The Sagacious Taxi Men

So this cold weather in Nairobi has some of us opting for cab rides over boda’s. So I figured - why not devote this blog post to these masters of movement?

Plus it’s a well known fact that taxi drivers are the most fascinating individuals this part of the galaxy. They spend their days entertaining passengers, accommodating their rants, accepting unbelievable escapades as gospel truth as if in hope of an eternal reward. Then, they synthesis and triangulate unrelated stories from their many interactions to create perspectives on life that are as absurd as they are entertaining.

Take my friend, Kama, my cabby-guy of choice. He’s a young fella; not quite thirty but a long way from two decades. Kama is a careful driver which is why I refrain from placing my life in anyone else’s hands. This particular day we exchange our usual pleasantries before he unloads a revelation so heavy, he slows the bike down to help me grasp his every syllable.

“Buda, unafaa uoe dame kiatu,” he tells me. (My friend, you should marry a girl who isn’t pretty).

I’m unsure of what prompted such a bizarre declaration.

He continues, “Unajua dame msawa hawezi tembea kutoka hao mpaka stage bila kusalimiwa. Lakini damme kiatu ataenda na arudi bila stress.” (A beautiful girl can’t get to the bus stop without being noticed.)

The sincerity of Kama’s voice allowed me to imagine the expression on his face even while seated behind him. For the trip’s duration, he narrated a handful of stories that supported his pose. They all started with an established man who was perfectly fine before he met a damsel. She’d storm into his life, creating such worry and distress that he’d end up with some strain of a lifestyle disease,  causing him to spend his substantial fortune on medication until his reserves were dry and the only thing left for him to do was to drop dead. He was so convinced that the downfall of any gentleman was a gorgeous woman. When I finally alighted I chose not to tell him how imaginatively absurd he was. How could I withdraw a reality so clenched by his soul?

Fabian is yet another philosophical transporter who ferries my mass from time to time. He has a clean taxi (a rarity in our county) and offers unorthodox relationship advice. He’s a practicing chauvinist of the highest order and of the least reservation yet somehow happily married with three children. Fabians’ very existence is the undoing of feminists around the world. 

He once recounted to me how he left his wife stranded at a village near her parents’ home because she decided to test him. While deciding on what to marvel at – his guts or the fact that he was still married – he landed yet another revelation that almost launched me into the anal of the back seat.

“Njoro, hawa wanawake haufai kuwapembeleza. Watakukanyaga na roller kama za barabara,” he told me, carrying all the conviction of an altar call. (Njoro, never be placid with these women. They’ll run you over.)

I thought about my childhood and how the Mr. Nice Guy act left me single until after high school. Could this the breakthrough I needed to unlock the forces of single-hood? What if my mother, knowing the potential damage I could have achieved with this knowledge, purposefully reared a kind, responsible man, knowing full well that I would be disadvantaged by exuding these traits? Thanks Mum.

The numerous other theories and hypothesis I’ve come across from my taxi guys warrant a series of posts. Scratch that, a whole other blog! I may very well publish a set book entitled, “Storo za Madere” and donate the profits to the guys who get paid to tell stories while driving. So the next time you find a taxi guy with Peter Jackson tales, you better pay up gladly. For the ride and for the vibe.

Lie With Me

First things first. Happy (belated) Madaraka day to my Kenyan brothers and sisters. Yesterdays celebration was very welcome as it had been a rather terrible weekend. I caught something and had to be in bed instead of out there contributing to my friends’ social lives. My doctor didn’t even call it a cold - upper respiratory infection, he alleged. It would have been the perfect time to ask him to, in his best handwriting, scribble me a note to aid in securing sick leave, except it was a Saturday and I am very much unemployed.

I strongly believe the condition drastically impacted the range of activities I would have otherwise engaged in. My actions were limited to only those that required little to no movement. It took me a while trying to figure out what to do with all the time on my hands. At one point I just about picked up a book by Paulo Coelho which a wonderful friend got me as a gift (God bless you, I’m still in page 50) but judiciously decided against it. The sheer amount of eye movement and page flipping would have drained my energy and I clearly needed to rest.

Parallel to my discomfort was a party going on downstairs, celebrating the arrival of my first nephew. It was easy to tell my folks and their friends were having quite the moment. For once it was the young man who was envious of the elderly, of their merriment and unreserved laughter, of the fact that at the prime of his life, at peak of the weekend, he was quarantined by his health to his bed, with nothing more than a laptop and 200 shillings worth of movies. The gum to the sole was that I couldn’t be around that sweet cherub who will one day call me ‘unko’. There was reasonable concern that I could easily give him or rather that he could easily catch what I had. Yes I was bummed about it but decided I could always munch on his cheeks and crow about my proficiency in baby talk another day.

Then Sunday came and it was worse. I missed church. A friend had prayed for me on the eve but when I woke up with a rhythmic migraine on church-day, I revaluated the potency of his faith. It also turned out that my mum had caught the bug and missed church as well. Then my dad later clued me in on a ‘cold wave’ that had been sweeping Nairobi. What are the odds? Kenyans are so petrified about missing opportunity that if one person catches the flu, we all get on the bandwagon and sneeze together. Still, it was comforting to know that somewhere in the city, my fellow countrymen were lying with me (in their own beds of course), coughing with me and not getting to do what befits an end-month weekend. Our people aren’t so cold after all.

THE BLUE TICKS OF DIGITAL SNOBBERY

Let’s say you miss person X and decide to send them a message on Whatsapp. A few minutes later person X receives your text as evidenced by the blue ticks on the corner of your message. You eagerly await a response from this X, person X, as you watch your favorite medieval drama while sipping masala tea and chomping down a brown chapatti. The drama soon ends and you have to go to sleep for tomorrow is Monday and you don’t want to spend three hours in traffic like a Rongai local.

You get to work the next day and still nothing. At lunch, you see person X is online, probably chatting it up with everyone else but you. I’m sure they saw the text. Night comes and you wonder if the blue ticks really mean that the recipient has read the incoming message. Heck you go though the trouble of rechecking what the blue ticks means. Better be sure than jump into conclusions and get your cholesterol high.

After days of scanning through your messages for a response you still have nothing. On the weekend, you bump into person X at Koroga or Blankets and Wine and somewhere beyond the expected pleasantries they hit you with “I thought I replied...I’ve been so busy” or even, “I don’t know how I didn’t see your message.” If you can relate, you too are a victim of digital snobbery.

It’s rather embarrassing to go through. You imagine person X walking around with their nose high, bragging to their friends on how much action they get on their chats, walls, inboxes and timelines. You soon realize you may or may not have the power to demand an explanation. If you do ask, you look petty or desperate. If you don’t, you sentence yourself to a big loss and give person X the upper hand. What’s worse is this - the larger your ego, the harder it is to make this decision.

I hate to break it to you but there is no such thing as “I thought I replied”, no such thing as “I don’t know how I didn’t see your message.” These are empty phrases designed to assuage ones ailing ego. Not that person X cares so much as to worry themselves with the condition of your soul but out of a moderate sense of civility, they let you down, softly.

To the victims of this inevitable vice, I feel for you. Things were a lot more direct in the days of old. It wasn’t too hard to guess that someone was just not interested in your words. There were no blue ticks to let you know how important (or not) you were to someone. There were few grey areas that were left to your hyperactive powers of deduction and imagination. Not like today, when silence means many more things than a reply. Damn those blue ticks.

The Day Mama Said Shi*

I don’t know 'bout ya mama but ma mama don’t say stuff like that.

I could tell you the number of times I’d be flipping in my duvet and for a second of consciousness hear enough to make out mama’s voice binding devils in the dead of night. She would bind them, roast them, dice them and send them back like the little wimps they were. I’m sure those imps scampered right back into the abyss the moment she opened her mouth to pray. This powerful woman could do no wrong in my eyes. That explains why every affront against her was rightfully returned with compounded violence.

Even so, being raised by this gracious angel of mine had its compromises. There was little room to be as insolent as some of my friends were. In fact, the height of my disobedience was listening to Kiss FM countdown on the weekends and boy did I feel I was I living dangerously. She had warned us that secular music was a violation worthy of a rear visitation from ‘the belt’. Still, the allure of Ja Rule and Ashanti turned me into a covert spy, say James Bond, sneaking into the secret lab (parent’s room) to access the weapon of mass contagion (radio) which contained classified, mind-altering technology (music) which I often downloaded onto a secure drive (tape). Those were the days when music was worth an ass-whopping. Funny, now all music talks about is ass-shaking.

She still did her best to keep us on that straight and narrow. She hauled us to Sunday school, put us in Christian schools, the whole 9 yards. I now remember being mad at God that I didn’t get chosen as part of the CU committee at my high school – all my siblings were. Maybe it was the T-Pain song I stealthily nodded my head to during entertainment night that disqualified me from a high seat at the temple. It surely couldn’t have been the girls. As a matter of fact, what girls? My classmates called me King Breeze reasons I will not elaborate. I am yet to heal.

It is in this brilliant light of invincibility that my lady dropped a bomb on us.

It happened years ago on a Saturday when our dogs followed my father into the house, painting a gorgeous paw mural on the pearly kitchen tiles. When mum checked in, I knew there was bound to be trouble. First of all, the dirty breakfast dishes were still untouched at 3pm. Strike one. Next, she noticed the fresh, mud artwork gracing her floor. My lady was not happy at all. Strike two. The final whistle came when she popped into the living room and saw three wet mutts playfully hovering around her husband like flies at a busy latrine. Stamping on the floor she belted out a four letter word that she’s never said again to this day.

Did we all freeze to alert her on the unspeakable she just let slip? Did we let it slide like when someone you respect farts and you pretend like the sewage line must have burst? I can’t seem to remember that part very well. The heft of my angel’s utterance was too big a file to save anything else from that day. That was the day mama said shi*.

25 and Dependent

Birthdays don’t mean much to me. It’s because I believe that pastries should be enjoyed as often as one can afford, religiously accompanied by a rich brew of dark roast coffee. Furthermore, shouldn’t friends hang out more than once a year, worse off when they assemble mainly to protect themselves from withdrawing from a ‘Favour Bank’ they haven’t deposited enough in? While we’re at it, someone remind me why we need to drink sodas on special days again? Hold an event without that sinister elixir of sugar, colour and acidic preservatives and you can kiss your place on the best birthday/wedding event goodbye. It’s so assimilated into our culture that when someone say’s they’re going to buy you a ‘ka-soda,’ we light up with anticipation like it’s a good thing.

All this was aroused by my 25^th birthday last weekend. With it came the somber realization that my temporal locus just slightly tilted towards 30. I was at first tempted to celebrate the dent I had made on a quarter century with a feast fit for a Norse god after conquering the Kraken. Only when I remembered I was a jobless, homeless (some say living with parents – same difference), 25 year old male did my halcyon days appear undeserving of revels. I felt I needed more to celebrate. Say a hot girlfriend or a blue Subaru with a loud exhaust or even better, a one million shilling bonus from Chris Kirubi.

Well, my small sister would have none of this. She jumped at my first thought to hallow the birthday, likely because she knew the next chance of me celebrating another another was 5 years away. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why I obliged.

Come to think of it, she’s a real planner. She’s the kind that obsesses over details like which side of the house the chairs should be set up. Is it the side with the garden or the side with the shade or maybe the side with more space or sensibly the one nearest to the kitchen? I just bathed in the glory of her acute excitement over a birthday that wasn’t hers. Girls are so strange, right?

Did I mention I am jobless? The politically correct term would be job seeking which is what I do when I’m not in school pursuing a master in something everyone already knows how to do – communication. But to celebrate a jobless, dependent, 25 year old single man (see how the single makes me look miserable) is like spitting on a forest fire hoping to quench its thirst and God would not have his son so embarrassed. That is why I was invited by a top tier firm to take an aptitude test for their annual recruitment a few days prior to the festivity. Yes! At least now we could celebrate a potentially employed but, for now, dependent 25 year old single man.

Needless to say, I am thankful and not just for a promising opportunity to change my status. Those who showed up to the party were all fervent in their estimation of my eminent success. They reminded me that sometimes, we need not only to celebrate our achievements but also the very chance to achieve. True, there’s no need for work in the grave but to be on this side of eternity is a blessing that many past souls would die to relive. I just hope the job comes sooner than 30.

PLEASE DON’T BANG MY DOOR!

I’ve had it up to here!

This Mr. Nice Guy act never pays off. Never. How it had me hoping and believing that people are different and I shouldn’t generalize or let the sun go down on my anger. But I’ve had way too much experience with gents and dames, wannabe’s and proper’s to throw them all in one basket.

Take the most recent of such gestures that turned mistake. I had walked out from a rather grueling final – the type that makes you want to hire a ninja assasin to take out the descendants of whoever it is who invented school. I figured I could cool off by engaging with my equally traumatized colleagues and whine in unison over the exam. Just as I headed for the door, a lady acquaintance perceived I was driving and asked for a lift. 

My first thought was how muddy the floor mats were – it’s a Probox, its expected right? My second thought calculated the distance to her desired destination. A bearable 10 minutes of conversation would be my contribution to humanity today. Mr.Nice Guy prevailed and I obliged.

We pulled out of school and headed towards her destination. Those floor mats were worse than I thought. Is that a weed sprouting?

It was a Saturday afternoon and the traffic gods had favored me and my small engine by clearing the roads ahead of us. We arrived 4 minutes earlier than I had thought. The chat wasn’t too bad either. Then began the customary thank you and welcome as I pondered on the feasibility of a driving back to Kitengela on my empty stomach.

She opened the door and grabbed her bag. Almost there boys, anytime now and we’ll be smashing into a cheese burger and ketchup-smothered fries. She let out one last goodbye, smiled and then, almost in a dubiously calculated affront on my emotions, slammed the door with every pound of flesh on her bone.

Some type of paralysis set in. What the hell had just happened? I slowly glanced at the window expecting to see a crack straight down the middle like a Thorian bolt from Azgaurd.

Maybe she noticed her attempt at destroying my (mothers) automobile and was coming back to apologize. I caught sight of the offender joyfully trotting across the road like a hippie towards her nirvana. I just sat there for a while, the only way I knew to console Paula (that’s her name) after her aggressor almost maimed her. There and then, soaking in a juice of fury and confusion, I swore never to give anyone a lift again.

To be honest with you, the juices did drain after I shoved some fast food down. In fact, I gave a couple people a lift the following week. Something did, however, change. I was no longer an optimistic Mr. Nice Guy. Oh no, that died when I unwillingly confronted the myth that women aren’t as physically strong as men. That girl almost had me driving a heap of scrap metal. I’ll still give lifts when asked to but this time, I make sure, right before my passengers thank me for being such a nice guy, to say as firmly and direct as I can, “Please don’t bang my door!”