THE PUB: She’s new in this pub; she’s a little unique…(II)

Mr Freeloader calls Fetty the new mhudumu and offers to introduce her to me, saying he suspects we don’t know one another well.

He does the introductions like he were a seasoned PR professional.

Fetty is excited, more so after I tell her to bring a beer for me, plus a soda for herself.

However, before she goes for the order, she hesitates, then says, “But bro, now that it has emerged that you and I are ndugu, why don’t you buy me a beer instead of a soda like you always do?”

“Well… if you say so, but isn’t it wrong to drink beer while you’re at work?” you say.

I’m bluffing, of course, for in the kind of joints I normally patronise, wahudumu are free to drink like anyone else!

A few minutes later, Fetty and I are sharing a table, seated face-to-face, drinking and chatting like we were a couple on a date.

Patrons aren’t many tonight, so her two colleagues aren’t complaining.

“So, kumbe you’re my bro… and I didn’t know!” Fetty says after a few gulps of her Kilimanjaro Lager.

“It’s okay; this is Bongo,” I say, adding, “Everybody is everybody’s brother or sister—we’re all ndugu.”

“Yes, but it’s something else when you originate from the same part of the country and you bump into each other at a far-off place, isn’t it?” You agree and then ask her whether she speaks Chasu.

“What is Chasu?” She queries, “I’ve never heard of a language called Chasu!”

“It’s the mother tongue of our people,” you say.

“But I thought our language was Kipare, for we’re Wapare,” she says.

You educate her that Wapare is nothing but a moniker slapped on us by our watani, the funny tribesmen from the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro we call Vaagha, the same people others call Wachagga.

When I ask her—in Chasu—to tell me something about herself and family, she gazes at me like I’m speaking Chinese. I repeat myself in Kiswahili.

Fetty dropped out of secondary school in Form 2 after getting pregnant accidentally in the mid-2000s.

“After giving birth, I nursed my child with the help of my mother for close to two years, then I left the village to go and earn money my mother would need for my child’s upkeep,” she says.

She was in Taveta in Kenya when another child was on the way, so she returned home when it was close to delivery time.

When the child turned two, she says, “I came to Dar to try my luck…this is the second bar I’m working for.”

On her way to the counter to get another round for us, Mr Freeloader stops her and, holding her hand while looking at me.

He says, “Mzee Muya, I definitely deserve a drink for introducing you two to each other, don’t I?”

I grudgingly say, “Yes, you do.” He then frees Fetty to head for the counter.  My budget has been messed up, but that’s life in the city, isn’t it?