Me as a Lifeist

I turned 25 on 21^st of January.

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I threw a great party. Hit all the right spots for a millennial’s heated night. Weed. Alcohol. Women. A hired ‘DJ’ who’s actually a friend that is trying out DJ-ing as a career. He’s a self-appointed music connoisseur but his taste is still very rusty for a DJ. Everyone knows it but we don’t tell. At his age his ego is higher than a kite. The party was pretty wild. A tapestry of music, dancing and emotional outbursts. People wigged and jigged their bodies most of the night. We tasted the peak of zonked-out the whole of the week to follow. 

Party kicked off at about 10.00 pm. Dj Lee on the laptop playing every popular song he knows from Mugithi to EDM. The first hour was slow as low-slung chit chat bought time for intoxication to kick in. This only lasted until a quarter past 11.00 pm when it all span into a full-fledged house party. (When you hear someone break into a long ‘woo-hoo’ its normally the cue that its ‘bout’ to go down. A long ‘ye-aaaah’ also does the trick). It was music and booze all the way. 

Then came the frequent breaks where half-drunk friends signaled the DJ to turn the music because they had something ‘important’ to say. Of course, they had nothing important besides emotional reminiscence of pasts they barely remembered, saying “aki tumetoka mbali bro” and using the words “birthday boy” and “Yolo” in every second sentence. They swore a lot too. And there was a bit too much hugging. (I wonder how I got into bed with a lot of emotional drinkers). You all know the lads that are teary and all when they get to the third bottle.

The night grew older and we got turnt. 

My mans Kevo came in at around 1.00 pm and boy didn’t he bring life to the house. Kevo is the guy that always saves the day with a mzinga or its equivalents. He never fails the “changeni tushike mzinga” plots. That night he worked a night shift. He works a call centre in town and they have this crazy supervisor that shoves them into different shifts at will. I imagine he is the kind of boss that barks and employee fracas to a corner in terror.  I know you’re wondering how Kevo brought life to our already turnt night. Well, he brought weed. And not any weed but The Weed. 

You’ve got to know that in Nairobi, there different types of weed. There is normal joint and then there the stone stuff. One has stem and seeds in it and then one has plain cannabis leaves. Kevo knows the difference and the dealers like the back of his hand. Maybe even where it is grown. This makes him instrumental to the how high that we often get at parties. Better still he knows how to cure hangovers. A plus for every after-party recovery. I bet he could make a career out of it. So, he showed up with the ‘devils smoke’, as we since call the weed he brought. It took a few puffs passed around through kisses (weed people understand what I mean) and rolled up joints to get from in-door-sweaty-bodies-hands-in-the-air partying to rooftop-screaming-wailing-wriggling and passing out partying.

Over the calm night with warm winds you could hear us wail in the darkness. Miley Cyrus’ ‘We Don’t Stop’ blared from the house which now had all doors and windows open and we chanted along, like an anthem. 

“So la da di da di, we like to party, dancing with Maggy (actually its molly) …” 

We all shouted “Hell no!” in unison at the “…if you’re not ready to go home can I get a hell no..” part. 

I felt like a god. We all did. I mean who cares if we were making noise for the neighbors? That was least of our worries. We just wanted to go on forever. Lost in a daze of exciting insanity. The last thing I recall is pointing and counting lights afar off at what I think was about 2.30 pm. They sang a blurry happy birthday song to me and we wailed along to Nyash’s Mungu Pekee. The chorus mostly. After that, I’d be lying if I say I had any recollections. A mystery how I woke up from the bed on Sunday noon. Although Kevo keeps bragging of how he saved me from a night in the cold by dragging me all the way to the house as I kept yelling at him about why people need to fear God. I don’t believe his story.

My house got trashed. Houses get trashed after wild parties, right? Wrong! They get disorganised. You wake up to find things in shamble. Plates on couches, disposable cups all over the place, one broken glass beneath the bathroom sink, a wig on the carpet and maybe a soda stains of the carpet. That’s shambles. But trashed is different. I know this because that is what I woke up to on the noon of Sunday 22^nd January. 

Let’s start with the painful one, my smart TV was shattered. Moh, the ex-girlfriend to Dan, Kevo’s cousin, and I think current girlfriend to Chudex (there’s a guy we call that because it’s all he does), apparently was fighting another chic that came with Kate, a former gym colleague (I quit because gyms are lame), because the chic spilled Vodka on her. She threw a bottle at her and it missed and hit my baby. I have been watching movies on my laptop since Jan. 

The spilled Vodka ended up on my couch too and guess whose house has been smelling of Vodka ever since. I will avoid mentioning the number of vomit spots that I counted all over the place. Then there is the shoe in my fridge. A fucking shoe in the fridge! Nobody knows how it got there but Kate swears I put it there while trying to hold open the fridge’s door as my innovative solution to cooling down the house. 

“But si I have a fan for that!”, I told her.

“Ulisema fan iachwe ilale”. I could only respond with a “hmm”. 

Worse still the fan was on and the fridge open, ledged with a broom, the entire night till I woke up.

Perhaps at this point I should tell you the crew that slept over. Biggest number I have hosted yet. Lexi and her chics all slept in the sitting room. She tagged along three of her friends and since nobody was there to drive them home and they were too drunk to be passengers for an Uber leave alone to find their way home, Kevo insisted they stay till morning and by morning I mean noon because we somehow partied till 3.30 pm and woke up at noonish. There is Kate, Mike, Mose, Kach, Miguel (real name being Mbogo), Nyash (not the musician but short for Onyango), Stano, Caro (I have a thing for her), Moreen and Lydia (despite the fact that she lives one floor below me). A big crew you can tell. They made a mess trying to fix breakfast and made sure everything in the kitchen was dirty. Everything. 

Only the door was locked when I woke up and I could feel my throat being tormented by the cold air. Actually, I never knew if it was the cold or the alcohol or both. The toilet’s flush system was broken and I was out of toilet paper. The air inside there was worse than the ten bob public restrooms in town. I couldn’t find the air freshener although I later saw it on the rooftop cut in half. I had nothing edible in the house by the time the sleepover crew were done with breakfast at lunch. An empty food shelf and water as the only drink is a sign of a crowded party. The trashing bit is completed by the hole in the long couch which Stano made to hide weed when a neighbour threatened to call the police over the noise. How ingenious of him!

****

I know my friends reading this story are palming their faces and wondering where I lost it in life. Well, deep breathes everyone, I have not turned into a party animal or anything the story above professes. That’s creative writing. Of course, I turned 25 but that’s it. Okay and maybe I am a tad irresponsible than most of you but it has always been like that. And those that disagree to this it’s cool too. I am the good person you know. 

I creatively wrote this inspired by my neighbors that throw such parties, I turn in bed at 3 am and I can hear young women wail and shout over loud music from afar. Does that bother me? Only if it disturbs my sleep. Typical millennial birthdays go down like this. I have seen someone who got too drunk that they had to lay in the sun shirtless to detox their body. Or just for the fear of dying, I am not sure. Do I differ from my generation? No. Would I do the same stuff for a party? Nyet. (I have standards, a faith and morals and don’t do drugs). 

Actually, I wouldn’t want a party. I never had a party because 25 came as a reminder that I have very few years left to be irresponsible. I can chase girls around, decide to do nothing all day and complain that I am tired at the end of it, eat one type of meal until I feel my body begging for something else, waste my money better than the government wastes our taxes, refuse to listen to people, stay out late and suffer the consequences in delight but only for so long.

In the meantime, I have decided to be a lifeist. How? I am making a to do list of scary things. Imma do those things and well see where I land next. 

This journey has to be worthwhile.

The beard Gang

Last week I was to write about no shave November. I was excited because, first, beard is life – even small beard –, and writing, for me, is an escape. Something that soothes my soul. Something that opens up as art, as a hobby and maybe a passion. A high. So I love times when I pick up my PC in the wee hours of the night, in dead silence, brew hot coffee, get the music going and sail away with words. But then I got caught up in a tornado of other urgent things like traveling the world, fundraising for my foundation, you know, getting people to write me contribution cheques they probably will later regret because they got consumed by the moment. And the beautiful girls who I sent to ask for the kind donations. More like the light dimpled charming faces at the loans desk at KCB that can easily make you think you’re getting a free pass on the loan.

Something like, “Shika hii pesa mkubwa. Enda ujijenge nayo. Ata usirudishe. Ni free”. 

They are really smooth. And they speak eloquently. As they bounce words back and forth and point – with nails manicured in heaven – at blank spaces for you to sign you’d easily contemplate leaving them with half the loan money and a kidney for their trouble.

But it is usually a loan which, believe me, if you default on, you’ll meet different faces altogether, scary ones.

Actually not really, I was not doing any of the above things. Not even taking a ka-soft loan to keep me afloat in this economy. Rather, I have been trying to make my transcript not suck this semester. So I have been, and I hate to say this, a bookworm. Yeah, I have been one of those. And I know I tell my friends we need to YOLO a lot but then a brother go to make his village proud at least.

And then I caught a flu before the weekend and it has been rough. Those bottled dawas you see staring at you from chemist shelves are no joke. I got a prescription and taking them gets me all drowsy. Too drowsy to write anything that makes sense anyway. Then there is this dosage that I was given and I know it is supposed to be, as the guy said, 3 times 3 (morning, afternoon and after supper and an episode of The Wire – amazing TV series by the way), but I am not sure how much of it. It is liquid and he said 10 ml but I have no measuring apparatus – those beaker things we used in high school chemistry, who does anyway? – in my house. So I estimated that one ka-bottle cap would be 5 ml and that means I take two – God forbid should I be wrong. But again, I am doing just fine so far. I will let you know how it goes or if I stop writing then you’ll kinda figure out what went down.

So beard.

First off, this beard thing is pretty rigged I should say. There are guys I know that had a head start on this. Way too much head start. Some like the infamous Owour-the-Prophet haven’t even shaved from November last year; they’re rigging. 

Ok, maybe we leave Owuor out of this and deal with regular folks. 

I know it ain’t no competition but some regular guys (Goddy I am not giving names) stopped shaving nauko July and now you’d have to search for their face amid the facial hair. 

But then it’s still alright because we all are in the same team here ama? In support of the war against cancer. Lakini I have learnt my lesson; next time imma circle my 2017 calendar on 1^st of August just so I get prepared to amaze y’all with the ‘Mr Steal your girlfriend’ beard.

For this to make sense I have to go back a bit;

So a couple of weeks ago, I was doing my usual evening trip from town – in my route’s kawaida Jav that is usually eventless. Routine stuff. I sat – for lack of an alternative – at the very hind. Beside me a mother with two younglings and one of those big Adidas bags stuffed with clothes I guess. Between us was supposed to be two seats but then the younger boy perched on one of them close to her awaiting to move if need be. One my right side was a potbellied man who annoyingly sat like he had a jiko between his legs (please buy your own car if you get a kitambi). Then came this middle aged man all craggy and a bit clumsy. (Haha he had the popular Kale jacket). A city dweller from the suburbs I presume. He sat next to me, pausing as if to catch his breath for a minute. He looked at the boy, then at me, then at the mom, then out of the blues he insists that the little guy be allowed to have the seat and that he would pay for it. A kind act from the heart. 

“Asante sana na mungu akubariki”, quipped the mom as the stranger and his cheget alighted and went on their way. 

It was actually hard to believe that all he wanted was to give the young guy a comfortable trip for the half hour that we would be on the road. Because fisi is a life outchea and we all know it.

On a different day, still in the city, and on my way to the city centre I sat almost next to a guy with a baby. Yes, a baby. A guy with human baby in a jav! No, mum around. I guess it was his turn to go out with the baby out or just left the house saying “nafika kwa duka” only for his friends to text him about a very tight plan going down and he decided to just go ahead and take the baby for a choma-graced afternoon at Kwa Njuguna’s in Westy. Either way, he had a baby with him – a year old I guess. Wait, what if he had stolen someone’s baby? I actually never thought of that. But, well, since the ka-cute soul never cried I would imagine they were at least friends. If not relatives. That’s my consolation if at all he had stolen the baby.

The interesting bit is how the baby somehow kept staring at the guy. I bet he was wondering what the guy did wrong for hair to grow on his chin. Was it a curse? Did he urinate on the door of a minister of the gospel? Did he refuse to pray as often as his mother taught him to? Did he refuse to ‘type amen’ on one of those Facebook posts? At some point the baby was trying to grab the beard as the guy fiddled with his phone scrolling through Whatsapp conversations. They were both at ease.

Let’s hang that one there for a minute.

You know Pastor Julian Kyula? The one with a church on Mombasa Road? The Purpose Centre Church? Well, I went there a while back. I was there to seek audience with God because as much as I can do that from anywhere sometimes being in a church helps than being in a house full of unwatched movies and beckoning snacks. And screaming kids (neighbour’s kids not mine).

So I sat there. At the back. I said short earnest prayers about me and stuff I like. Told God I want a better life and his help so that I can buy only those Avocados that are nice on the inside and to give me a good bae someday. Legit things. But other times I just watched people delve into moments of supplication as the band sang gloriously. Saw a couple of celebrities and Njugush of K-Krew finding peace with God. And I heard the prayer of a Congolese guy. Never understood it. Okay, I understood the little English parts but that’s it.

I remember the Congolese guy – figured that out from his prayer – because he sat just a row in front of me. He sang with an unfathomable level of indulgence. With one hand on the chest, fist clenched and the other one raised up to his maker. He arched his head up with closed eyes. He really sang along with a lot of passion. I bet he saw heaven. His beard sang along too. And as he cried – he teared a lot for a guy – his beard worked equally hard to catch all the balls of tears as they made way down his cheeks. 

I do know men cry but his was different. It was a cry of brokenness. Of surrender. He sought guidance. Direction. And mercy maybe.

I prayed some more too; prayed for people who cook samosas with waru to see the evil in their actions and repent.

So here is why these incidences are about beard gang.

For a couple of men I know, actually all men, the essence of a manhood is in the masculinity. The beard being part of this. It is like a gauge. The more the beard the manlier someone is. Good point if you ask me. Lakini it does not stop there. A man is more than the facial hair. A man is defined by the depth of character. I think the guy in the Jav who paid for a seat just to get a boy to be comfortable is more of a man than elves who think it’s manly to stagger home at 3 am in a drunken stupor. I think the guy finding the strength to carry around his baby all day is more of a man than the run-away father pretending to be a corporate guru. I also think the Congolese chap seeking supernatural intervention is more of a man than the know-it-all fellas who would rather swallow a whole coconut than seek help even when they are caving in.

So as we let the beards run loose and trend hashtags about it, it would only be fair to follow up the beard with character.

Have a beardy end-month, won’t you?