When I met up with Samuel and Cliff Ocholla, another migrant from western Kenya, at a corner close to Milele Flats on a sunny August morning in 2019, I had no idea what ordeal was awaiting me. All I knew was that we were going to Athi River, a small industrial town close to Nairobi, to collect some sacks of potatoes, and that this was to be the beginning of a business collaboration between Cliff and Samuel. Cliff had experience of distributing potatoes wholesale in Pipeline’s informal economy, and a friend of Samuel’s called Barbara oversaw a factory in Athi River where different vegetables and potatoes were sorted and packed. For a small fee, Barbara would allow Samuel to channel off a few sacks of potatoes for 1,500 KSh each. Cliff and Samuel would then sell each sack for 3,000 KSh to people preparing chips in Pipeline.
Arriving at the factory, we encountered around ten men waiting in front of the gate, still expecting to be called in for a casual job for the day, a common practice throughout Kenya. Upon entering her office, Barbara greeted us and then, to our surprise, gave us overalls and empty sacks and led us into a large hall where workers were sorting and packing potatoes and cabbages. Pointing to massive heaps of potatoes at the other end of the hall, Barbara told us we could collect our potatoes from there. When we got closer to the potato heaps, it dawned on us that we were going to have to search them for usable discards, as they had already been sorted by the factory workers. While none of the potatoes looked appealing, we worked out which ones were still edible. After all, they were going to be made into chips, so their appearance was unimportant. Eight long hours later, we had filled eight sacks, heaved them onto a handcart, hauled it outside the factory, where we waited for the friend whom was coming to collect us. After loading the vehicle, I sat in front with the driver, and Samuel and Cliff lay down on top of the potato sacks. However, before we had even turned onto the main highway, we were pulled over by the police, who wanted to charge us with two offences: transporting commercial goods in a private vehicle and violating laws regulating the safe transport of passengers. Samuel bribed the police officers with 2,000 KSh to prevent the vehicle from being impounded and the driver being arrested.
When I met Samuel the next evening, he looked devastated. Cliff had sold the sacks of potatoes without a problem, but upon passing a betting shop, he decided to try to double the profit, as the extra money would enable him to pay off his debts. Unfortunately, he lost the bet. Enraged by Cliff’s action, Samuel called a few friends and went to Cliff’s house to take some of his household property to regain his own share of the potato sale. Upon entering the house, however, he saw that Cliff had already sold most of his furniture. Cliff then told Samuel that his wife was pregnant and pleaded with Samuel to give him some time to find the money. Pitying his friend whose ancestral home was close to his own, Samuel decided to let things be for now and focus on finding another way to pay back his wife the 10,000 KSh she had lent him to start the potato business.
A few days later, Samuel asked me round to discuss a way forward. While the potato business with Cliff had not succeeded, he felt that selling chips was a good idea. He had established the links to Athi River and starting the business would not require much capital if we did it together. All we needed was a fryer (19,000 KSh), a screen to sell the chips (6,000 KSh), and a cutter to slice the potatoes (4,500 KSh). Moreover, Samuel had already identified a spot where we could tap into an illegal electricity line for an informally negotiated monthly fixed rate. I agreed that the spot was well-chosen, especially in the long-term, as some plots were being constructed nearby. We could sell the machines at a minor loss if the business failed. If the business succeeded, we would split the profit. We decided to try it, bought the equipment, and opened our outlet a day before I left for a conference in Germany. My presence caused curiosity, and we had underestimated the work involved, but customers did buy our chips. Stepping onto the plane to Germany, I was confident that the business would succeed.
A few days before I returned to Pipeline, Samuel told me that he had been forced to close. Electricity had been off for a week, and he had not saved enough money to cope with the blackout. He had handed over the equipment to Eric, the migrant from Nakuru County who had advised Samuel and Arthur to move to Pipeline and sold chips adjacent to his vegetable shop. As his own equipment had been forcefully taken by some of his creditors, he could make good use of ours. Samuel agreed that Eric, who did not have enough money to buy the machines, would pay Samuel half his daily profit until the debt had been cleared. A week later, we realized that Eric had stored the equipment in the back of his shop because the price of potatoes had risen sharply, making selling chips unprofitable. ‘I can’t raise the price of chips; people won’t buy them,’ he explained. As Eric could no longer pay Samuel because his profits had declined dramatically and Samuel had not yet found a willing buyer for the equipment, Samuel was forced to take a loan from a mobile money loan app to repay his wife, who was under pressure to settle the loan she had taken from her chama (Kiswahili, ‘savings group’). Although only two men had decided to invest in a business, around a dozen people suddenly found themselves involved in a network of debts: Cliff, Samuel, Eric, Immaculate, myself, the mobile money loan app and its debt collectors, Cliff’s pregnant wife, Barbara, and the driver who had helped us to transport the potatoes. While everyone had got involved in the business in an attempt to reduce their day-to-day pressures, the result had only intensified their economic problems.
Samuel’s failed business offers important insights into Pipeline’s economy. First, migrant men did not lack what Arjun Appadurai called the ‘capacity to aspire’ (2004). If anything, their aspirations were too high. Becoming a small business-owner was a widely shared goal among male migrants (Dolan and Gordon 2019), and everyone could narrate detailed business plans and ideas with ease. Successful business models were available and could be copied, but the fundamental problem was the lack of capital. Second, even if capital was available, hopes were often shattered by external factors that could not be controlled, such as corrupt policemen, an unexpected increase in the price of potatoes, or a global pandemic. Third, as illustrated by Eric’s inability to translate the price increase of potatoes into a price increase of his chips, Pipeline’s economy was a ‘zero-balance economy’ (Donovan and Park 2019). Customers could not risk incurring what could be called ‘marginal losses’ (Guyer 2004). Even a one Kenyan Shilling increase in the price of an egg caused concern among customers, and entrepreneurs like Eric had to persevere through hard times without increasing prices by, for example, diluting the tomato sauce with water or reducing the number of chips per bag. Last, failures to transform one’s ‘capacity to aspire’ (Appadurai 2004) created personal problems that were integral to the creation of Pipeline’s landscapes of debt.