| You’re strangers and yet, brothers-in-law | Send to a friend |
| Saturday, 11 February 2012 11:50 |
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Yes, that’s your plan, but as it so happens, one thing leads to another and midnight finds you still conducting yourself like the sun has just set. That’s the curse of drinking, more so when you’re in the company of fellows who are insisting they owe you a drink. As every drinker knows, it’s not an easy thing saying no to a free beer. Topics ranging from the doctors’ strike to MPs agitation for an endorsement of their sleeping …err, we mean sitting allowances, to this year’s Form 4 national exams results are discussed freestyle. You’ve no wish to seriously participate in the discussions except in certain instances when you’re really pushed. The good thing is, most of the drinkers here consider themselves experts and are ever so eager to talk, which is why nobody notices the fact that you aren’t saying much. You mostly nod and grin, and that’s good enough to the others because, even when one of them asks you a question he believes you’re in the best position to answer since you are, as fellow drinkers are apt to say – wrongly, of course – a well informed man of newspapers (mtu wa magazeti), another fellow would preempt you before you’ve concocted some answer! It’s a few minutes to midnight by your watch and the number of revellers has thinned. You still have a couple of bottles in front of you waiting to be opened and consumed. You’ve the option of asking the akaunta to store them for you for another day’s kianzio but you reason against that. You’re off duty tomorrow, which means you’ll have the licence to wake up late and even a little hangover won’t be an “ishu”. Which is to say, a mere two more small “Castros” won’t do you any harm, you tell yourself. It’s while you’re mulling over the matter of your last two bottles when this rather well endowed, short-ish la dy, appears and takes a seat next to you that had just been vacated. “Hello; how are you?” she addresses you (in English). “ I’m fine, how about you?” you say. “I’m okay; but I’m very drunk,” she says. “Drunk, you say?” “Yes; I’m drunk… I’ve been drinking since 5pm; my brother brought me here in our car.” Talk of unnecessary information! Here’s a person you don’t know at all and she’s informing you that she’s drunk and she has been brought to this grocery by a brother. What is it to Wa Muyanza, really, you ask yourself! “I’m drunk and I’ve lost my mother; that’s why I drank too much. There’s nothing like losing a mother, I tell you!” “Pole for the loss of your mum… I know how it feels,” you tell her. “Now, will you please buy me a beer?” she says. “No; I can’t buy you any beer.” “Why? Just one beer!” “How can I buy you a beer when you’re actually admitting you’re drunk?” “It doesn’t matter… I’m mourning so I should drink until I can’t drink anymore.” “That’s okay, but I won’t be party to that!” Soon, a fellow whom she introduces as the brother who drove her from wherever she has been, saunters in. “Hi, vipi shemeji!” Shemeji! That’s Kiswahili for brother in-law. Why should a brother refer to a stranger sitting with a sister of his as “brother in-law”? You feel like answering him back: “Shemeji kivipi?” Brother in-law in what sense? But then, you tell yourself, you haven’t been insulted – someone has just conferred you with an honour you don’t deserve. It only becomes a bother when your purported brother in-law looks at you straight in the eye and says “Shemeji yangu, na mimi si ninywe moja?” That’s to say: “Brother in-law of mine; how about a bottle for me?” Some people! This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites           |
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