Let there be a scare

Diary,

Like you may already know, I am hosting a beautiful American divorcee by the name of Harper, who is dead set on staying in Kenya and making a husband of yours truly.

Although she ticks every box in the wife-material questionnaire, she doesn’t seem to take seriously the eternal feud between me and marriage, and it’s become my mission to prove that she cannot mix oil and water.

Now that my ploy to make her hate our cuisine has failed (last night, she made such delicious ugali and fish that I started suspecting she might have Luo blood flowing in her veins), I have to come up with another scheme.

“My life can sometimes be very dangerous,” I tell her as we sip wine after dinner. “At times, I’m lucky to come home with all my limbs intact.”

She laughs. “Tom, you’re a doctor. How dangerous can that be? Unless you usually get the wish to donate some of your body parts to your patients.”

I turn to her, wearing the face my headmaster would don after calling me to his office when I was caught sneaking out of school. “I’m serious, Harper. My work takes me to very savage territory. Like tomorrow, I visit one of our satellite clinics, where we treat the less fortunate.”

She takes the bite. “Really? I’ll come with you. I like charity work.”

And that’s how Ms Harper and I end up at Total Care Clinic on Madharau Street in Mlolongo. If you’re familiar with this place, our men in uniform classify it as one of the crime hotspots in the city.

Throughout the evening, we tend to all kinds of maladies, including a man with a bullet wound to his leg, another with a very bad coronary heart disease who still refuses to give up meat, and a pregnant woman with preeclampsia, a serious medical condition of unknown cause that can lead to preterm delivery and death.

“Wow!” says Ms Harper, adoring me with her eyes. “These people really do need you.”

I almost feel guilty about the next part of my plan, but it’s too late. It’s already past midnight and the night crawlers will be coming out of the woodwork. Most of them know me and won’t hurt us, but they should scare Ms Harper back to Chicago.

Almost on cue, we meet a band of wannabe Kiriamitis before we get to the vehicle.

One of the thugs whistles. “Mmm-m. What do we have here? Daktari, si utuachie haka kamzungu.”

Smiling, Harper says, “Habari yako? Mimi nataka kuwa wako kama supu ya Simba.”

After a short very tense silence, everyone bursts out laughing. Even I can’t help sniggering at her attempt at Swahili.

She turns to me. “What did I just say?”

“You like him as much as you like lion soup.”

“Dear Lord!”

“Daktari, haka kako sawa,” declares the gang leader with a generous smile. “Hakuna msee atawai kaguza huku.”

As they escort us to the car, Harper says, “Young men in Kenya are so respectful.”

And that’s the way my cookie crumbles.