Can I have that soda?

Last week I ate something and my body went all berserk. I am yet to zero-in on the specific food that brought me such anguish because it is hard to know who changed their recipe between the Mutura guy near my place and the outdoor chef at Nick’s – the Koinange Street one.

 

On one hand it can’t be the Mutura guy because what would he add different? Curry? Onions? More water? More mara? And I know you’d be thinking “What if the meat was bad?” But no. His meat is always fresh. We as his customers commit to buy all Mutura for the day so that come tomorrow we all get fresh Mutura. 

On the other hand it can’t be the Nick’s guy because he’s old enough to know how to stick to one recipe for each of those addictive things he sells. (They have us trapped with their samosas man).  He also can’t cook wrong. Or so he seems. I mean he stands straight save for when he’s wrapping your grilled chicken wings. Heck he looks like he’s the one who invented the Mezzaluna. Yaani he’s just polished. Too polished to be the source of my anguish. Or anyone’s anguish.

Well, I have been checking off my regular joints and I am yet to bring the culprit to book. And what happens when I do? Good you asked. I am going to be very vindictive about it. I cannot take this lying down. Mama raised no defeatist. I will allow enough anger to brew within me. I’ll get like really really mad. Super mad. Then I will walk dramatically towards them (not like the way chics of say mssschew and proceed to walk angrily shaking bums aggressively. Nope. That’d be gayish. I’ll do the great Undertaker – from WWE – entrance. I can even hire a guy to blow smoke from behind me to make it look cool and scary) and ask for free food as a peace offering (I hope it will be the Mutura guy – I’d not settle for anything less than a week’s supply of those free goodies) or threaten to report them to their wife. Yeah see how they’ll like it when their missus finds out they’re selling people bad food. See how sleeping on the sofa works out for them.

I love food. Or in a millennial’s lingua, ‘food is bae’. It’s been bae all my life.  I know no other bae. And don’t get me wrong, I eschew whack-tasting meals even if they’re healthy. I’d rather eat those Ngwacis that taste like they were raised by loving Ngwaci parent’s than chew on undercooked fish that will make my stomach ground me for days. 

Being a foodie also makes you eat in many places. Very many places. From Oti’s kibanda where everything goes with avocado, like rice-beans avocado, dengu-chapo avocado, maini-ugali avocado, chai-chapo avocado, avocado na avocado etc etc, to classy joints where they wait for you to ask for fish and then they go get it from the lake first and so you wait there like forever even though your stomach keeps churning funny noises meant to warn you that you’re about to die.  And when they finally get your fish cooked you realise they caught a really small one. And they want you to pay a week’s worth of fare for it. Thieves those ones.

***

I wrote this article on wee hours of Sunday night and at about this point the ‘Twaaaam twam twam twam….twam twam twam ….ehh vone…’ song came on radio and I went off to dance my heart out and so if my thoughts are not very coherent after this I absolve me of any blame.

****

So, yeah, food is bae. 

“Si utuachie soda brathe?”

I gave them the soda. But it was not for them per se. 

Who were they?

A street family on a dark alley opposite Jevanjee Gardens between Bata shop and Debonairs on Muindi Bingu Street.

Who was it meant for?

A set of street lads who camp near the Barclays at Moktar Daddah Street.

Why them?

Because we all deserve kindness. Even from strangers.

Where was the soda from?

We went to hang out at Debonairs because they had a Pizza offer and no one says no to Pizza offers. Even if we wanted to we couldn’t say no. Why? Because if you pass near Debonairs during an offer and decide you will not go in, you will hear a soft voice in the wind whispering your name. Calling you softly and tenderly.

Whose voice? 

Pizza’s voice of course.

And what if you still walk away?

Well, I have never managed to. I will definitely let you know when I do. But I hear bad things happen if you walk away.

And just so you know, I am convinced relationships for younglings in Nairobi are built on Pizza. And Airmax shoes. And admiration too. Maybe. 

I can picture a conversation between those lovey-dovey peeps at Nakumatt Lifestyle once they are married and in their late thirties;

Hubby: So babe remember the money I left you is only for emergencies only. Ok?

Mrs: Right. And also for pizza when I can’t resist the urge.

Hubby: What? No. I mean like medicine and stuff not food.

Mrs: Gotcha. Or, like, if I see a really good offer. Say two large Pizzas at a thao.

Hubby: No. Please don’t spend on food again. You know we are low on money.

Mrs: Sure. But if I see a small Pizza at a throw away price I can buy right?

Hubby: I think you’re not listening to me.

Mrs: No-no. I got it. I just lose it when I hear, smell, think or see Pizza. It’s not that complicated.

PS. I am looking for a joint where a band plays Ohangla and Rhumba and they have well-cooked fish and don’t take ages to deliver it. And where I won’t have to have the hoarse ‘sauti ya mtumishi’ afterwards for constantly shouting to my friends over the music. A serene joint of sorts.

And how is no shave November coming along? Let’s talk beard next week. Shan’t we?

An Unsullied Man.

A man will stand on a balcony in an apartment he has recently moved into. In a pair of khaki shorts, rocking the best sandals Maasai guys - we all know they are kuyus from Karatina just doing business in disguise - ever put together and a particularly flashy phone – not Infinix of course – in his grip he will reminisce old memories as a soft wind blows against his freshly shaved signature beard almost reminding him of the tranquil that can become of life. The tranquil that was life in days of innocence when he knew less and did less. He will want to go back to that. Really bad.

Leaning on the well curved metallic balcony grills he will make sense of the recent past and its darkness and his heart will skip a couple of beats when he remembers the pains - including the time he staggered into his house that he’s strangely unaccustomed to and hit his toe against the edge of the table and it hurt so bad. He felt it even in the daze of drunkardness. And he cursed in the darkness as he caressed the cold wall trying to reach out for the switch and cursed a little more in the light when he found it. Now it’s alilo funny when he thinks of it. He will rest his entire weight on those grills because he will be tired of his now unfamiliar and heavy soul.

He’ll understand why it feels that way. He’ll know he changed.

And he will be hopeful of better days. He will hope to get a better car – that doesn’t sound like a dying walrus when pulling into the basement parking - , marry her because she doesn’t text xaxa and can live a day without her makeup, knows names of economists and mathematicians besides knowing akina wizkid and that famous guy who sings trap music and she cooks round chapos – not like those who at their best produce maps of Kiribati – and also hope to go on holiday with her to the Seychelles because he will be the guy that can confidently say ‘bank otuch’. He hopes to have lots of money.

Perhaps he will resort to stop smoking soon even though he has been stopping for the last year and the year before that and probably knows it’s going to take more than written words in a resolution book to get that done. He will pray that the odds be in his favour. Although I would think that he is not the sort of person that believes in odds. He’s not the sort of guy that says he did not choose the thug life and that the thug life chose him. To him choice is inescapable.

You’d understand this choice thing better if, like him, you hail from an African home somewhere in Rarieda where nothing is left to chance. Not even your career. Typical African parents will for example pray and cane you into whatever profession they think is apt for you. Your old man will watch you as a youngling and think ‘He counts like a banker’ or ‘He has the hand of a shara person’ and in a jiffy’s abracadabra, just like that, your fate is sealed. You will have to become a banker or a businessman.

If say your name is Shirievi and now as a ‘man’ having done you KCPE exam proudly proclaim that you want to be a DJ – DJ Shiri for Shizzle. Your father will wait until both of you have eaten supper – for the strength; much so that they don’t cane you into fainting and then have to pay that guy who owns a moti in the village 1500 bob to rush you all the way to Russia hospital in Kisumu thinking you’re in a comma. Then he will cunningly slide in provocative statements that will make you repeat that you want to be DJ Shiri for Shizzle. He will then suddenly get angry, click loudly – create a mood for war - , summon strength from the ancestors and then come down on you with the vigour like Safaricom does on our data bundles. 

He will whip you using the QnA approach (only that you don’t really get to answer);

*Whip

Q: Ati unataka kua nini? Eeh? Shizzle ni nini?

*Whip *Whip *Whip 

Q: Unajua shule nimelipa pesa ngapi? Ama unadhani ni bure?

*Whip *Whip

Q: Si nilikuambia hii maneno ya facebook inakuharibu akili? Eeh?

*Whip *Whip *Whip

Q: Unadhani utalipwa na nani kuchezea watu nyimbo na wako nazo kwa simu zao?

*Whiiiiiip (that long one where the lash is raised up at least 180 degrees ready for impact)

Q: Unalia nini?

*Endless whips into the night.

Ps: The whips correlate to the question. The more a question agitates him the harder he will hit you.

You will then have to become a banker and give you folks the satisfaction of telling other villagers that their Shirievi is a bank employee before you can quit and become DJ Shiri when you already have kedo forty years and your signature beard isn’t even that cool anymore.

Remember the guy at the balcony?

You also know it’s a habit for him because every Saturday morning finds him on that balcony. Smoking. On those mornings, he will be smelling more like a KBL tanker and his mouth will have the taste of some turquoish waters of Dunga beach. It’ll taste like he ate the forbidden fruit. He did. And this will make him cringe when he remembers the night before. When he remembers the other sins of the night that he has to own up to in the light of day he will quiver. Sipping on lemon juice (they say it raises alkaline levels and lowers hangie levels), he will swallow hard and feel nausea and lethargy inevitably take over his whole being and while battling against swooning he will find his way back to the couch. He will lie there feeling poisoned and dead and almost rigour mortised as the hangover eats him up and he will wait till his boys pass by and drag him out of his misery with some light hearted talk and bits of brotherly abuse. 

But they won’t show up.    

It will be hours before he reverts to his rather ‘puritanical’ life. He will get up and garner his exuberance while rounding up empty liquor cans and pressing them together in the trash bag. He will want them out of his life – and out of his door. Then under the streams of water in his shower, he will swear that last night was the last time. He will think of his life and quietly swear, 

“Sitawai kunywa tena”. 

A lifelong decision made in a flash. He will mean it.

He will call her and let her know too. 

He will earnestly want to be a better man. A man not driven by booze. A man whose lungs don’t suck at being lungs. He will crave tranquillity. And stability.

She will probably get the call while on a book thing with her girlfriends. They will be reading things Sophia Nelson has written in The Woman Code and drawing deep life skills because modern ladies like her take book clubs seriously. They read, do yoga and drink sophisticated things like green tea and talk about weight and healthy living. Being the progressive woman she thinks of herself, she won’t answer a call in the middle of a damn meeting. Instead, she’ll courteously excuse herself and trot away to pick the call. The door will seem an eternity away as she squeezes herself between seats and dodges the manicured toes of her counterparts and the scattered pillows on the floor. Finally she will swing open the door and mumble a ‘hello’ as she moves further from the door on the outside.

“Uko sure umeacha?” She’ll ask him distinctively. “Kabisa?”

He will explain how he came to the resolution as she listens and tears quietly. It will make her happy. She will nod even though he can’t see her over the phone and promise to support him. He will then hang up and she will take time to let it all sink in. Finally he has become the man she always wanted him to be. Her man. Her perfect man. She will wipe her tears, clear her throat and then go back in but she will not hear anything else they say because he will have stolen her heart. And we know the heart is what really listens. 

However, the thing with women is that they glow in some glory when they are happy. And she will glow. They will look at her, at their books, at her again and definitely see the glow and they’ll exchange quick glances with each other and you’ll be sure the glances carry coded messages more secretively than Nasa’s emails. They will pretend to go on with the book club but on their way out one of them will ask her about it. 

“So what was that all about?” 

“Huh?” She will feign surprise. 

“Ni yeye alicall ama? Anataka nini?” 

She will tell her what happened. That he changed. And the story will be passed on to the rest over WhatsApp in like 10 milliseconds and the rest will pretend to not know until she tells them personally and then they will say ‘awww’ to her face to make her feel appreciated. And they will be a little jealous that she got that man.

In the end, she will see him as the perfect man. He will be the perfect man. But we know that the man is a consequence of conscious choice. He is not the unsullied man. No. He is the man with imperfections made perfect.