The plumber walked in at 2pm. He said he’d be here by 10am. I’d been waiting the whole morning, moving things about my day, cancelling appointments, because the plumber would only be available on Monday.
He’d pick my call at leisure, tell me he is on his way, “Tulia boss,” with a coarse voice that could grate meat off a coconut, and it would occur to me why scripture does not mention any plumbers. There are carpenters, tentmakers, masons, but plumbers? Finding a good plumber is a pipe dream (I’ll show myself out).
So what now? You wait; that’s what. He was my kinsman after all, and if he said he would be there by 10 o’clock and he comes at 2pm, then it is the clock that is wrong. He arrived in a green T-shirt and black overalls, clanking with him his heavy-set tools which he plucked from his black DASO bag.
He greeted me in the language of our ancestors, before proceeding on a long diatribe about how these roads will kill us, and how he had to take three buses from Pipeline—yes, I remember it now, Pipeline—just to get to me.
“Lakini boss unaishi mbali,” he said, his eyes darting around my house like an insect.
He was itching to ask me, in that very Kenyan manner, how much money I was paying for this hole-in-the-wall I was living in, before finishing with a, ‘Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! Unagongwa!” but I would afford him no such privilege.
I showed him where the cistern had broken down, that I was living in this house alone, and I was paying 1,000 bob in water consumption every month. Not that you need to know this, but I only shower twice a day, and use the bathroom twice a day. And, since you are already here, it is more likely that you’ll find John Calvin in a Catholic church than find me at home on a Friday night. Not only are my pipes leaking, but my pockets too!
In my bid to keep up appearances, I have refused to harvest rainwater or put those hideous-looking yellow 20-litres jerricans on my balcony, or worse, the black 100-litre super-drums. Not good for my brand, you see. What will people say? “Meet the Nairobi writer living with jerricans; former Governor Sonko pledges to look into his situation.” Tufiakwa! I refuse to let those who borrowed toothpaste from me end up with brighter teeth and cleaner breath.
That is why the plumber is here. To save me from the ignominy, a word a lass I liked used to describe her dating life and I swore to brag about (the word, not her dating life). The plumber, Fundi, as he prefers to be called, was the best in the game. He’d been a plumber for Taj Mall, was a plumber for most of the construction projects from Jogoo Rd to Kangundo Rd, had been a plumber in his previous life, and the next, he was so good, they said, that, even blindfolded, he could repair any pipes, and he came highly recommended from another kinsman, who said, “he is faster than the Chinese, and cheaper too.” He had me at cheap. In this regard, he was a good fundi.
I am telling you all this because someone’s daughter asked me to fix something in the house recently, and I had no idea. A man needs to know how to fix things. And I am not saying through his money. No. Anyone (with money) can do that. There is something antediluvian and atavistic about a man folding his shirt, getting under the sink, hitting things, and screwing them on or off, and coming out of there, sweaty, and accomplished. That’s the kind of man they write things about.
I’ve heard the government is coming up with CBC and CBE, but I am not sold. What we really need are TVETs. If I had my way, I would have gone to a TVET school. There are too many theoretical men out here, and not enough hands-on, skilled men. This is not a slur or an insult. It’s a simple reality of mambo kwa ground , as supported by empirical evidence.
How many plumbers do you know, or know of? Even the omnipotent AI will replace everything except plumbers. Personally, I have always been fascinated with woodwork, and perhaps this is influenced by where I stay, close to Lenana on Ngong Road, littered with handcrafted oeuvres from my tribesmen. I am against deforestation and all that, but shaping a log of wood from a tree stump into a bed is enough to make a grown man cry. And not just any wood, but African blackwood, which sounds tough, because it’s not just African, but it’s black. It’s also the most expensive in the world, for reasons outlined above.
Maybe it’s because seeing the plumber fix my pipes tugged at something in my masculinity. What was that feeling? An insecurity. Emasculation? Like I am a lesser man or something. He was whistling while at it, like at that very moment, he had the most important job in the world, pointing out the shoddy work of plumbers past, occasionally stopping mid-thought to ask me if I had cockroaches cause his cousin Stano can kill any vermin, including bed bugs. “Usiogope, kunguni inaeza kuabisha mbele ya wageni,” he said, regarding me with suspicion, as a small fly swung by us to pass its regards.
Then he clapped his hands dramatically, said, “Boss, hii kazi imeisha,” and told me to investigate. I'm not even sure what he did. He explained what he'd done, and I pretended I knew what he was talking about. Then he showed me the bill, and it would have been cheaper to buy five yellow 20 litre jerricans and one black 100-litre super drum.
