Shrewd Young Player

It could happen to you at any time. You could be walking down the road, going to the shop to buy some kerosene for your stove, sitting by the roadside waiting for a free ride to work or when you’re busy minding your own business standing in a horrendous queue waiting for your government food ration for the week. You could meet that girl anywhere.

You know the one who your mama warned you about? She could be lurking in the woods waiting to strike and there’s nothing you can do about it. Well there is but who in their right mind would pass such an opportunity? My cousin didn’t.

He has been sitting in my room waiting anxiously for that all important call that would make him an employee of a “prestigious” firm. I say prestigious because all his application letters since he finished college have this term referring to all places he wants to work. The idea has crossed my mind that I should ask him to also drop his CV at my work place however I don’t think he would want to. It is anything but prestigious.

Since no prestigious offers had come his way by last week, I asked him to keep himself busy by spending sometime outdoors. He is running out of savings and since I am neither his father nor his mother and have never been known to grow money, I suggested that his best recourse was to assist us in getting the free food rations being given by the government. We have had on going water and electricity rationing and so a food ration was good and in the offing, we had no qualms about getting it.

Very early the food ration day my cousin went to the chief’s office with a sack ready for his fill. The queue he saw outside the office was unbelievable. It looked like the whole neighborhood had come for their ration. He looked at the long snaking line and wondered if it was worth the effort. Wouldn’t one go home after standing for eternity on the long queue to eat all the food he had been given to recover from the exhaustion?

He paced himself and looked for an angle to jump the queue at least by a hundred people but just as he was about to pick a spot he heard a loud scream from a woman a few meters behind him and then she shouted:

“Wewe! Hakuna kuruka line!”

He turned and saw a middle aged woman carrying a young girl on her back in froth at his attempt. Everyone had turned their attention to him. He cast his eyes out to the chief’s door and saw the chief carrying a big white container popularly known as “Kasuku” busy pouring maize and other cereals in to a green paper bag held by an old woman. He followed the line scrutinizing the faces of the people and realized that up to where he was standing there were a handful of men on the line! The women would definitely kill him if he dared to break the queue. He swallowed the rejoinder he was going to give the shouting woman and with his head firmly tilted, eyes facing the ground walked to the last person on the queue and stood behind her.

He then put his hands akimbo and stared at the different types of sacks the women were carrying. Some were too big others too small while most were torn and in different states of demise. He wondered if this was the life that he had so much looked forward to. Whatever happened to the rising of the masses to fight oppression, all the isms in Marxism, pragmatism, socialism etc, which he had learnt in college? He felt lost. What was he doing here? His thoughts wondered some more but were brought back to reality by a soft soothing voice that said:

“Excuse me; you’ve dropped your sack”

In his reverie he had let go off his sack, perhaps symbolizing his problems? He picked it up and said his thanks.

“Is this your first time here? “The soft voce asked. A few pauses passed and then she repeated.” I was asking if this your first time here?”

“Who?.. Me?”He asked and then quickly answered. “Yes”

There was no one behind him on the line so it had to be him. Of course it was him

“Yes, this is my first time. Is the line always this long?” He asked.

“Last time it was longer than today. They were giving out cooking oil too.” She answered.

She had by now completely turned and was facing him. She was a few inches shorter than him and her face was right in front of him so that he could smell her warm breath on his neck. She was scintillating. The more they spoke the more interesting she became. My cousin spent 5 “short” hours on the queue with her talking about all sorts of things. In the evening after each had taken their potion home, they met for a cup of tea in one of the many neighborhood cafes where love was brewed.

He is smitten. I have heard much about this girl for days on end. He has found a reason to like The Estate. I have been told by reliable sources that when I’m not at home during the day, my cousin brings a certain girl to my room. The neighbors are looking at me funny. Baba Boi sent word that I needed to see him urgently or else I would come to regret it.
I asked the watchman about this on goings in my room but he told to me to see Baba Boi.

I finally managed to meet Baba Boi today in the morning and he has given me the news.
The woman my cousin has fallen in love with is a girl. She is a form two student in a secondary school nearby. My cousin does not have a clue who he is dealing with. This girl must be shrewd. I’m lost for words.

Two Birds One Stone? Throw it Twice

When someone compliments you, the norm is to say your “Thank you” and perhaps follow it with a smile. However, I have come to learn that not all compliments are to be taken at face value.

Take for instance the tea girl at my employer’s place: she recently complimented me on my new cologne and improved hygiene. I was amiss for I had neither bought any cheap fragrance nor done any extensive cleaning save for a shoddy haircut. On further prodding after I had promised to also buy her “Maize Mandazi” (she mixes maize and wheat flour to cut costs) she told me that I previously had this foul smell consisting of stale sweat, bad breath and a distinct kerosene smoke. I had not realized that my using a kerosene stove left me with kerosene smell, after all a man must cook and eat.

My new found aura is as result of my cousin who has just finished college education. He tells me that when he was in school the government would loan him some money to pay for his fees and upkeep. He was not much of a spendthrift and thus saved and bought a few items which he calls “bare necessities”. These include one of the biggest radios I have ever seen up-close and operated- a 3 CD changer. As if that is not enough it also has a remote so all I have to do is put my backside on my 3inch mattress on my bed and press some buttons and we have music. He also has a gas cylinder cum cooker thus the disappearance of my kerosene smell.

He is waiting for job openings and spends most of his time drafting both short and lengthy letters of applications for various exiting and non-existent jobs. Everyday I ask him if there’s any luck and all I have been getting is that they told him to “drop my CV and they shall see in future.” I am not complaining since as I have said I have been enjoying some new found smell…. or lack of it.

My cousin seems not to like The Estate. Our landlord has been rationing the water that we use. It has come to his attention that we now seem to consume more water than before the water rationing in the city. Apparently we have been capitalizing on the “water days” when the city council allows it to flow to our estate to do all manner of laundry and cleaning. He is at loss as to why he seems to be paying more than before, now that there is water rationing. What he does not know is that some of his tenants have been selling the water to the water vendors. It is all close knit and no one in The Estate is ever going to tell. Why should we?

In addition, we now have electricity rationing! It really doesn’t make a difference what the power company wants to call it- they are calling it power “management”. The other reason why it does not matter is because we have been having our own internal rationing all through. You see the landlord has since time immemorial been switching off the electricity from 8am to 6pm except on Saturdays and Sunday when he switches it back on at 2pm. We call these two days, off peak days. But now with the Kenya Power and Lighting Company schedule things are even worse since now lights go off at 6am to 6:30pm!

When Baba Boi inquired about this anomaly in his power management, he was informed that the country is in a crisis and that we all need to pitch in and make sacrifices. The landlord had then gone on to say that he had as a result made his schedule to go hand in hand with that of KPLC only that his is now daily! As a result I only get to listen to the big radio at night and at low volume. Our landlord definitely knows how to kill two birds with one stone only that his understanding of the saying is that you throw the stone once then pick it up for a second throw.

Come end month, I assigned myself the job of assisting my cousin to get a place of his own albeit unwillingly. I took him to one of those suburbs with mean looking uniformed watchmen to look for a Servants Quarter better known as SQ. I’ve always wondered –if the rich have so much money why do they rent out their SQ’s? Perhaps to remind themselves off poverty or is it to get rid of some rich guilt?

All we had to do is inquire from the watchmen if any of the SQs were vacant and leave his phone number with them in case of any eventualities. One of them did call - but when we went to view the SQ we found out that there was more to it. The watchmen have come up with a new way of making money. They are also part-time house agents with hefty commissions. The watchman informed us that he had a charge of ksh500 to cover “viewing fee”. In addition, if my cousin liked the house he would have to pay him an additional ksh1000 “moving in fee.” This is definitely something I need to introduce to our watchmen at The Estate. They could make some commission by showing off my room and telling the would be tenant of my impending departure come the end of the month only for me to postpone it. We sure could do with that “viewing fee.”

My cousin has also postponed his departure till the end of the month when he hopes to get a reply from his many job applications and possibly a job as well. In the meantime, I smell better and listen to CD’s from 6:30pm till 6am then doze off at work the rest of the day.

Wedding Blues

On Saturday we attended a wedding. I say we attended because we were not invited. We were at the wedding by default courtesy of our Mkubwa. One of Mkubwa’s “staff” was tying the noose...I mean knot. I call him “Staff” because even though we work at the same place we are not referred by that name. We have our own category- we are “workers”. And so Mkubwa’s staff and workers were to attend a staffers wedding. The staffers were attending both the church ceremony and the reception while we were to attend the reception.

Now when I say were attending the reception I am actually lying. The correct word is attending to the reception guests. In my line of work you never really know what your job description is. It is upon the discretion of the Mkubwa. You could be working in his warehouse as a do it all- meaning you do as you’re told -and the next day your work place is his residence which is in one of those places with lofty names ending in grooves, sides, palaces, courts and villas doing some gardening!

Our benevolent Mkubwa saw it in his own right and wisdom to invite us to the reception to do the decorations the sitting arrangements and everything else that the wedding planner had in mind. In short when the wedding planner said jump, we did not ask why? But our quick response was “how high madam?”

We were surprised to see the long winded green grass in the reception grounds. Contrary to our belief that there was a shortage of water in “The Green City in the sun” water sprinklers were ten feet apart spraying water on the green lawns. Some of us did a quick calculation of the distance from our homes to the reception to see if we could carry 20 to 50 litre containers to also irrigate our homes since water in The Estate now costs more than the kerosene we buy for our stoves. It was agreed that we would hire a cart pusher to do the job or better still hire only the cart and push it ourselves.
However, our wet dreams were quashed when Davy- we refer to him as “he that knows news, aka reporter” because he buys the Swahili version of a local daily everyday-informed us that the city council had banned use of hand pushed carts in the city. Down but not out we moved our morning agonies to the reception- we showered and did our toiletries in the confines of the huge bathrooms they had for their workers. Their bathroom size would put my “house” to shame in terms of size, lighting, colour...well everything. We also carried as much water as we could in our bodies and in very many small bottles.

All was not lost for come the Dee day we were also going to enjoy the reception. Those who could were to bring a date to the wedding. I did not have a tough time convincing my landlord’s house help to join me for this auspicious occasion. All I needed was to show her my invitation card. The one the wedding planner had said had mysteriously disappeared and would be deducted from our meagre salaries. It was an expensive card and must have cost a fortune to make it. I’m told it was handmade. I allowed my date to keep it on one condition, that she would not carry it to the reception. Without getting into details, I have since seen it prominently displayed beside her bed. It’s bound to make another disappearing act soon, very soon. Something about it giving...what’s that word...hints...yes, marital hints.

On the big day, the staffers among other guests arrived at the reception after the church ceremony in beautifully decorated cars making a long convoy. Mkubwa must have been impressed by our work. He patted me heavily on my back. Come to think of it, it could have been a push, a shove to move out of the camera focus. I don’t know. I hope it was the former. I did not think much of it then because I had someone grab my hand and pull me away from the cameras. It was my date. She looked stunning but that’s according to The Estate (that’s what we call our residence) standards. Her bright orange kitenge and green ,yellow flowered skirt would have made other men in The Estate look at me with envy but right then it made her stick out in the reception like a sore thumb. I held her hand and towed her towards the kitchen with many eyes looking at us, heads turning and the general feeling of discomfort.

“What are we going to do in the kitchen?” she asked when she noticed our destination.

“I want to check up on what the workers are doing. I’m in charge of the company’s workers helping out on the wedding.” I replied.

“Is that why all off you have the same uniform?” she continued. I did not know if it was an innocent question or some good use of sarcasm. I decided to tread carefully with a one word reply.

“Yes.” I responded.

I had hoped she would be able to mingle with other legitimately invited guests but with her outfit she would not stand a chance. The bridesmaid would tear her part for trying to steal the limelight from the bride; after all it was her day, right? She had not heard one of them call her a petticoat- wearing- bitch.They would then trace her presence to me and I would probably kiss my job goodbye. Much as I dislike my description less job I was not willing to lose it.

The food was good and the reception was fantastic at least that is what I was told by my fellow workers. We ate the food alright but I did not dare venture in to the reception again throughout its entirety for fear of being caught with an uninvited guest. My date is yet to fully comprehend the day’s events and no matter how much she prods I have been very evasive on the issue.

Despite the awful date I had, there is some good from all this. I have been told my skin is glowing and no it’s not because of my date, it’s because of good old soap and water, lots of water, that I had for the last one week while working at the reception.