Two weeks ago, I moved into this single room in Progressive area, Githurai Forty-Five. Wacha nikwambie, hassle za single room ni nyingi – from disagreements over who gets to fetch water at the tap first (the one who was first in line or the one whose jerrycan was in line first), to this neighbour who decides that the best time to play rhumba on full blast is 1 am etc.
Of course I didn’t want to leave my previous single room (still in Progy) and go and live in yet another single room. The plan was to move to a bedsitter, then a one bedroom house and maintain that upward trend…
But there is a very big difference between expectation and reality.
When my former landlord kicked me out for four months’ back rent due and used my belongings to ‘pay himself’, I had to start again from scratch. I reported the matter to the area chief who ruled that I would only get my belongings after paying the sixteen thousand bob accrued in rent arrears. A friend offered to house me till I found my feet but three days into the arrangement,his wife and their three-year-old daughter arrived from upcountry leaving me out in the cold. Again.
I borrowed some cash here and there and had just enough to pay the deposit and rent for this new house. I also bought a second-hand mattress and blanket from some auctioneer’s yard. These items came with armies of bedbugs as giveaways.
So as I am walking down Ronald Ngala Street one evening going to board a bus home,and I see this hawker shouting at the top of his voice “Dawa ya mende(pronounced as mede) panya, kunguni(kugunii), viroboto,” I go to him and ask,”Ya kunguni ni how much?”
“Mia moja hamsini,”he says.
I make as if to walk away but he grabs my arm and says,”Leta mia.”
I hand him two hundred bob and as he rummages his pockets in search of my balance,someone shouts “Kanjo!”
Sacks are thrust onto backs and a stampede ensues as hawkers run in different directions shoving aside everyone who is on their way,some even tumbling over each other like rugby players making a run for the try box. Me? I just stand there with no cash and no commodity to show why I have no cash.
It’s like being sent to the shop by your mother and returning with nothing other than the polythene bag you left the house with. Returning with the items without the change is better, at least some tears and a carefully worded explanation of how you lost the change on the way back might save your ass. But coming back with nothing will have you whacked so hard you’ll doubt if your mother is even your real mother. Obviously, she will think you ‘ate’ all the money.
Before I realise it, massive hands grab a fistful of my trousers and haul me to an awaiting grey pickup belonging to the City Council of Nairobi.
“Mimi nilikuwa na nunua tu,”I plead. But the owner of the hands on my trousers doesn’t care – about what I am saying or about my trousers which have burst open leaving my posterior uncovered. Maybe I should try saying it differently. Like this one who has pressed a folded five hundred shilling note into his palm after saying, “Tuongee kama wanaume mkubwa,” and has been set free.
But this is a conversation involving pockets and right now, mine have nothing to say – they are as empty as a university library at the beginning of the semester.
I am hoisted into the pickup and sit beside a man who spits litres of saliva on my face every time he speaks. He tells me about how he has a black belt in karate and how he can take down the two askaris manning the door.
“Why don’t you?”I ask.
He says something about using his skills only for self defence and proceeds to recount how he recently beat up six men who had tried to rob him on his way home. Six men! Ha-ha,and they were armed by the way! All this he says with a voice loud enough for me to hear but low enough not to be heard by the officers.
We are driven around town as more and more people are bundled in and their wares either left scattered on the streets or fastened onto the roof of the pickup.
“Kama uko na elfu moja leta!” One of the officers says.
Purses are fished out,hands dipped into pockets and the money handed to him. The magnitude of the situation doesn’t hit me until we stop outside City Hall and the officers and I are only ones left. One of them says,”Leta elfu moja ju ukienda kortini utalipa fine ya elfu kumi.”
“Kama huna pesa si upige simu utumiwe,” he adds.
My phone’s battery must be dead by now. Now where is my phone? Shit!I have lost my phone!
“Mimi nilikuwa nanunua tu. Sina pesa yoyote. Sina hatia. Sina simu. Sina…” The door is banged to my face. A cell. Another room,as single as they come.
