Nothing infuriates a programmer than code that just won't run. I tried all the tricks I knew until I was convinced that this just wasn't the right path for me or maybe it just might have been the hunger. Lunchtime was fast approaching. I make my way to the kanjo vibandas right next to central police station. It wasn't the best time of the month for my pocket so it had to suffice. I am met with kindred spirits there. This was the true KFC. Kanjo Food Court as some would call it(only me). This was a place where the real hard workers of Nairobi CBD came to hold a feast. Nduthi drivers would drop their customers there as they both walked in and shared a meal. You would buy a mtumba boxer from a hawker at globe round-about only to find her spending your money on matumbo fry. Programmers who aren't so good also tend to flock the premise.
The thing about the real workers of Nairobi is that they like to eat and are not at all shy about it. The sight of someone stuffing a whole chapati or in the very least half in one mouthful is not uncommon. I felt at home there. I could finally be myself.
Being quite popular, the place is almost always full. The only available position was next to a young lady. I couldn't quite see her well but I could make out her complexion. She was light. The seat was in a position that faced her. I wasn't too thrilled about sitting next to her. The table was narrow and the sitting position on such an arrangement would make it look like a date. It just hit me that she was the person I had earlier seen stuffing a whole chapati into her mouth. I wasn't about to explain to my would-be discoverers why my date was stuffing an entire chapati into her mouth. But I had to eat!So I sat.
You know you frequent a place a tad too much when the waitress hits you with, 'ya kawaida?'. My usual poison came. Just as I was about to eat, the chapati-stuffing mouth opens. It was the first time I had seen her face. I was too busy rush-eating before anyone saw me with my 'date'. She tells me that she is having a bad day. She says that she had just buried someone she knew. I offer my condolences. My curiosity gets the better of me and I ask who the deceased is. She names a renowned Governor who had just passed away. I was adept with current news so I immediately knew she was talking about the Nyeri Governor. She says how her home and the late Governor's share a fence. Show me someone who does not share a rural home fence with someone in the government and i'll show you someone who is not Kenyan. She talks so passionately about politics, you might think she is a politician. She mentions how she was an athlete until the end of 2014. She was an aspiring 1500m runner. She mentions about the five stadia promised by the government of the day that she had hoped would better the sporting community of Kenya. Stadia, which up to date, have not been constructed. She tells me how she lost her uncle to malaria, a disease that is treatable, in December 2016. The doctors went to strike and the rest was history. She mentions of how she has two children. One was a schoolmate of mine taking a course in commerce and the other one had just joined class one. She had all her hopes in the elder son graduating and taking the smaller brother through school. With the lecturers on strike, she wasn't even sure where she'll get money for the next term's fee. She says that she thought that the only laptop her young son would get would be a plate of hot githeri on the top of his lap.
I then ask her if she would be voting come August later on this year. I thought I had her figured out due to her rural home. But her answer is she didn't know. The sitting government had failed on its promises and the opposition wasn't all too convincing. For now she was only worrying about how to get to August...alive and well. We had connected on another level. I was in awe of her thinking. She had the thinking of ten grown members of parliament.
As she was leaving, she orders for a nduthi. At this point I'm left in astonishment. As the motorbike pulls off, she says some words that prove inaudible to me so I ignore it. Just then the waiter comes up to me and says, 'amesema utamlipia'. And to think I was almost asking her for twitter handle.
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