The Korogwe meal saga during a smooth and beautiful ride

I can assure you that it was a scene from the absurd and surreal world. Here we were in the then modest town of Korogwe, very hungry and for me very, very thirsty. I was yearning for a mortuary cold beer while my Very Important Person (VIP) whom for obvious reasons I will not reveal his name, notwithstanding the fact that he long passed on - God bless his soul - was an elderly ‘Fanta’ guy.

We were driving from Dar es Salaam to Arusha to attend an international meeting at which my VIP was the guest of honour.

Our convoy of five sleek black metallic cars parked at one of the self-anointed ‘Hilton’ hotels of the township. Some tough well -muscled guys in black suits and dark glasses surveyed the area before allowing me and my VIP to touch ground and enter the premises.

We entered the joint, and I have to confess here that I am not much in the eating business. Rather I love my liquid lunches. But to support my VIP who ordered rice and chicken I followed suit. Mind you this was in the mid-80s.

Understandably the staff at that joint decided that they were going to serve us with the best dishes they could come up with. That included making sure that our dish was very ‘fresh’. This I could understand on account of the tough goons who accompanied us hanging around.

Apparently the joint was in the habit of serving its clients dishes which were two or three days old and nobody cared.

We sat at one corner of the joint, and surrounded by our goons ordered our drinks as we waited for our rice and chicken dish.

Twenty, thirty, and forty minutes passed without our dish coming from little smoky kitchen. That is when I took the initiative to personally follow up on our ordered meal. I was now also famished.

I walked into the kitchen only to find that there was nobody in there. A young man, I found hanging around, told me that the kitchen staff were in the backyard ‘processing’ our meal.

Naturally, I became suspicious on this ‘processing’ phenomenon and entered the backyard. And Oh Lord and behold! Here were three young men chasing a chicken which to all intents and purposes was not ready to be served at any one’s table.

That reality forced me to go back to my VIP and advise him accordingly that our lunch was on the run and was not forthcoming in the near future. And since we still had to make it to Arusha we had to decide on an alternative.

As I said earlier, I am not very much in the business of eating but on that day and under the then prevailing circumstances, I felt that I had to eat something. I recommended that we eat some two or three boiled eggs each. This we did and drove off towards Moshi, marvelling the panoramic Pare Mountain ranges on our right hand-side.

It was a smooth and beautiful ride. But a few kilometers before reaching the Himo junction we all felt uncomfortable and were forced to stop the convoy to release our potent air in our cars.

Apparently we had forgotten one basic fact that eating boiled eggs leads to one being gassed and naturally releasing some foul smelling gas from one’s bowels.

And I can assure that it was a gassy experience all the way from Himo to Arusha, notwithstanding the fact that we had all the car windows opened.

Things have changed. I am now here at this same Korogwe joint. I am transiting on my way from Arusha to my roots in Njombe. The joint is now an ultra-modern establishment. Chicken and other delicacies are displayed in hygienic glass casements. Naturally nobody is chasing any chicken around.

And I can assure you that I have no intention of having boiled eggs for my lunch.