Shattered lives

I found Norma the tea-lady crying alone in the kitchen yesterday morning when I went to fetch myself a spoon for my yoghurt. I don’t usually know what to do when people cry but I put my arms around her shoulders and shut the door. When she stopped sobbing I asked her what the matter was. What she told me will shock you as it did me.

I know that Norma lives alone with her 2 children across the city at a place called Dandora, in the vicinity of a garbage dump. I’ve dropped her off a few times when it’s been raining a storm and I was privately appalled at the condition of the place she calls home. It’s a gloomy but clean top floor 10ft by 10ft claustrophobic room in a 6-storey high lift-less tenement block, the kind where Nairobi’s forgotten millions live.

In between sniffles and using my tie to dab her eyes I managed to extract the story behind the tears. Errant husband David returned from a 4 year-hiatus last month and Norma unwisely welcomed him back. All was going swimmingly well until Monday when Norma arranged to meet prodigal hubby at lunchtime to draw money from her Barclays account Masaba road. This money was not her savings but rather a loan taken from the cooperative to be repaid over 3 years. 150k. It was intended for setting up a small shop for their 20 year old daughter Alice who like a majority of young people can’t seem to find any meaningful work nowadays.

Well here comes the bad news. David has taken off with the cash. All 150,000 shillings of a loan that Norma has to scrimp and scrape to pay back. And the nightmare part where you need to be sitting down is he has run away together with Alice, who I came to learn is his step-daughter. I didn’t take in the full impact of the last statement, until Norma explained bitterly, ‘Amemchukua kama bibi yake.’ (He has taken her as his wife). I had to sit down; I thought I was going to pass out. During Norma’s only answered phone call to her husband he drunkenly told her they were both at an undisclosed location and Alice even came on the phone to say she was ‘taking care of baba because mum you have failed to play your part!’

To be continued.

Getting shafted

Can you digg it? Thought you might like a mid-week special. He's a bad mutha..





RIP Isaac Hayes, thanks for the refreshing memories. No questions.

Steaming piles of manure

What started as a trickle has now turned into a steady torrent of anonymous hate mail. All this noxious slime goes into a bulging folder I’ve lovingly labeled ‘colostomy bag’. And I’m not alone; Pater Nostra seems to enjoy a similar fan base.

Haters don’t keep me awake at night. On occasion I confess to having trouble falling asleep, like the other night when I was tossing and turning, George asked me what was on my mind. I said I was just wondering what if a woman has a sex-change and now dates men, are they both gay? He said it’s interesting but he never thought about it. He asked me do you think Caroline Mutoko, from the radio, is that a man in drag? I said it never crossed my mind. Then we both nodded off.

Swine Flu

This I penned just for you
Hide away from your boo

Catch a sneeze a-tissue
If you don’t we’ll come for you

First you shake and then you pull
Wash you hands after the loo

No more porkies am no fool
Sorry Babe you’ve got the flu!


© Tamaku 2009

IT guy's story

Well, what did you make of Hitesh’s body double? Lovely, isn’t he? I see the real Hitesh regularly as he works in our IT department. He joined the company 2 years ago straight from a London university. The way he speaks now you wouldn’t tell he’s originally from our lakeside city of Kisumu. He’s also a jovial lad, always tapping me on the shoulder ‘hello mate’. His greeting is a hybrid of Oginga Odinga street-Gujarati-English-meets-Cockney-market-lingo in a high pitch so it sounds like ‘allo mai.’ Bantu readers may appreciate the other meaning! He is also polishing his acquired accent on us now, at times popping his grinning face in the doorway to say ‘don’t forget to loag oaf tonight’.

I’ve harbored suspicions that Hitesh is gay since the day of his interview when we first met. I’d say the lisp and the walk, like he’s pushing a shopping trolley with only his pelvis, are what give the game away. And get this, he has an old newspaper cutting of Kalonzo Musyoka’s picture pinned on the notice board in his office! Our VP doesn’t know it but he is the thinking-homo’s pinup. Also Hitesh never uses the urinal when there’s anyone else there (another dead giveaway), he’ll go to the cubicle to take a piss. See, it’s not difficult to have politicians and urinals mentioned in the same paragraph.

One morning I walked into the office to find Hitesh on his hands and knees fiddling with cables on the floor, I heard him humming away hips don’t lie which he attempted to disguise with a sudden coughing fit when he spotted me. However I’m secretly grateful to have his flamboyance illuminating our office; it deflects unwelcome attentions of colleagues away from me.

So yesterday Hitesh stopped me just as I was getting ready to leave the office, ‘Ok, for a chat?’ ‘Uh-huh. Let’s go for a quick drink,’ I said. This is how we both ended up at that sports club in Parklands. Sitting at the bar he leaned sideways to tell me, ‘My papers have come through. I’ll be emigrating to Britain in 2 months’ time.’ Apparently Hitesh was able to claim settlement in the UK, something about his grandparents; I didn’t want to seem intrusive by asking details. He added, ‘I’ll finally be myself,’ a vague confirmation of my earlier suspicions. Then quietly, ‘Kenya is killing me.’ In the silence that ensured because I only nodded, we both acknowledged that he knew about me too.

I felt happy for Hitesh. Sitting there, unfastened jacket on his shoulders, I hoped he realizes how lucky he is – free to live life without the heavy shackles of this deep-seated homophobia. Indeed Kenya is slowly suffocating many for whom there is no escape, only a secret life.