BY ERIC WAMANJI
Of booze, a babe and a flat
Nakuru Town desires to gain the notoriety of the sin city. This town with Jacaranda-lined boulevards is even cheekily rebranding as “Naxvegas”, a corruption of Las Vegas brimful of slotting machines and sluts. However, your faux vegas has never seen a pokie. Still, well, So, if it’s Friday, folks here love a notorious sin cave along the highway to kanairo. Ain’t a bad world. Booze flows and all manner of patrons flock here for a binge. Now, in the original Sin City, they say, what happens there remains there, but for our chaps in Kenya, there’s no such caveat. So I’ll tell a bit. So, there’s this lass forlornly perched at the counter imbibing Tusker Malt. Soon, she joins our table. So who is she? Well, she is of kanairo, so she claims. She came to ‘Naks’ for two bottles of booze, then go back the following day. “I just enjoy hanging alone,” she wheezes, her eyes dry, her lips heavy with red stick as if she has dipped into a gallon of blood… Hmmm. For a moment our gut signalled danger. Hence, run, boy run. So we quickly settle our bill, abandon our liquor at near-empty, and scurry to the next exit. But at the parking, the jalopy’s rear tyre is flat. Ooop!
Buzzing town
If you want a marvel of motorbikes, then Nakuru Town is the place. This town is abuzz. Here, a constellation of motorbikes carelessly burst, and twine through the town with blaring speakers. To navigate here you need grit, grip and tact. It’s a town in a staccato mode, as you skid here and jump there, to evade a hit by those two wheelers. And yes, explains why when you go back to the city, perhaps, it’s better to have a date with your ENT specialist; your eardrums could be rapturing. I’m just saying.
Mike the painter
She has been very unkind to me. She gives me heartaches, headaches, liver-aches and backaches. No, it’s not that slender chic from Westside Mall; it’s the good old jalopy. I have suffered enough punctures and alignment troubles. So this breezy evening at Seguton, amid the cacophony of motorbikes, I meet Michael. He looks young, speaks very clean English but emaciated. His hair is also greying. He swears in the name of his mother that he is the finest painter Nakuru has ever seen. He believes the city is the best place to be. “There’re opportunities. Lots of opportunities,” he chirps. He wonders if we can get him a gig. “But then people hustle a lot,” he reckons. The last time he visited, it was barely 4:00 in the morning when his brother woke him up, “because it was time to go hustle”. Yet this was Mike’s holy hour to do his greatest dream of all, he says. “You should thank God you’re driving. I saw guys trekking, some waiting for buses yet it was raining. I found it awful. Lots of suffering in Nairobi too” he laments shaking his head. I remind him that the car, the Old Black Faithful Servant, belongs to Rococo. “The better. Privileges man. They trust you,” he retorts. No comment.
Cookies and water
Still with Mike, he steals a glance at the car boot to discover dozens of water bottles. His eyes sparkle. “Eh, maji mingi kama jina yako tu,” he crows animatedly. Hmmm. “Jina yangu?” I wonder. Well, come to think of it, no mistake of his. You see, my name sounds almost like water in Swahili. So, many unimaginative and not so smart Kenyans have always imagine it means water… A few smart ones enjoy the pun especially when I’m gulping those waters from Spey Valley, Scotland. It doesn’t end with water. Others, cheekily wonder if I have shares at the biscuit firm called House of Manji… Oh my, how I wish! Well, well, huko ni kwa wahindi. So, all those not so smart Kenyans who think that I’m related to water, or that my name mean water in some African language, you need to be a little bit more imaginative, and if possible educated and informed. And yes, Mike, I ain’t of the cookie’s world either, but I love them crunchy stuff nonetheless.