Thoughts On Shisha and Seatbelt Selfies

Shisha and Seatbelt Selfies

Lately I have been preoccupied with thinking about what to blog next. Certainly, this is a not so fluid process because, being the somewhat perfectionist I am, I tend to over-think sometimes. My over thinking virtue in this case was not good because just like any civilized man can tell you, if you start over thinking about bagging that five star mami then you’ll probably have a better chance at winning the Sportpesa Jackpot. It’s an oxymoron; the focus de-focuses you. In such cases you're better off not show too much interest or you’ll look like an Arab girl showing too much ankle to Ahmed or Abdi; trying too hard and totally not acceptable.

Courtesy of Mpasho.co.ke

So I decided to just give up already and that a story would eventually have to find me, come to me the same way lions have become fond of coming to chill with people along Mombasa road and that the story would even beg me to write it and that I would even play hard to get if I get the chance. Probably tell it I have another story. A better one.

A few nights later a story came along. I was lying there, one leg out of the blanket - because if I had both in it’d be too hot and if I had both out it’d be too cold. One leg out is the perfect balance - my perfect temperature for grade 1 sleep. I imagine it feels the same way as floating on your back in the deep end of a pool – which I have not yet been able to do. I seemingly can’t trust water enough to let it carry me. I remember this one time I was at duff mpararo and this kid is there floating on his back like a duck and I was there struggling to float on my belly. Do you know how that feels? I had a lot of questions! Like does water have no respect for grownups? It needs to let grownups float first and if it has any strength left it can then float the kids and their little swim glasses.

Anyway back to my sleeplessness.

I am not insomniac but I couldn’t sleep. Just one of those nights where your body is all confused about sleeping and simply decides to play the how-long-can-I-stay-awake-and-still-be-at-work-by-7.30am game. Sleep was teasing me and I didn’t like it. She’s not like this on normal nights. Our relationship is a really perfect one and I don’t know why she was acting up that night. Maybe it was something I did. So while I was lying there staring in the dark in the company of mosquitoes almost dozing off I was snapped awake by screaming girls. It had to be girls, boys actually don’t scream at night unless they are scared by Chuck Norris physically. I got out of bed and my first thought was “damn it! I will have to start this all over again”. I had been like really close to sleeping. On a scale of one to ten I was at the nine. Really close.

Now it is not uncommon for drunken girls to stagger past our flat at 3 am but I am usually dead asleep at such a time and don’t have to get all aggravated by their ungodly banter. But this time I was in the middle of it. A group of around ten intoxicated teenagers or maybe they were a little older were hanging onto each other trying to get home or maybe to the next pub which is on this other end of the stretch or headed to god-knows-where those young men live. They were really loud and very explicit while at it. Even Erroh, our Maasai watchman whose real name I don’t know could not get them to keep it down. Erroh tried shushing them but they called him bad things and Erroh called them other bad things in return. Bad people!

And how people walk with their mukonyos out at 3 am beats me. It is ice land cold at such times but again I guess drunken people don’t feel cold. Do they? And do their moms know they’re out in the cold without jackets? Will this affect their children? Maybe their kids won’t feel cold like the rest of the kids. Or maybe they’ll be born a little drunk. You never know these things. Or as we are fond of saying, "hii maneno mtu hawezijua".

Now eventually the drunken confusion that was those teens got on its way and I did sleep after some time but it is from that situation that I got my story. A story about the precedence we are setting for generations to come. I assure you as I write this I feel like the professor with big glasses, hanging a baggy checked coat behind an old wooden university chair, using a flickering table lamp and sitting beside a pile of books in the calm of the night penning down life-changing manuscripts. Well maybe that’s an exaggeration, let’s say more like the guy sitting alone with a drink at the poorly-lit corner in a bar thinking about changing the world.

Well I’ll start saying that it appalling how hunnies (if you’re not from twitter A then you’ll probably not get that) live their lives. Ask Njoki Chege; it’s all about drunken stupors, smoking Shisha, riding in Subarus owned by guys who mostly live in South C and Roysambu, taking selfies and trending on twitter A and well the other part is just applying makeup and learning how to draw their eyebrows. Clearly a very busy lifestyle! Plus they have to get their *appendices pierced (again from twitter A) and learn how to twerk. I kinda have a feeling in future twerking will be a P.E. lesson in some schools. Anyway, you should appreciate that hunnies even get time to do lame things like going to church and dancing like normal people, getting education or looking for a job. Of which the latter they excel in a measure equal to the Jubilee government’s success at fighting corruption.

I am holding no blood feud with anyone here but I am afraid of the kind of mothers we will have in ten years. Shouldn’t we have a serekali saidia initiative? We seriously need one to rescue us from the hunnie menace. In ten years what kind of kids will there be? I suppose they’ll be born normal and all but how will someone raised between Shisha smoking breaks and catching air from all the twerking turn out? A little part of me wants to know but I am also afraid; afraid that we might just be testing the waters like the guy with diarrhea trying to fart; afraid that it’ll get too messy to behold.

Or maybe they’ll all be in India with lung complications from all the Shisha smoke. Or they may not be married after all. Such girls only tickle the fancy of few men. They tickle the fancy of men who are deprived of morals; the kind of men that own an apartment in Kilimani while their mother lives in a ramshackle place at the edge of a village in Kirinyaga. The kind of men that are known by name at Sabina Joy and even get a quick fix on credit. These are the kind of men that don’t marry anyone for more than two years in a row. They are the men whose realest shot at a brain is a tattoo of human brain on their head. Such are the men that hunnies tickle. I wasn’t too hard on them there, was I?

I also wonder how I would take such a girl home to meet my mother? She’d curse the sun should her son shows up with some city girl who smokes plants and rivals Thiga the village’s three-time Annual Drinking Fest winner at downing the bitter stuff. It would amount to thahu and she would agree with Mzee on calling village elders to slaughter a sheep for a horohio ceremony. I’d be made to sit at a corner and reflect on my life’s decisions. They’d make me feel bad even with a plate of boiled meat and roast meat and rice in front of me.

But I wouldn’t take such a girl home. Not with regards to what defines their life today - the hunnies not the village people.

You’ve heard of seat-belt selfies? No? Well they are a thing now. In pursuit of social approval chics take selfies in a car with a seat-belt on. It is supposed to be cool. Which it can be if you genuinely own a car and you like taking selfies but in this case it’s the people whose chance of driving their own motis are close to the camel-rich-man-needle-hole-heaven situation. But don’t give up aye you’ll drive some day. And speaking of which I adore some twitter comebacks. 

Look at these tweets by #KOT 

Is it the society that expects a guy drive and own a house at 26 or is it just a thing for hunnies? If you’re raised from a relatively poor background like me then you’d probably understand how damn hard it is to make it to the top. Before you say ‘mama I made it’ there are periods of overwhelming disappointments, of blood, of hard work and unending sweat. Things refuse to work out. You get small problems sometimes and get big problems other times and think you’re done. It’s not easy. You have to put your butt on the line too many times before you can cruise in a moti under your name. Lest you think I am pity partying I should assure you that I know this is expected of any guy.

But let’s turn to the comeback; a waist trainer and 78 Instagram likes!!! That does not give you the right to point a finger at me. Not me and not any of my brothers tweeting from the discomfort of their bedsitters. Not even those tweeting from Melbourne, Australia while their device location shows they are somewhere in Dunyu Njeru, North of Kinangop. You can’t fault these brethren. They are doing the little they can to get up there; compared to your evil efforts of posting ‘kim kadarshian’ (this word is an adjective) pictures of you on Instagram for likes. You can’t expect the boy child (I’m finally sounding like an activist) to meet all these expectations whilst all a girl needs to do is learn how to twerk, be blonde and be on social media and probably learn how to draw eyebrows without getting us thinking she works as a brand ambassador for Nike.

So point is she won’t even cut it as a wifey material if all she worries about in the morning are what filters she’s going to use for Instagram. Neither am I willing to be subjected to the agony of 99 selfies in a day just to feed her social media glamour. Worse still I am not going to put up with buying fancy food just for the pictures. If you’re among the girls I have described above and you’re reading this please reform and find you way – the way. For the sake of future generations and their sobriety please learn how to cook round chapatis so that you can pass something good over to your kids. in the end sober guys will marry the good girls.

Before I put an ending to this I’ll just say it is not lame to be a good girl. It is something we shall have an Oscar for in coming years. Something we will wear tuxedos and Sir Henry’s bow ties to go witness its recognition and appreciation at a glamorous night party at some expensive hotel in Nairobi which we shall pretend we can afford on a regular day.

Happy Easter Someone!