I have taken pap to be something just to pass time, because there is nothing it helps with.
A ja-pap
The success of investment groups such as HoMiSiKi depends on accepting ‘calculative rules’ that make the private relations between group members irrelevant and fully ‘determine whether and how actual money from some individuals returns to others in the group’ (Green 2019: 117). Fragile ties of friendship and brittle political alliances can thus be detrimental to an investment group’s economic success. In the case of HoMiSiKi and jo-pap, the goal to invest and the goal to provide a cover for male socializing were in conflict with one another from the beginning. The wasteful masculinity celebrated in pap furthermore opposed the narrative of the prudent male provider that dominated in the domestic sphere of the marital house. Though migrant men tried to keep these three ‘communities of practice’ where different types of masculinity were performed (Paechter 2003) strictly apart, their boundaries remained porous. This was unsurprising, as male migrants attempted to square the circle of successful masculinity by striving to be economically prudent investors in HoMiSiKi, sexually virile, generous, and wasteful men in pap, and romantic breadwinners in the house. While HoMiSiKi meetings, for instance, often struggled with drunk members who came late or interfered with the meeting’s organizational structure, the activities of jo-pap were more calculative than narratives about pap’s conviviality and generosity suggested. This becomes clear when one looks closely at how the social consumption of alcohol was organized.
Going out for drinks either developed spontaneously from sitting together at the base or was initiated by a ja-pap who had some spare money to spend on the first rounds of drinks. In both cases, jo-pap had to engage in careful calculative considerations. For example, to avoid criticism from their wives, and to prevent themselves from spending too much money on alcohol, jo-pap often sent some money to their wives before starting to drink. Jo-pap also had to decide who would be included in the drinks besides those present, and how the drinking would continue after the initial contribution had been depleted. These two questions were officially answered according to the principles of pap. Everyone should be included and, once jo-pap required money for another round, everybody should contribute according to his financial ability so that a new bottle of spirits could be purchased and then shared among those present.
In reality, the bleak economic situation often forced
jo-pap to exclude some members. When I, for instance, once told some
jo-pap that I had only 1,000 Kenyan Shillings to spare, we decided to go to a bar located far from the base
so that we would not be spotted by other
jo-pap and
each of us could drink enough alcohol to enjoy its relaxing and depressurizing effects.
1 The degree to which jo-pap considered drinking alcohol and spending time in bars as a way to reduce the pressure caused by the expectations of women was captured by a meme that circulated on WhatsApp: ‘Pls whenever u feel overloaded by your wife’s issues, rather than engaging in domestic violence, kindly go to the nearest (Biological Anxiety Relief) (BAR) center or place and order for any 1 or more of the following antidotes: 1. Wife Irritation Neutralizing Extract (WINE), 2. Refreshing Unique Medicine (RUM), 3. Bothersome Estrange-wife Elimination Rebooter (BEER), 4. Vaccino Officio Depression-Killing Antigen (VODKA). 5. Wife High Infusion Suspicion Killing Energy Yeast (WHISKEY). Make yourself happy. There’s more to life than domestic violence at home. This is issued by the Federal Ministry of Happiness (MoH).’ Pap’s ethos of generosity and conviviality was thus threatened by migrant men’s limited economic resources. Carefully balanced relations of alliance and distance and the subtle economic hierarchies between
jo-pap risked becoming publicly visible when other
jo-pap found out they had not been invited for a round of drinks.
2 Alcoholic drinks were categorized according to their price. Imported beers and spirits were the most cherished, followed by Kenyan beers and spirits, and then locally brewed alcohol, which was ranked the lowest. Cans or bottles of beer were rarely drunk because they were individually consumed and more expensive than spirits. Though nobody was to hold grudges in
pap, nobody wanted to be excluded either. In as much as drinking alcohol helped to unite
jo-pap, it could also stir up negative emotions and lead to social schisms among migrant men.
Local politics also united and divided HoMiSiKi and
jo-pap. After Benson decided to follow the COVID-19 containment rules and thus cancelled all meetings of HoMiSiKi from around March 2020, some members united in an attempt to overthrow him around the beginning of 2021. Feeling that HoMiSiKi’s savings were sitting idle in the group’s bank account, though nobody could pinpoint the exact amount, they began to demand that the investment group be liquidated and its members receive their respective shares. The HoMiSiKi secretary responded that such a decision must be reached during an official meeting, which could not be held because of the COVID-19 regulations. Instead of further arguing with the group’s members, he presented a list of individual members’ payment arrears, which showed that most had failed to pay contributions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some members reacted to this with rage, threatening to come to the houses of Benson and the secretary to demand their shares using force. While many members feared that Benson would use their money for his political campaign, some even suggested that embezzling the funds had been Benson’s intention from the beginning. When I discussed the issue with Benson, he alerted me of the possibility that the request for liquidation was a staged attempt to get him arrested for violating the COVID-19 regulations by organising the meeting. If this happened, it would open the way for his political competitor Geoffrey Ochieng, whom Benson rightly suspected had more support from
jo-pap.3 At a later stage of the political campaign period, Paul Okumu, an acquaintance of Leonida and migrant from Homa Bay County, entered the race. Probably due to Leonida’s ongoing influence, many jo-pap started to support Paul. Because Benson had decided to forego his candidacy a few months before the general elections in August 2022, voters could thus choose between three Luo candidates on the voting day, namely, Geoffrey, Paul, and the incumbent, who still had considerable support in the northern parts of Kware ward. This led to a split in the Luo vote and helped a Kamba candidate to win the election. Though the split of the pap vote led to serious arguments and even fights between the supporters of Paul and Geoffrey, such confrontations were quickly forgotten once members of the base met in a bar or bumped into each other on Pipeline’s streets. This exemplifies that, in pap, male sociality encompassed what many jo-pap considered as nothing more than the dirty game that was politics.Though I did never find out what the true intentions of each party were, this incident exemplifies the fragile nature of friendship bonds developed in Pipeline. However, it would be misleading to interpret the feelings of brotherhood that emerged in pap and HoMiSiKi’s atmosphere of potential economic success as simple delusions. Rather, participating in pap and in the activities of HoMiSiKi offered migrant men relief from their boring and repetitive wage labour as well as from the suffocating atmosphere of pressure in their marital homes. They had tried to attenuate their experience of pressure by joining HoMiSiKi, which allowed them to view and present themselves as serious businessmen. Unfortunately, the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic further increased their experience of pressure and compelled them to look for ways to depressurize in pap, an arena of wasteful, and sometimes violent, masculinity. As they immersed themselves in pap, HoMiSiKi fell apart because the COVID-19 regulations had banned public meetings and most members had stopped paying their monthly contributions due to the dire economic situation brought on by the pandemic. Drinking, fighting, and politicking in pap, however, were not the only remaining options to evade the increased economic pressure. Some jo-pap and many other migrant men also sought solace in hardening their bodies in one of Pipeline’s many gyms.