The grocery isn’t noisy, and yet, you honestly can’t get what this guy is saying to you.
Yeah, he’s mumbling without fully opening his mouth. Worse still, he’s hardly giving you any chance to say something, like asking him to repeat what he has said.
You’re unlucky to have ventured into this eating and drinking place at this particular time for a bowl of udon before proceeding to town for some serious business ha!.
Unlucky, because bumping into fellows like this ndugu means you’re likely to be delayed over nothing beneficial to you.
All you can decipher from this guy’s mumbling is his insistence that he and you are brothers.
Which isn’t totally untrue, for his father is somewhat related to the woman in whose womb you grew for a whole nine months before emerging into this treacherous world.
“Wewe ni kakangu wa damu,” he muffles as he sips from his small bottle of beer. Clearly the guy is inebriated, much as we’re still in mid-morning.
He half opens his eyes, like he’s struggling to keep them open. From what you can get from his muffling, your ndugu is on leave.
So, that’s it! When a man is on leave, it means he has 24 hours to do whatever he wants with his time…and money.
Yeah, including drinking from morning to midnight and beyond. It makes you worried to imagine what life will be with this guy and his ilk when they go on retirement!
Looking at him takes you back to the late 1990s when you had this neighbour in Dar’s Sinza kwa Wajanja ha!.
There was a retired guy whose nice home stood just a few minutes from a cosy, open-air grocery served by a beautiful, motherly lady we all called Mama Sophy.
The guy (call him Charo) would report daily at the grocery as early as 9am and order his Safari Lager, placing his packet of cigarettes and a lighter on the table.
He would often invite Mama Sophy to join him and drink whatever she wished on his bill.
By 1pm Charo would still be there, enjoying his beer and cigarettes while reading a newspaper as Mama Sophy attended other drinkers.
At around this time, a small boy would run up to him and say, "Babu, Dada says food is ready,” then dash back home immediately.
The old guy would respond to his grandkid’s call at least 30 minutes later. And he’d be back within the next 15 minutes!
Whenever you got a chance to have some small talk with Mama Sophy, she’d almost always say, “I can see Mzee Charo dying quite soon."
Ominous, this! You would say to yourself and ask, "Why do you say so, Mama Sophy?”
“Boozing from morning to late evening, day in, day out, has never left anybody unscathed!” she would say in a matter-of-fact tone.
Well, you left Sinza and shifted to your current location in the late 1990s.
Last time you drove past the place, Mama Sophy’s grocery wasn’t there, and in its place was a clothes-selling shop, Eti, a boutique.
Your investigations confirmed Mama Sophy’s prophecy. Mzee Charo joined his Maker in early 2000, after battling with health issues that affected his chest and liver. He was only 65.
The holiday conduct of your ndugu, who reaches his statutory retirement age in two years' time, makes you dread he could go the way of Mzee Charo. Little chance of living to be a hundred. Sob!
