• Elusive with answers but keen for some to his own queries, newbie rattles Makini
In shorts and a vest, seated outside my house doing the laundry, I see a bunch of guys lagging furniture into the empty next-door flat. I’m excited to have a neighbour. I hope he’s a nice fella with whom I could exchange tête-à-têtes occasionally. Or a beautiful woman. That would put a bee in my fiancée’s knickers. And maybe, just maybe, a little jealousy is what I need to get things between us moving in the right direction.
“Who’s moving in?” I ask one of the guys.
“I am,” says a dashing man clad in a suit that seems to have cost the same as all the outfits in every Jiji Ndogo wardrobe combined. He shifts a lamp stand from his left hand and offers to shake. “My name is Dee.”
“Dee?”
“Yes, Daniel Siva. But my friends call me Dee.”
“Nice to meet you Dee. I’m Makini. Welcome to Jiji Ndogo. What brings you all the way out here to our little nook?”
“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” He laughs at his own joke and claps me on the back. “I’m just kidding. Lighten up, dude.”
“No worries here, dude. Where is it you relocated from?”
He ignores my question and takes a few minutes marshalling the movers before coming back and sitting next to me. “You mean I’ll have to do that, too?”
“Do what?”
“That! Seems so 1900, washing clothes by hand. I have a machine. Who do I have to see about electrical hook-up?”
“Oh, that’s easy. Kenya Power should have you sorted in no time.”
“That’s hip, dude. Do they have offices around here? I need to have a word with them right away.”
“They used to when this was a booming military town. Went back to Kericho after the failed coup.”
“Wow, dude! This was a military town?”
“Oops! I ran my darn mouth. Now I’ll have to kill you.”
It takes him a second to process. “Oh, you got jokes, huh? You weren’t joking about the electricity, though, were you?”
“Way I see it, you have two choices. You can either take your washing machine to Jiji Kubwa every time you need to do a load, or you can have someone here do your laundry for a fee,” I say.
“I can recommend a very nice lady. She’ll nick a tomato or an onion to feed her tots, but not a cent from your pocket.”
“Lucky me. I don’t carry cents in my pockets.” He elbows me in the ribs to drive his joke home. “By the way, how’s this joint as pertains to the ladies?”
“When you meet one, you can tell she’s a lady because she has tatas, you know, boobies? Some of them are easy on the eyes, but not Mrs Kongo. I’ve seen zebras more beautiful than that woman, but hey, beauty is in the eye of the beer holder, right?” I tell him.
“But generally, women around here wear skirts. Sometimes trousers. Or those blasted yoga pants meant for the gym. Do we have a gym in Jiji Ndogo, you ask? Nope. To develop sgwembes, we fetch water from the river.”
“Dude, what are you talking about?”
“I’m saying you’ll have to be more specific. Dude!”
“Are there young beautiful ladies in town? That’s what I meant.”
“Single ladies, you mean?”
He ribs me again. “Beggars aren’t choosers, know what I’m saying? Right now, I could do with… a young, banging, chick in police uniform. Gad-damm!”
“What?”
I look up to see my fiancée Sgt Sophia approaching. I think I’m in a load of trouble.