Unlucky. No don't throw away your bottle-top keep it. Tomorrow is another day and another number, another chance. How long will all this go on? Two months. This is worse than world cup. Because with this nationwide competition there is a chance of winning half-a-million shillings in the daily draws. Even social drinkers are drinking irresponsibly. This was exactly what happened the last time this competition was held though the qualifying bottle-tops were only to be found on one of the brands. Yet even die-hard supporters of the 'patriotic X-brand' of the 'baada kazi' fame switched loyalty from their usual tipple in an attempt to win the 'fabulous' prizes. But this time round the brewers have learnt well. All their 15 brands have possible winning number combinations printed under the tops. And the ads literally exhort you to drink up. If you didn't win yesterday today could be your lucky day

So for two months many Kenyan children will go hungry, suffer their electricity and water being cut and lack of other amenities, (Thank God for the free primary education.) as their parents (yes both) drink themselves silly in the search for the elusive prizes. And if you don't win any money? "Don't be silly," one young lady told me. "We wont have lost anything after all we are having a good time drinking anyway. So if we get some money that is just a bonus. If we don't our money went to our stomachs." I did not have the heart to remind her that she was a single mother who needed every penny and that it was precisely this kind of drinking jag that had landed her in that predicament in the first place. I simply didn't have the heart.

Then there are the radio stations that are always coming up with all manner of competitions where to enter you have to present some empty bottles or labels from alcoholic beverages or where the prizes themselves are bottles of alcohol. At one recent event featuring among others some international DJs all you had to do to get one of the highly coveted tickets for free was to buy a one liter bottle of a certain brand of vodka.

And so we bring up another wave and generation of drinkers: alcohol abusers, and alcoholics. Pain children wondering why their parents hate them so much to drink the way they do. Wasted lives, needless deaths. Bright boys and girls growing up to suffer, and be jailed, to live in the streets, to loose all dignity, to be ridiculed laughed at, despised - spat on. Parents who go through the agony of watching all this and feeling frustrated and helpless bewildered as they pull out their hair by the roots and gnash their teeth wondering where they went wrong. What they could have done to prevent this, why they had not seen it coming.

Parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunties, cousins, lawyers, doctors, ministers, preachers, teachers, drivers, watchmen, musicians, actors - Kenyans all feeling such saddening, heavy, gut-wrenching pain. Sadness! Despair! Hopelessness! Helplessness! Anger! I know I see it everyday as I meet these families or the remnants. Broken.

I know. I was there. I have just clambered out of the pit. Kenyans have to wake up. There is simply no two ways about it. You know what I am saying is true, the problem exists and it is like we are hell bent on making it bigger. But the bottom line is that we will have to sort it out. Why? They are our kids. It is us who feel the pain. With drugs as my family and friends learnt the hard and painful way, "they use - we lose". And let's not kid ourselves- ALCOHOL IS A DRUG and it is finishing us. The first move to change this starts with you.

As for me, take me seriously when I tell you, 'I don't drink - Period!

© February 2003

David Ogot snr. is a freelance journalist/producer and an alcohol abuse and alcoholism awareness campaigner. He has a personal experience with alcoholism and can be reached at goinghomedotcom@yahoo.com

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