Relationship problems, when she is beautiful but clueless.
Last Sato, I was perched at some bar along Muchai Drive enjoying my Tusker Cider mbili baridi.
I ignored the glares of rugged men with beards up to here, men who looked like they were made out of barbed wire and were perhaps wondering when the 2010 Constitution gave men like me freedom to drink Tusker Cider openly.
I didn’t care.
The bartender and I are on a short-form name basis, and that means the ciders are just a front — I have been having (free) shots on account of our friendship (and the lovely white couple next to me) and that means I am in that sweet flower spot between drunk and disorderly.
Ah, about that. This place is relatively newish, and I am only here because they are still baiting clients with buy-one-get-one-free cocktails.
Yes, I am a financial guru. Or, as my girlfriend calls me, a cheapskate.
I can only afford it here now before some chap advises the owner to put in on Trip Advisor or Yellow Pages or booking.com and then we have to deal with chippie white immigrants and expats here to sample the “10 Most Popular Nightclubs in Nairobi: Number 2 Will SHOCK You.”
Edu, the bartender, is in charge of the music — that means I am in charge of the music — and therefore I play the ringtone of the country, Anguka Nayo. But I know a few months from now, they will hire some snazzy DJ with dyed dreadlocks who will be playing some concerted music like bungalow electronica or Afro-Indigo techno, or (sic) what the cool kids these days want: oontz. Bado nitakam.
Then they will ask for reservations and membership numbers. Bado nitakam. Eventually, the price of drinks will double and Edu will be fired for canvassing with clients (likely in that order) and that is the only way they will get rid of me. Before then, I stare at the swelling crowd and understand why Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine at Cana of Galilee. Clearly, he knew something we don’t. Edu gives me another shot, tequila. I don’t even like tequila, but you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take, so I take it. I don’t know if the saying works that way but tutaforce kama gava.
I am in the bottle and the bottle is inside of me. I am using my pretty privilege well. The beer has ingiad my system and my mind has dissolved on those lager-induced intelligence flashes where ideas like harvesting hyenas’ testicles to service our budget deficit come from. Ngoja.
Some babe just walked in, with flamingo legs and a callipygian nyash that looks like a result of innovative Brazilian knife engineering on Ngong Road. She came straight to the counter, and perched her gazelle next to me. That means she is alone. She is in a handkerchief and a spaghetti top that is not too motherly, looking like an obambla that has just learnt how to swim. Si ulevi, ni ukweli.
I am as awake as a rumour of war and I can feel all my Sunday school lessons desert me, and I ask God for forgiveness in advance because I am about to covet someone’s wife/girlfriend/lover, especially because her tummy is flatter than the president’s speeches.
I know I am on a shoestring budget but I am thinking of a life with her already, and how to make an honest woman out of her. Our two tois with gender-neutral, NGO-baiting names like Imani and Amani; our “kasmall” 2500cc SUV and a farm in Nanyuki growing avocados for the army boys there.
Heck, I swig my cider and I can even see myself opening for her one of those loss-making salons in Lavington so she, too, can caption her Instagram “small girl, big God”.
I am interested but I act disinterested to gauge her interest because hii ni Nairobi. Akili mjini, Nguvu kijijini.
She throws me eyes and I approach her and ask could she watch my drink while I go powder my nose? She nods, sawa. I take a long leak, check my money maker—my face—iko sawa.
I breathe loudly to get rid of any boogers, hapo sawa. Crucially, I spread my mouth and check my teeth just in case some sagaa and seveve from janausiku are stuck between my molars. Tuko sawa. I take the Sh50 Somali perfume I bought in a traffic jam pale Ngara and tsss tssss my armpits.
Kidogo tu. Those who say nothing lasts forever, have never tried those Somali perfumes. So far tuko sawa. We are back in business, baby.
I get back, nod at the babe, still acting disinterested. She smiles. Progress. The bait has been swallowed, now to reel in the obambla. I tell Edu to ditch the violent Kenya music and put on some Nelly, Kelly Dilemma. The obambla chuckles.
This apparition knows game. I want to tell her that I went to Alliance (for benchmarking) but this is about her, “So babe, uko sawa? What’s your name? What are you having?” I motion and Edu waters her throat. Kumbe this is what power feels like? Bwana, I understand why the Prezzo hashuki. Weuh! When the babe speaks, it sounds like stones hitting corrugated iron sheets — madam speaks, no, raps, in that deep Meru accent, the one where the Rs are Ls and vice versa.
She can never say parallelogram, but I can live with that; her nyash speaks for her!
I ask: “So, what do you do? “
“Hakuna,” she says. “Niko tu home na my parents. “
“Eh?” I ask.
“Eh,” she says.
“Okay, what did you do in school?”
“Sikumaliza,” she says.
“Eh?” I ask.
“Eh,” she says.
Wah. Change of tact.
“So, what do you think of the maandamano?”
“Which maandamano?”
Ni kubaya, brethren. Hatuko sawa. Ngai. Who is this person and how is she alive? Bwana, all this time my interest levels are dropping faster than my chances of getting that call from the Ford Foundation. I couldn’t stand it.
I tell her, “Ngoja. Hebu let me pick up this call (not from Ford Foundation).’
That was the last time she saw me. I finya my macho at Edu and disappear into the darkness.
Free, at last.
What is a beautiful woman? Is beauty what we see or what we perceive? Does it even matter the kind of person you are if you have beautiful skin and good genes but devolve your thinking to Instagram and TikTok?
Is it better to have a Miss Universe with zero traces of brainpower or angukia one of those South Sudanese “models” who survived a war and the sun and is now studying for a PhD in solar layering while consulting part-time with some “climate posturing” NGO as a brand ambassador? What is a beautiful woman?
The facts are arcane, yet implicitly understood: women who are admired as beauties risk dismissal as brains.
Beauty doesn’t challenge men, but intelligence does. Does it even matter the kind of person you are if you are considered a trophy, anyway?
They say this is what keeps the world hygienic: men economically support beautiful women, women pander to men’s sexual and other needs, and the pillars of the world remain intact.
A woman has power over a man if she knows how to satisfy his ideas of beauty. Isn’t it our elders who said the man who marries an ugly woman knows where her beauty lies? You, what do you think? What is a beautiful woman?
