Distinctions

For a long time now, I’ve been content with carrying my own lunch, packed. The fact that I like to eat healthy, notwithstanding, because going into hotels especially to those which serve real food, has never been a pleasant experience for me. Yeah, if we overlook the chapati madodo{chapati and beans} I used to have at ‘blue line’ hotel, Endarasha. One of the reasons for my dislike of these joints is their slow pace. Then, the fact that you’ll always manage to feel shortchanged and be served last.
One time I waltzed into this popular place in Biashara Street, I was working at a nice muindi’s wholesale duka along the same street, so before I could find a close fast food place, I obviously had to test the ones within my line of view. I still had dreams of being a writer, so I’d spend my lunch creating some intros for stories. That was what I started to do when I got a seat. The waiters were leaning at various points of the wall watching channel-5. I looked around, tried to attract the attention of one and failed. So I took out my –day book- and started to scribble some things. Hmm and I waited…… waited I did! Then who joins me? No other than a Japanese speaking trio. The waiters forgot whatever new moves Ray-c was making on the screen; they were practically pulling chairs for our beige colored brothers. The trio noticed my books and asked to be moved to another table. The waiters followed with menus and complimentary drinks. I waited a while still but gave-up after say fifty-five minutes.
When I worked in Eastleigh, I started to carry my own lunch, after trying unsuccessfully to buy food from the al-wadha, a-lkotha and the al-baraka’s food places. I’d stand at the counter, money in hand, while buibui clad women had their orders taken and quickly fulfilled. Other times (this makes me smile) I’d be told to stand outside as someone brought my food, ya safari –take away-
We hatched a plan with one of my buibui wearing workmates, to try go together and buy lunch, first time I had the money. The ankle-high, pant, flip flop clad waiter addressed my friend, she told him to speak to me. He took the money and turned to my friend for the order. Later he brought the food, a few kgs of pasta and pilau cooked with camel meat and handed the three parcels to me then handed my friend the change…….!
I’ve been staying with friends, who stay in a hostel. You can guess the second question the other sharing the room asked after my name. Yeah! “We ni mkabila gani?” {What's your tribe}usually I don’t answer that. I will sweetly ask “why do you ask?” the person will say
“Just to know.” and I’ll sigh and say- in a sing song voice- “I see, just to know ha?” then add “–well… I don’t go beyond that. Coz really, unless it’s an old woman asking me for directions on the street, so she wants to know if I’d understand her mother tongue, I don’t see the point of digging deeper into my roots. As long as we are in communication, why does my origin matter? After all, my color or my accent does not determine the kind of person I turn out to be. Tell me, say a Taita family adopts a child from the Bukusu community, or a child from the Taita tribe is adopted by a Turkana couple. When the first child grows, atakuwa mtaita ama mbukusu? Will the second be a taita or a turkana? Sometimes, due to students from the same place schooling in the same place, it might happen that ones friends or acquaintances may come from the same tribe, but in a city like Nairobi, anybody can be your neighbor or your classmates. You are all speaking Kiswahili, yeah; you all use the same matatus to go home, shop at Tusker for sugar, Gikomba for clothes and marikiti for food. So surely who’s there to start thinking, today I met with my kao (kamba) neighbor. Or yesterday I saw the child of that msapele (kikuyu) who cooks mandaazis.
When you begin to count: in our estate, there are two Masaais, ten Kikuyus, Wajaka watatu and twelve kaos, well….. What can I say? When you say, “I have two Luhya friends, one Kisii, the rest are all Mbeere like me.” ……umetupa mbao. What does it matter really? Why misuse words? When you treat some specially coz they are of your tribe, or a tribe that you admire or a colour that awes you, well….. What can I say ……?