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.