A guide to keeping it Kenyan in such hard times

We're not even halfway through our President's five-year term and already Kenya is burning around us.

We look like that meme of the dog in the flames, clearly frying and saying “we are okay” at the same time.

Kenyans have taken masochism to a whole new level – we choose leaders we know won't work, with excuses we know won't fly, for a future we may never get to see, and for people who have more options than just Kenya.

That said, it feels like an opportune time to suggest a survival guide for living in Kenya, yes? It feels like something all Kenyans need right now.

These are a few smart moves I think we can all practice, as a nation, to once again readapt and reconfigure ourselves to the violent robberies of soul, spirit and capital that our government seems intent on continuing with:

• Learn how to speak Mandarin. In this era where the Chinese are taking over and building roads with no drainage, it makes sense to speak the language in which you may be crying for help when these roads flood. If you haven't noticed, there is a section of the Standard Gauge Railway with the description written below it in English on the third line, and the more important languages coming first, in a country of Kenyans. The SGR is run by the Chinese, as are 80 percent of our colossal and untenable debt. When the time comes, it helps to have the ability to speak the language of your coloniser, as we know from history – and then maybe in the new age of the empire, you can collaborate and get some land for your descendants too.
• Walk everywhere. Walk to work, to school, to the airport from which you can't escape Kenya, to the supermarket with over inflated prices which your members of Parliament don't know of because they never shop there. Don't forget to get only half of what your household needs – with these fuel prices, everything else has gone up so you need to cut costs in your house, even though you think you're already surviving on the most basic of necessities. A tip: use daylight during the day for all your needs, and then have a limit for how long the lights can stay on at night. Look at it this way – you can spend quality time with your family in the dark, playing games, talking and reconnecting. Our ancestors did it – and so can you!
• When the next election finally rolls around, keep in mind that you have been paying more to live, eat, move and work in Kenya than in any other government's reign – so much so that even chocolate (which you don't eat anyway, because you're on a wallet-inflicted, no-luxury diet) is taxed to control an obesity you can't attain because you're thinning out from being stressed anyway. And who can choose chocolate over electricity from the hands of the cartels? Not us. With that in mind, stroll to the same ballot box at an ungodly hour, and place your vote for the exact same person who put you in this precarious position in the first place – the same guy begging for money we aren't consulted about, shaking hands in ritzy places while we shake pennies.

• Probably most important – don't delude yourself into thinking that Kenya is your country, unless your name is in its title deed. Ina wenyewe. Make it a clean breakup and focus on your survival.

  Twitter: @AbigailArunga