It turns out my dad has been selling land piecemeal over the last five years.
I resumed work today after a week of being out of the office. I opted to take a few days off to deal with some domestic matters around Shiro’s move and to sort out some stuff from the village.
Shiro’s employer has asked that she goes to Dubai for a ‘look and see’ to determine where she would be staying and where the kids would go to school.
While I have come to accept that her move to Dubai might not be so bad after all, I am yet to even contemplate the thought of having the kids move over to Dubai.
Shiro thinks that such a move would help “open up their world and expand their horizons.” I really do not see her point but maybe time will prove me wrong.
I felt that my decision to travel to Dubai was validated when a sleek limousine came to pick us from the house. I had to ask Shiro, “why aren’t we using Uber? Is this your office car?” She chuckled and said, “since we are flying Business class, we get the limousine pick up service, both here and in Dubai.” Despite my initial misgivings, I can tell you I enjoyed the trip to the airport.
Shiro and I were treated like royalty with long stretch limousines picking and dropping us. The hotel room was also very lavish and so were the houses that the agent showed us.
Every time I asked about the rent cost Shiro would tell me, “do not fret about it, the company will pay.”
After over five hours of house hunting we finally found a four-bedroomed house since Shiro was still of the view that the children would move soon. At the end of the day, I decided that I would not spend my time fighting over the unknown.
We spent the rest of the three days doing fun stuff like horse riding in the desert, fine dining and visiting clubs where an excited Shiro spotted some ‘celebs’ as she expressed frustration that I could not identify some lady she described as being ‘super famous.”
By the time we came back to Nairobi, I was sure that the Dubai move was going to be good, but I was sure that it was still too early to have the children move over.
I decided to head to the village to attend the Lands Board meeting. Finally, my father has agreed to sub-divide our land and allocate it to his four sons.
He has been milking this land story for the longest time and I have in the past four months sent him over Sh50,000 so that he can ensure that the land is surveyed ahead of the meeting.
I was rather shocked to discover that we presently only own five acres of land- I could have sworn we owned more.
I had to ask my father, “where did all the land go? I thought we owned more?” My father let out a nervous laughter and said, “we used to own about 20 (acres) but now only have five.”
Even before I could respond, my younger brother furiously jumped in and asked, “what did you do to the land?” My father’s reaction was unexpected- he proceeded to lecture all of us and say that it is his “land and he can do anything about it.”
I realised that I was not going to get any progress if I stayed mad with my father. So, I told him to calmly tell us what transpired. It turns out he has been selling land piecemeal over the last five years.
He said that he now wanted to sub-divide the land so that none of us come baying for his blood. At this point, there was little I could do so I decided to go ahead with the Lands Board meeting.
Two of my brothers were not having any of this, they drove off and it was just up to me and one brother to face the board and complete the transaction.
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