No major (and dangerous) road to cross, no history of serious muggings, no matter the time of the night. A relatively safe neighbourhood, this eneo of ours.
It’s yet another drinking session at one of my convenient locals. I mean the pub at which I wouldn’t care about drinking one too many because it’s just a few minutes’ walk from the place I call kwangu.
No major (and dangerous) road to cross, no history of serious muggings, no matter the time of the night. A relatively safe neighbourhood, this eneo of ours.
That’s why at times I let myself go beyond my usual three small ones, the type of company and other circumstances allowing.
Like today when this young fellow, Eric, appears out of the blue to greet just me at the circular table that stands high, the type that makes you feel like you’re seated at the counter.
His disregard of the other two drinkers at our table doesn’t matter really, because I don’t know the fellows anyway. We simply happen to share this table, as it was the only one with a vacant space when I arrived. And it was vantage enough for me to watch an early evening AFCON match.
“Hello, Mzee wangu; how have you been?” says the young fellow. I say I’m fine. “How have you been yourself, Eric?” I ask him.
“Fine, mzee wangu; last year had been pretty good, and I believed this year would be even better, what with our Taifa Stars sailing to the Afcon’s Top 16 Stage. He goes on:
“That accursed Afcon ref, however, a fellow Mswahili, has ruined things by denying us an obvious penalty!” says Eric, with anger, anguish and despair written on his face.
The young man is referring to the Afcon match officiating scandal, where Referee Boubou Traore shamelessly denied Bongo’s Taifa Stars a clear penalty after Moroccan player Adam Masina viciously pushed to the ground our striker Idd Suleiman Nado in the penalty area!
By the way, I like the way Eric refers to Traore, a Malian, as a Mswahili, just because he’s a fellow African. It’s like he’s giving credence to South Africa’s vocal pan-Africanist Julius Malema, who has asserted that Kiswahili is the perfect lingua franca for the African continent. One Africa, one language; and that language is none other than Kiswahili. Hurrah!
Which is to say, all Africans, more so the Black Africans like Mali’s Traore, are Waswahili.
I am digressing, sorry. Well, Eric has had a good year and was looking forward to another good or even better year, but a year whose beginning has, however, been messed up by our fellow Mswahili for the benefit of a Mwarabu!
The young man, who claims he knows me “a lot”, the great journo that I am (a big lie, of course, for I doubt if he even knows the media outlet I slog for!) has not been drinking for all the ten minutes-plus he has been speaking emotionally. And yet he looks so thirsty.
I feel his pain in regard to the daylight robbery against our team’s march to Afcon quarter-final glory. That’s why it’s easy for me to feel his thirst, too. I hail Halima the mhudumu to add me two and another two for the heartbroken Taifa Stars fan, on my bill, my inborn ubahili notwithstanding.
