Baringo

We're going to the former president's home, a place touched by his priority for education, evidenced by the schools on every bend but equally silenced by his intolerance for dissent. So much so that the only civil society that existed there for awhile was environmental. So much so that it was only when he left power that his people finally admitted that they were hungry.

I don't know how much of it is my own feeling or whether there really is a sense of loss in Kabarnet for the days when their man was in power. Every election cycle is fraught with the question of alliances and front-runners and in a country divided by ethno-political power and memory, the question I feel on their lips or anyone's lips who has not yet tasted power is whether and when it will be their time (again).

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We arrive in Kabarnet, five hours after leaving Nairobi and in the evening when we take dinner I notice the homogeneity of colour and laugh at the irony of what is black in Nairobi being brown in the Rift Valley.

Trips to UG

The last time I landed in Entebbe, they herded us like goats into lines to submit forms declaring that we did not have ebola. 

"This is very serious!" they cautioned us, as if to justify how much more inefficient their immigration services had become as a result of the crisis.

And then they sprayed us with hand sanitiser and let us go. 

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Uganda always reminds me of Rwanda: the hills upon which the cities are built, the militarised state...

"What do you think about when you think of Uganda?" my colleague asked me. 

"Idi Amin."

He laughed, "but that was so long ago!"

"And greenness and bananas." I compensated. 

"We are a democracy now."

"What is the ratio between the ruling party and the opposition?"

"About 70:30?"

"Wow, that's a big difference."

"Yeah but the Vice-President is running this time. I think he has a good chance of winning."

"Is he really independent?"

"Well, come to think of it, he hasn't officially denounced the party."

"Do you think maybe he could just be alternating like Putin and Medvedev?"

"Maybe. I wouldn't put it past them."

Second hand things

I collect furniture, no thanks to the addictive nature of OLX. And so my house is a collection of once owned pieces by people in some form of transition.

But I also collect the stories behind them and with each item, I am always surprised by the experience.

This is how my house came together:

1. The sofa and dining table

A woman seemed to be selling her whole house on OLX. Almost everything a house would consist of was for sale. But I liked her sofa most and the matching dining table. Both, dark brown wood and dark brown suede or something similar to suede (you never know these days). We agreed on a price for both and I came with a truck. Are you leaving the country? No, I'm getting married. Wow! That's great! Congratulations!

"He wasn't going to marry me, you know. After a year of living together, he said he didn't feel the need to get married. Why? I asked him, because you get all the wifey benefits? And so I moved out! I bought all this furniture and restarted my life. A little while later, he proposed. And now I'm moving back in and selling all of this."

And so she sold me both for half the price she bought them for. "I want to pass on some of my good luck," she said. 

2. The coffee table

I liked the table. 

As it looked small enough to fit in my car, I organised a time to go and pick it up.

She showed me the things she was selling, the things that were already sold and the things she was leaving behind. "I've pretty much sold everything I wanted to," she started. "We're going back with just two suitcases each... aren't we?" She looked at her daughter. A five year old with big hair and big eyes, swinging her legs from the stool that she sat on as she watched us transact. 

"We're excited to go, aren't we?"

"Yes!" She exclaimed with all the ignorance of what it would mean. 

"My marriage is not working. I couldn't find work here. It just got too much. So now we're going back. I'll go back to my old job. If I didn't have her, maybe I'd be travelling elsewhere. But she has to go to school you know!" she joked and I laughed. They looked like a cute pair.

"I'm afraid, you know. I didn't think I would be doing this."

And so I assured her, as much as a stranger can, standing halfway between the door and the living room until we had run out of as much of the casual conversation you can have at eight in the morning before someone goes to work. 

And then we picked up the coffee table - a piece of wrought iron and wood that was the entry point for her to seek confidence in a stranger and we carried it down the stairs and set it down in my backseat. And then we hugged like we knew each other and parted ways. 

3. The carpet

It was an explosion of blue - my favourite colour and even if I thought it might not go with my brown-coloured living and dining room, I just had to see it.

"I lost my job," she says. "If you know of anyone looking for someone in communications, please let me know?"

"Sure." I said and gave her my card. 

"I'm just volunteering here until I find something," she continued.

I wished her all the best in finding work again.

The carpet she just sold me would last her at least a week or two in unemployment, I think. 

4. The bed

It was a wedding present. They were moving to a smaller place closer to work and needed a smaller bed. 

"Are you married?" His wife asks me.

"No. Not yet. No I'm not."

"When you get married call me. I'll give you more books," she said as she handed me two books about beauty and marriage. 

They talked about the fleeting nature of beauty, counselled women about getting married before the expiry date of their beauty and about keeping beautiful for their husbands. 

Beauty also depends on money, the book reads, so prosper so that you can invest in making your wife beautiful!

She still calls me to ask me whether I am any closer to getting married and my answer is always the same, "No, not yet. But I will when I do."

5. The curtains

He had found a job elsewhere and so they were packing up and going. "I have gotten so many calls," his wife tells me, referring to the responses to her ads, "it's so hard to keep track."

"Yeah, I can imagine. You have good stuff."

"Thanks. I realised that people aren't so interested in high fashion. Just, well built things." She fingers the curtains. "They're so thick we didn't see the need to line them." 

"Yeah, I can see."

"Only the pair in the baby's room is lined so he can sleep some more."

"Yeah! That's very good."

"So which ones do you want?"

"I think all the beige ones."

"Ok I'll take them down for you. You'll need to wash them though."

"Sure, no problem."

"So, are you new here?"

"No I'm just moving out."

"Ahh, I see."

And then it came out of me, "I didn't think I would be doing this alone. I thought maybe I'd have a roommate or move in with someone, I...."

And there it was, in the slip of the tongue, I had made her awkward. I had imposed my fears on a stranger. She stood looking at me compassionately, unsure of what to say. 

After a moment, I gathered myself together and organised for a time to come again to pay and pick up the curtains and said goodbye. She watched me go, unaware that I had panicked when I had first hired a truck and felt my heart drop as it pulled into the compound. 

Because it was only then that I realised that my transition of moving out was a reflection of the status of my career and my economic situation: of what I was able to afford to move into and of what I was able to buy - a summary of my worth, in a way. 

So perhaps this is was why these sellers felt the need to impart the history behind their furniture pieces - because they were testimonies of the circumstances under which they were letting go of bigger things and because in those moments, we were each others' only witnesses.

the 3am man - her side of the story

i read a post about the 3am man ealier this year and thought to write her side of the story (which i also posted as a comment on the same blog post). It goes as follows:


It's going midnight and you have that dread in the pit of your stomach again that he's going to come home at 3am or later. And you know that when he does come home, he'll be the only thing that he can be at that hour which is an idiot. 

And for your male friends who settled because they needed someone to temper their idiocies, they like to joke about you not succeeding in tempering his. 

It's not even a matter of limiting freedoms for control's sake, though, it's just that nothing good ever comes out of staying out that late. And you hate that to ask him to come home makes you that proverbial nagging wife. And so you keep quiet and he calls it you being judgmentally silent.

To be honest, you don't mind the 1am man. The 1am man is high in the mellow kind of way, he's relaxed, talks more than he normally does, maybe says sweeter things than he normally would... But the 3am or later man? Is simply a fool. He loses his phone(s), wallet, keys, cigs, lighter, car, argues for argument's sake and finds himself arrested for loitering or being drunk and disorderly or whatever other charge a cop can think of to maximise extortion. And instead of calling you, because you also happen to be a lawyer, yes, another goddamn lawyer, he calls his boy Joni, who hangs up on him laughing while he says, "that was a good one manze."

There's nothing he's losing, you think, from leaving the same boys he sees three times a week a few hours earlier than 3am. But you let him be, because he says you met him that way so you should love him that way. And you do. You let him get into trouble, because inevitably it's him who has to deal with it... well:

- Except when he wakes the tois up as he finds his way through the house bumping into every noisy thing on the way from the door to your room and if Ciku doesn’t go back to sleep well, she will be cranky (which equals crying and tantrums) all day the next day which you have to deal with and have been dealing with since she was born;

- Except when he wakes you to try to feed you Kenchic chicken and chips because in his 3am mind, if he is hungry, you are hungry too, “I’m not just giving you the last piece o’ chicken babe, I’m giving you all of it!” He tries to charm you as he greases your face with food offerings and leaves chicken pieces all over the bed;

- Except when you have to call Joni to ask him whether he’s seen or heard from him ‘cos he hasn’t been home in the last two days and you’re worried and Joni reacts with, “kumbe he wasn’t joking that Friday when he said he’d been put in cell!” And so you spend your Sunday or Monday looking for him in the cell you think he might be in;

- Except when he barges into the bedroom, with 3am booze-induced self-aggrandisement of becoming a lion – nay, a mandingo and declares that it’s time to have sex with all the enthusiasm of a caveman whose killed and dragged meat home and announces this achievement, only in this sad reality he will probably pass out in the throes of trying to do so;

- Except when he’s constantly suffering from stomach pain and diarrhoea and never gets to eat the food that you cook for him and then wonders why you have no motivation to cook;

- Except when he cancels or indefinitely postpones plans you have made because he’s broke again and needlessly tries to question how it is that he lost/loses so much money;

- Except when, every other time someone he knows or was with gets into an accident and you pray that every next time it isn’t going to be him.

He says he loves you for accepting who he is and you don’t know whether that’s a good or bad thing. So you take every 3am night as it comes and listen to his justifications of witchcraft or owing his boys. And you want to both laugh and cry because as much as it's annoying and cyclically senseless and deprives you of sleep and many other things, there is no malice and you can only be so upset with actions that are not intended to hurt. It’s like the times you buy him PS games and he runs out the house almost immediately to floss to his neighbor friends and colleague friends and drinking friends and then plays them all day and forgets you have just come back from being away and were looking forward to catching up. And then he comes sheepishly back home and you want to both laugh at his childlike fervor and the stories that come out of these idiocies but cry also out of both relief that he’s home and the recurring sadness that you lose/lost him momentarily to booze.

Garissa Road

Perhaps there’s a deranged infatuation with things unforgiving like with bad relationships or flirting with death. For me, it’s deserts – the simplicity of being in the wild and a wild that cares little about you.

So I am always excited when I am sent somewhere remote and when I am to meet with people who consider themselves forgotten.

Last week, I went to Garissa.

The last time I was on that road was about ten years ago but only to go as far as Mwingi, to spend time with the mother of my father’s friend. He liked to do that, my father, to send me to remote places to remind me of the privileged life I lived. And then, there was only a long dirt road that stretched beyond the eye could see which only 4x4 cars could survive. And the one that I was in had two fuel tanks to boot. It was the type of place, where if you stopped for lunch and ordered chicken, and asked after it an hour later, they would tell you, nonchalantly that they have just caught the chicken.

But the road is good now, thanks to Mzee Kibaki, all the way to Garissa and beyond.

The landscape changes from buildings to villages and from villages to barrenness, from semi-arid to arid, from cows to camels and from Kamba to Somali country.

Reaching Garissa town is like finding an oasis, a town that blooms and is given life from the River Tana. And the people I meet are friendly and accommodating. And we go about our meetings without problem.

Before I know it, we are on my way back to Nairobi.

It’s 11:30am and we are expecting to reach Nairobi in five hours.

We stop at one check point. And then we stop at another. At the third, I wish I had notified someone that I was on my way back and was being stopped. Because a bad-boy looking KDF officer – yes, he had wrapped a scarf around his head like a durag, sported sunglasses, and swaggered his way toward me and ordered me to get out of the car. Where is your ID? He barks. I hand it over to him. Where is your passport? I didn’t bring it. Why not? I didn’t know I should be carrying it. You should! He chastises.

Ok, sorry. I didn’t know. Next time, I will bring.

You think this is enough? This is not enough. How do I know how you entered the country?

Yeye ni Mkenya, (she is Kenyan) my colleague offers.

Hata Al Shabaab ni Wakenya (even Al Shabaab are Kenyan).

Alikuwa hapa kitambo, (she has been here a long time) my colleague continues.

Hata Al Shabaab walikuwa hapa kitambo! (even Al Shabaab has been here a long time)

He returns to me, You have laptops?

Yes.

Bring them.

We bring them.

Enter the passwords.

We enter our passwords.

They snoop.

At this point I am trying to remember my legal rights. With police, they come quite easily, I even think of methods of redress lest I am more than harassed. But with KDF? My mind draws a blank. This is what we had wanted right? For our authorities to have all the powers they require to do all that is necessary to curb terrorism. And for the moment, Bad Boy has decided that I am worthy of suspicion and is exercising his powers to “investigate” my terrorist-ness.

What are you doing in Garissa?

I was meeting with water actors.

You are a water expert?

No, I am a citizen engagement expert. We try to promote citizen engagement in water issues.

Mhmm. Do you know this ID is not enough?

No, I didn’t know. But I now I know. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.

You know we can keep you for questioning?! He threatens.

Ah! My colleague, sighs, msemehe, (forgive her) he pleads.

Yah! He balloons with power, we can keep her! The rest of you can go. But this one, we shall keep.

It is hot. The sun burns us like it has burnt everything around us. There is nothing on this road but us and power-wielding KDF soldiers. I imagine myself on this road for hours, watching them stop car after car, bus after bus, returning every so often to harass me. I imagine my colleague just helplessly waiting for them to be done with me. But I also imagine the worst – disappearing and how much more likely that would be were I evidently Muslim.  

We stand – eye to eye – the full force of his uniform plus rifle versus civilian me. I try to convey as much cooperation as you possibly can in a stare.

And then he says, ok, this time I’ll let you go. But next time? Aaah... this ID won’t be enough.

Ok thank you, I humble myself, next time, I will always carry it, thank you again.

We return to the car as fast as possible before he changes his mind but not hastily enough that it looks like we are running away.

We climb into the car, hold our breaths until we have at least set off before we can properly exhale. We text people back home to tell them that we are on our way and that we have been stopped severally by KDF and that if we do not make it home this evening, that they can look for us on the Nairobi-Garissa road.

There is little company on the road beyond the odd bus-full of passengers from Eastleigh and the random Probox with uncomfortable chickens banded to the roof of the car.

My colleague might have exhaled as soon as we got into the car. But I only really did when we reached the Ukasi police station and it felt like we were back in “Kenya” again and under police instead of KDF “protection”. He joked about preferring to meet with thugs than police or in this case, Al Shabaab than KDF and I mused at the irony.