Women’s lib according to Wa Muyanza's tablemate

You’re sharing a table with three guys and this quite attractive woman. The lady, who should be in her early 30s is, for obvious reason, the centre of attraction. More so because she isn’t talking much…actually she’s talking, in very low tone, to mainly one guy. He must be her date, you conclude.

We are all taking beer except her. The guy you have concluded is her date had ordered her a bottle of water and the mhudumu, trust him, had brought her the big bottle of Kilimanjaro, which he had quickly opened.

“Sorry, I don’t take cold water…get me another bottle please… warm, that’s what I had asked for, very clearly,” she says politely.

 “Now what shall we do with this bottle that has already been opened?”asks the mhudumu as he picks the bottle that has been rejected. Almost everybody at our table responds in a virtual chorus: “You, stop complaining and get her another bottle!”

One of the tablemates tells the mhudumu to just leave the bottle where it is, assuring him it will be paid for.

In your mind you’re muse over the tendency of attendants in our watering holes to assume that everybody takes cold drinks, be they beer, juice or water! They fail to acknowledge the fact that some of us, Wa Muyanza included, are actually allergic to cold liquids. A couple of sips of a cold drink of any variety and you develop a sore throat immediately, sneezing like an old sheep that has been made to sniff ground tobacco. 

Many guys who have been to Majuu

have told you that if you ask for warm beer—cold as the countries in the northern hemisphere are—everybody would turn and look at you with disbelief. A beer, they would tell you, isn’t beer unless it’s cold.

Now this is Dar, one of Bongoland’s hottest areas, yet some of us partake of warm liquids, like this lady tablemate of ours! It’s kind of strange, and no wonder, the idea a patron ordering a warm drink has failed to sink in many of our pub attendants. That is, much they would ask you, “Moto au baridi?”

Yeah, the mhudumu would ask you that and you would say, loud and clear, “warm”, but they would still bring you a cold drink! It’s therefore most important that, as soon as the bottle  lands on the table, you move fast to touch it before it’s opened, just to make sure it’s warm as per your order!

Our lady tablemate, as we note above, is talking very little, and that, only with her date… when she responds to a matter directed to her. Like when you offer to read the SIM numbers on the scratch card she has ordered for her cell phone.

“I appreciate, thank you,” she says, further commenting how strange you can read without specs. You aren’t surprised by her disbelief, for many people relate graying head with poor sight. Well, it’s thanks to your Maker, and most likely, lots of mchicha (since you can hardly afford meat) that you normally use as kitoweo for your ugali wa dona.

At one point, you notice the woman speaking in a low tone to the mhudumu—trust the paparazzo’s udaku tendency in you—and it sounds like she’s ordering something. You tell yourself it can’t be another bottle of warm Kilimanjaro water, for the one she ordered earlier on is still one third full.

The mhudumu ends his subdued conversation with the lady and heads for the counter and a few moments later, he is back with a tray full of drinks. The fresh order of drinks, it comes to pass, comprises a beer for every guy at our table. Wow!

Indeed, you had kind of heard her tell the mhudumu, “No more water for me, the one I have is enough.”

As it is customary, as the mhudumu places a bottle of a warm small Serengeti before you, you ask, “Where is it from?”

“It’s from this mama here,” says the mhudumu.

“Tell her ahsante,” you say, just like every guy says as a bottle is placed before them.

Soon, the lady stands up and she walks to her car, leaving heated discussion on how “this woman is different”.

One fellow soon concludes, “This is what women’s liberation should be about.”

Well, well, well…no comment from the son of Muyanza.

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