As you read this, I am on my second plate of waru and soup and three pieces of meat—complemented with several chapatis. Where I come from, we do not count children—or chapatis.
There is alcohol flowing, and on the balcony, the clouds are forming at an astonishing rate. Okay, the clouds are actually from, erm, ahem, weed, but nobody needs to know that.
Hold it, how did you know I was in Juja? You didn’t? Well, I am. My boy’s child is turning six years old and we are here to celebrate the milestone. I make a mental note that this party is curiously themed as a children’s birthday party but it seems like the adults are having more fun. It’s just like the government. We cook, they eat. (I don’t even remember the name of the baby, but I will not forget those chapatis.)
We are in Kenyan summer. I know this because my wallet has recently become a clearing and forwarding agent, but I am not complaining because sherehe haitaki hasira. Just like the week has Saturday and Sunday for the weekend, November and December is officially the weekend of the year.
November is also men’s month. And one of the things I have been postponing is getting a prostate exam. I am shy. I only get naked when the lights are off, or when I am with a lightskin babe.
Usually, both. Ask anyone. See that guy on the corner? Go ahead and ask him; he’ll tell you. The most skin you’ll see from me is my face — and I’ll be wearing a mask.
This year it has been tragi-comic. I have been my funniest this year — as evidenced by the fact that I have not seen a doctor. Because laughter is the best medicine. No? No? Okay. Tough crowd.
It makes you cynical and withdrawn, obsessive and preoccupied, dismissive and unhelpful. Sadness smells like spoilt milk, like githeri masala.
We say their spirit will never rest. If you are the first person to meet the dead hanging from a tree, you take a stick and beat it up. This, the elders say, will ensure no evil spirits come back to haunt the living.
Oh, and it will prepare the dead for more punishment to be faced in the next life. Plus, their grave is dug on the furthest end of the family land to ensure detachment with the deceased. The deceased are owed no emotional attachment. And I wonder who you are punishing more — the dead, or yourself.
The experience is personal yet public.
That loneliness coils up against us, the constant companion in the empty hours when it seems no one else is. Like waking up into a nightmare. But flailing confusedly, craving more love, less loneliness, these are the hallmarks of a life under construction; it’s not the road less travelled, it’s the super highway.
Mattering is something that in a perfect world, everyone would experience every day. It’s what most men crave. It’s the most heartwarming feeling, like someone just lit a candle inside your body, the way the sunlight feels if you lie in its path.
It makes you feel valued and important and seen. Everyone is searching for a sense of belonging, to gap the hole in their lives, because if you carry your loneliness to heaven, heaven itself will feel like hell.
Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year — the days when it feels like December — the owls spread the rumour of sadness and change. Sometimes, death is one’s way to know if they mattered. Because no one wants to be a clown here.
