A file image of a lady using a phone Simon KiraguKenyans.co.ke
No one could have prepared for what has happened in the past two months. A pandemic with no cure, travel restrictions and an unprecedented deceleration in business. As the vagaries of the current situation continue to push everyone against the wall, we must find ways to survive to make it through the other side, learning as we go.
All I can think about is the Kenyan spirit that has shone time and time again, how will we come together during this time when we have to be apart?
I recently found myself staring at the mirror for minutes on end, wondering what was becoming of me. "Had I lost hope? Why had I not learnt something new every day? Maybe I could have adapted faster.
So after the self-assessment, I go to my phone and while scrolling on my timeline I come across the Bonga for Good Campaign offer aimed at cushioning Kenyans against the economic effects of Covid-19. Interesting it is… an initiative that has seen Safaricom customers use Bonga Points to pay for essential goods and services. A user browsing through a smartphone for news.Simon KiraguKenyans.co.ke Then it hit me, I’ve never really used my bonga points, except for that one time on campus when I needed to upgrade my phone and I transferred 5000 points from my father’s phone to buy a smartphone. It’s about seven years now!
"They should be like a million points by now," I think to myself as I dial that all familiar *126# by muscle memory – after all these years, you’d think some things might have been forgotten.
Not a million but enough. But it surely felt like a lot with the value of Bonga Points up by 50 percent, from 20 cents to 30 cents.
As I redeemed some of my bonga points for some free bundles I couldn’t help but think, there’s more I can do.
Just then I got a whatsapp text from my barber. He went straight to the point telling me how his business had dropped to nearly zero clients and how he didn’t know where his next meal would come from and he was in the dark, literally also, because the electricity tokens were depleted.
"How could one man be dragged down so many times?" I thought. Without a second thought I went to my M-Pesa to send […]
