Thread by @CSakwah

STORY THREAD

When Sauti Sol sang, ‘bibi ya mwenyewe is a no-go zone,’ I should have listened, but I didn’t and my fingers burned. How could I have known she was someone’s spouse, or not who portrayed to be? Are there married women living around Joyland, Ruaka? There aren’t.

At least that is what the person who introduced me to Ruaka told me.
‘You see Joyland, Ruaka, it is a haven for andy wa kharias and slay queens who are housed by the looters and grabbers of Kenya as their mpango wa kandos,' my tour guide said.
‘Like in Zimmerman?’

‘Yea, like Zimmerman. Joyland is a rich man’s Zimmerman,’ he said, alluding to the theory that Zimmerman is where poor sponsors rent bedsitters for their mpango wa kandos.

‘Joyland is where high-end sponsors who can afford the luxury of renting high-end one or two bedrooms for their slay queens keep those girls.’
Initially, I was searching for a house in a quiet suburb away from the bustle and noise of Kasarani.

Given its village-esque status, Ruaka fit my bills, as was Kirigiti. I was to choose between living in Kirigiti and Ruaka, but when my tour guide mentioned the existence of a plethora of beautiful women in Ruaka, rich women at such, my decision was made. Ruaka it was.

Rent at Joyland, Ruaka was too expensive to afford. But I never gave up on the hope of living in the middle of the affluence of Joyland with the right auntie wa Harrier in my life. At the time, I settled for deeper Ruaka suburbs,

where people still live on a section of their ancestral land while the rest of the land had been sold to real estate investors. In the end, creating an estate that half looks like Kiminani and half looks like Waikoronia village in Murang’a.

The kind of hood where shopkeepers talk to you in Kikuyu, before quickly switching to Kiswahili after noting that the size of your nose is too big, too chubby to belong to their Kikuyus kinsmen.
The babes around Joyland, Ruaka are very beautiful, I must admit.

I lived a few kilometers away from Joyland, but the desire to view the beauty that Joyland exhumed used to force me to walk past so many butcheries, mama bongas, and shops in my hood just to go to Joyland to buy pieces of households, and groceries.

In the evenings, they all came out of their house to walk or walk their dogs.
It didn’t take me long before I landed in the hands of a shenje wa kharia. On that day, I walked into a Ruaka club to watch a Manchester United game.

She was there sitting alone on a table sipping on her hard work while hamming to the live band mugithi music. I watched her watch me walk into the club, she watched me watch her watching me walking into the club.

It was an instant connection, I thought, and I didn’t need further invitation to know she was the one. She was the auntie wa Harrier to pull me from the confines of my Nairobi’s miseries.
I ordered one bottle of Tusker.

I am the poverty-stricken battalion that buys one beer of Tusker per 90 minutes of a football game until I am reminded by a waitress/waiter to buy another beer to be allowed to watch the second half or another game.

I have been evicted from clubs before, after attempting to watch three football games after buying a 300 ML bottle of Sprite Soda.
Her space was awash with two brands of expensive wine, a bottle of water, two cans of Redbull, and a packet of passion juice.

She took a turn sipping from each drink. Soft life, I swear.
This mama was very beautiful. She was dressed expensively, and a designer purse sat next to her seat. She fit all the descriptions of a shenje wa Kharia, a young one.

My tour guide had mentioned an aunty wa Harrier description befitting her aura; ‘they throng clubs around Ruaka sipping expensive drinks while on the lookout for Ben tens to spoil with their husband’s money.’

I was sipping on my Tusker at the rate of one sip per goal scored by Manchester United. This, so that one beer can last me for the 2-hour football game. At the 30th Minute, Manchester United was already trailing by 2 goals to 1.

My eyes alternated between watching the game and perving at the mama’s cleavage. Her upper button was undone. She didn’t seem to be bothered by my lecherous eyes. At one moment, she smiled at me when our eyes locked. There and then, I knew nimekafunga.

My attention was drawn from her when a few lousily raised Arsenal fans next table started celebrating Manchester United conceding the third goal. I lowered my head in sorrow that United had downed me into, but when I lifted my head, there were 5 more bottles of Tusker

standing next to my beer.
The mama lifted her glass in the air in my direction and smiled. ‘Ohh, Waithera, aki stop it!’ My brain teased. ‘Enjoy,’ she mouthed.
I mouthed back a ‘thank-you’ and downed my sorrows deeper into imbibing the beers.

It started with her asking for my name, the conversation, then grew into us lamenting how the cost of living was suddenly skyrocketing in Ruaka.
‘Two years ago, boda bodas were charging us 50 bobs from Joyland to QuickMart.

They now charge 200 for a 5-minutes walking distance like the peeps in Kilimani. They are now selling us groceries at the same rate as the peeps staying in Runda and the diplomat wazungus in Gigiri. 5 years ago, the most expensive 2 bedroom in Ruaka

was 15k, right now, you can’t even get a bedsitter with 12K,’ she lamented. I was wondering why a rich mama would lament about the cost of living. She seemed to have it all.
‘Ruaka is a rich man’s Kasarani with Kilimani’s cost of living,’

I whispered because the Ruaka people love their estate to be tagged, ‘the next Kilimani,’ or ‘lower Runda!’ I did not want to offend any of them.

The more she talked and shook her head to the mugithi tunes, the more the makeup peeled off her face, revealing darker lips. The kind of lips that had withered due to the overconsumption of a cocktail of muratina, chang’aa, and busaa in Githongoro Slums. ...

That was a red flag enough, was it? But I ignored it.
I kept on laughing at her lame jokes, like the girl next table was doing to the old muzungu next to her. We exchanged numbers and parted ways on the stroke of curfew. I staggered home.

The following few days, we exchanged a lot of sweet nothings, but in most cases, she was lamenting how her man was ever traveling, leaving her alone under the mercy of the revenging cold from Karura Forest.
She called me Sweetie, barely a day later.

Andie wa Kharias don’t recognize bae, or sweetheart, or love. Sweetie is their ultimate romantic pet name. One evening, my hood experienced one of its common blackouts. I started lamenting how Kenya Power was unfair to those of us who worked from home.

‘Ohh, sweetie, I am sorry to learn that you can’t work because of the blackout. There is power huku Joyland.’
‘There is?’
‘Yes. We have power. Why don’t you carry your laptop and come and work from here?’
‘Overnight? It is already 7.’

‘Don’t worry, sweetie. My man traveled to Mombasa. Told you he is a top security officer to a high commissioner in one of those high commissioner officers along Limuru Road. He traveled with the high commissioner to Mombasa. And he will be away for at least a week.

You can sneak in, and work as long as you want until power is restored.’
I knew that was an opportunity to prove to her why she needed to hire me as her flower garden gardener. I knew there was going to be an interview, a practical one, in her garden.

I got myself a gardening apron, got my jembe, laptop and left for her house.
Her house was exquisite, spacious, fully furnished. I found her almost ready for the gardening interview.

She was dressed in a floral see-me-through tunic, from which I could see laced, color-matched inner garments. She offered me a glass of wine after I set my laptop on her dining table.

After a minute of working, or pretending to, andie wa kharia walked to the table and placed her hands on my head. The aromatic smell emanating from the open flower petals of her flower garden excited me, they excited my jembe, I mean.

After a few minutes of her inspecting my jembe and I inspecting her garden, she said that her garden was ready for gardening, for weeding, for plowing.
I was determined to plow the garden for long.

I didn’t want to be the gardener that weeds for 3 minutes, stop to water the garden before resting with a broken jembe on my shoulders. I wanted to impress her, so that I get hired again, and again. I knew if I impressed her well, I would stand a chance to make demands.

I would demand a servant’s house, a one-bedroom house in Joyland, a salary, and a yearly leave where I would ask her to take me to Malindi. I craved a holiday in Malindi, sipping a martini on a yacht while in a thong.

Barely a few minutes after plowing the garden, her garden became waterlogged. They say gardens next to the mountain are waterlogged, but I was determined to impress even when the garden was soaked, and the water splashed all over the place.
Then suddenly, the door opened.

Whoever was on the door did not knock on it. He just opened it. I froze. My jembe broke. I started sweating. I stopped gardening. But before I could figure out how to escape or hide, a man, the owner of the garden, was in the bedroom.

‘Who are you, and why are you gardening my garden?’ Before I replied, he slapped me, viciously, with ill intentions.
He reached his jacked and I pulled out a gun, its muzzle pointing my face. I only came with a jembe, but why was this gardener carrying a gun to a garden fight?

I closed my eyes and for a moment envisioned myself on the DCI thread stories. How was the DCI admin going to report how I went to be with Jehover Wanyonyi? ‘A renowned thread storyteller is the subject of our thread.

Ongoma Sakwah, who entertains his social media audience, was found entertaining an illegal audience. The owner of the audience, a gun-yielding sleuth, acting on jealousy and anger....’ Another heavy slap pulled me from those thoughts.

The gun-yielding sleuth lifted me in the air and launches into the air like a rocket. ‘What are you doing in my garden?’ He asked again.
‘It is not what you think babe. He was not gardening...’
‘Am I a fool to you? What is that on his body? Isn’t that the gardening apron?’

He asked.
‘Before doing anything, babe, think about your job. If you kill him, you will lose your job and go to jail.’ Emotions were flying high. The madam begged for my life, and hers as well.

In the end, the sleuth confiscated my documents, my laptop, phone, and wallet and threatened to report the matter to the police the following day for trespassing through his garden. My wallet had half of my rent that I had intended to deposit in Equity Bank, Joyland,

the following day. At that moment, asking for money was not as crucial as my life. He evicted his wife out of his house as well.
At midnight, the wife was crying, sobbing uncontrollably, telling me how all her friends were not receiving her calls. ‘Where will I go?

My friends are not picking up my phone. They are probably asleep,’ she cried. She did not have anywhere to go at that time. I empathized with her and offered a night at my house. Just for a night. I didn’t need anything to do with her anymore.

All along the walk to my bedsitter, she kept on narrating how she was sure that her husband was not going to come back until after a week and how he had never reported back home from his trips without informing her. I believed her.

In my house, I was too weak and too tired to garden her garden again. She offered the garden again. I offered to sleep right away. I was going to wake very early in the morning, board a Musamaria Mwema to Busia, cross into Uganda, change my name to something like Ombokole Kabaka,

and start my life there as a different person. This, to hide away from the gun-yielding sleuth and his police.
Eventually, I slept, and slept, and woke up 36 hours later in an empty house.

The little I had in my bedsitter was gone, wiped out, washed away, carried away, swept off, cleaned out. It dawned on me that I had been wash washed. I left the house to the woman’s house to confront her. If I die, I die, If they kill me, they kill, but I must get my things back.

She must have been the one who wash washed all my things. ‘Kwani anadhani sijui kwake?’ I kept on talking to myself, mad even. At the gate, I was barred from entering the apartment unless if I had the permit to show that I had booked an Airbnb room in the apartment.

‘Papa, this is an Airbnb,’ the security guard said.
‘ I was here two days ago with a woman who lives here.’ ‘Papa, as far as I know, no one has been in this Airbnb for more than 24 hours. Papa, wefwe, no one lives here permanently. Papa pole.’ I sat down and wailed loudly.

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