Why I’m Changing Names

I recently met this Kamba lady at a meeting. To quote Shakespeare, “...she was fair and fairer than the word”. She had on her pink flowing dress that rolled gracefully accentuating her screaming figure. She was perfect. She had a slight Masaku accent that made her nibble her words. But that didn’t dent her ethereal beauty nor make me desire her less. She must have been using those Eastleigh perfumes where one spray is enough for all in the room. But it wasn’t toxic or choking, it made her smell like a rose in the morning. Strong enough to get the bees attention but not sufficient to kill it.

Honey is her name. And that’s not just her Facebook name. You know all those girls called Gaudencia Akinyi and calling themselves Princess G. Honey isn’t like that. Even Ole Lenku and his boys down at Immigration recognize her as Honey. What a sweet name. I think that’s how I begun. 

Honey tells me about her. She’s a nurse somewhere in one of these rich people’s hospitals. Those hospitals that make disease look exotic and and dying sophisticated. Those hospitals where helping somebody go to the toilets are labeled big names such as ‘stool incontinence services’.  Her patients are the who’s who in Kenya. 

I tell her that I go to such hospitals, it’s just that I’ve not been sick of late, that as a sportsman I keep healthy and take good care of myself. That’s a lie of course. Am healthy, yes, but I’ve been to Mama Omo’s Dispensary frequently of late. Maybe it has something to do with the chapo madondo I’ve been taking for lunch of late. I can’t tell her that of course. I have to protect the good name of my community.

She tells me to check in at their hospital one of these fine days, just to have a routine body checkup. 

Am tempted to ask if NHIF covers that.  I don’t, I’m not that dumb. 

We make a date and I promise to go by the hospital. Am not crazy about hospitals, not since J. Ngumbao fired me from Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital over some personal issues. I’ll tell you that story another time.

So for the lure of the skirt I went for the date…..at the hospital. Don't say anything, I know it's low.

If she was elegant in her pink dress then she was picturesque in her well-fitting white uniform complete with a princess’s tiara. It was decent enough but yet still intriguing, fashionable yet still professional, revealing yet dignified. It’s the kind of dress that makes one just wanna reach for the honey. But of course that’s out of the equation. These days writers are being sued right left and center for sexual assaults. 

She’s a great story teller, my Honey. Oh, she’s already mine in my head.

She asks me about my home. I prepare to patiently explain to her that it's a small town near Kisumu.

For some reason all Luos come from Kisumu. I prepare to extol the virtues of my home town. Though we do not have CCTV cameras on the street like her county we are not that bad off. We do not have airstrips and running tap but we do have huge primary school compounds where choppers can easily land. We do have a running river. Our governor may not have fancy names for bicycle races such as Tour de Machakos, but bicycle races are not a new thing in my county.

                                                    “Wewe ni wa huko?”

I naturally assume that she's talking about the inhabitants of the shores around Lake Victoria.

From her face it’s obvious nothing good comes from there. She tells me how hooligans destroyed their state of the art stadium. She's bitter at the lawless who have no human decency, no scruples and no sense of responsibility whatsoever.  The animals who go on unwanted wanton destruction of goods just because they lost a game.

                                           “It's not just a game. It's the league that was going away.”

Of course I don't tell her that.  That would be seen as justifying hooliganism.

She tells me she would never marry a Luo. That they have to have more than one wife. That there has to be a city wife and a village wife. In her case there would be a Kamba wife and a Luo woman to be trusted with the secrets of the community.

“And what's up with them and funerals?”

Apparently over the weekend she was in some town called Oyugis. The road was so bad they had to push their four wheel drive to overcome the mud.  And she had just done her nails in one of this saloons that does your pedicure for the price of Land in Ruai.

And that's not the worst. Apparently Luos are stubborn even in death. The corpse apparently refused to enter the homestead and they had to tilt his coffin facing the other way. It seems their brains don’t live for long though. And the way they were behaving! Wailing loudly without a drop of tear then disappearing behind the food tents.

Oh Honey, what a keen lass.

But the main reason she won't marry a Luo is their superficial nature; their obsession with what is seen over what is there. She tells me that they were forced to sleep in a car at the funeral because their bereaved friend despite his many cars had no house at home.

                    "Oh, am sorry I've talked too much. So where's your home?"

                    “Ummmmmh……..ummmh…………..Am from Lamu.”

                     “But your name......”

                     “Forget about what I said earlier. I am Alhaji Alamin Varaq”

                      “But your colour?....you dark…..”

                       “And handsome?..............Thank You”

I'm sorry I denied you three times grandpa.

But I hope you'll understand.

You remember when you went to fight for the white man in Egypt and Burma, this right now is my world war. You remember when you used guerilla tactics to win deceive and ambush your enemies? Let this be my guerilla time. .................At least for a month.