It
was end month and I was down to my last thirty shillings. Truth be told, you
can easily starve here in this mean Nairobi of ours. Of course, I looked
slimmer and had lost considerable weight. A malicious neighbour would have said
I was sick while I kinder one would have sympathised with the rising cost of
living. My immediate neighbour would have advertised to everyone in the plot
that there were days I wasn’t cooking supper. And how would she have known?
Because there was a small gap that separated our two single rooms constructed
out of mabati (iron sheets). On days
I didn’t cook supper, she didn’t’ complain of sneezing caused by my frying of
garlic and pepper – which made me drink lots of water to fill up the remaining
space in my belly after I had done eating my skimpy supper of sukuma wiki and ugali.
Despite
skipping supper for a whole month, here I was, down to my last thirty
shillings. The year was 2010.
My
audit, meal-wise: the Toss container still had some tea leaves in it. The
Drinking Chocolate one had about a quarter kilo of sugar left. Swirling the
kerosene stove about confirmed it could do two more meals. A healthy onion and
a somewhat overripe medium tomato completed the picture, gazing at me
scornfully. The thirty shillings was good for two cups of boiled githeri, a small avocado and a mandazi at the neighbourhood shopping
centre. I said a small prayer before consuming this delicious meal (fried githeri with avocado, accompanied by
strong tea and a mandazi), knowing that life was going to get very interesting
from now on.
Baba tembea,
tembea nami
Usiku wa kiza, tembea nami
Jua lichomozapo, lituapo
Kusini, kaskazini, magharibi, mashariki
Katika misimu yote Baba
Elohi nakusihi, tembea nami.
(Father walk
with me
In the dark of night, walk with me
As the sun shines and sets
In the South and North, West to East
In all seasons Father
Elohim I beseech, walk with me)
I switched off the single bulb in the room,
the time now being some minutes past 8pm, saving on electricity. From my neighbour’s house – Teacher Anne be
her blessed name – came the tantalising smell of beef, taunting my belly,
complementing my basic meal. In my mind, one of the Abunuwasi stories, about
the poor man taken to the king’s court on charges of eating his ugali with the
smell of cooking beef from the rich man’s house.
Some background. Then, we had a youth
group, being funded by some civil society type on this or that project. We had
implemented a program for them for three months now without pay, same program
winding up. (Eventually, they made off with our dues… a crucial business lesson
that you haven’t been paid until you have the payment reflecting on your bank
account. Otherwise, it is all null and void.) Of course, we were all courteous
with them, thinking long term in case they came back with a similar program.
How naïve of us…
The phone rang. A strange number. I got
your number from so and so… Could you do some facilitation (as a
trainer/facilitator) for us tomorrow? Yes, definitely. It is scheduled for
three days. Yes, I can manage that. Payment is such and such an amount, paid
within a week after completion of the same. No problem. Venue? Such and such a
place. Ok. Thank God (in my mind) that it was a walking distance from where I
resided.
New plan needed now: borrow iron from
Teacher Anne and be presentable for tomorrow. Of course, after giving her ample
time to done finish her beef and ugali supper (sweet is the aroma of slightly
burning ugali too), else, I be the
neighbours’ discussion for the rest of the week. Then wake up very early in the
morn and trek to the venue. Anyway, I did partake twice of every meal (10
o’clock tea, lunch and 4pm tea) for the three days the training was held,
sorting my meals concern there. Fortunately, the payments for my facilitation
was done after a day - worth two months of rent and household shopping.
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