You believed you had it all figured out; you trusted your inner binoculars to see the future and the results? Yours would be a life of fish and chips; you would love unconditionally, pass exams squarely, pay tithe faithfully, build a home with a great view, have kids and name them after your parents, but fantasies are good. You’re somewhere stuck looking after your friends, returning a favor because favors run the world.


Its 10.30pm on a typical Friday night and she is at the bar waiting for that hour of the night when alcohol gets into the veins and opens the dancing tap. Her boyfriend is relatively tipsy and keeps pulling an angry cat’s look (black cat to be precise) because his expectant body cannot for a millisecond understand why this girl, who took all the hours dressing up for the party and has a dozen unopened bottles cannot woman up and dance with him. All she keeps saying is `mimi hudance nikilewa’. 2tots of Amarula, 5guaranas, and you’re still warming the chair shaking your head and legs like a toddler who is playing with jogjig (don’t Google, there is no such word). What is usually wrong with some girls? (A man will always wonder). This is the part where men play sniper and leave !their! girls to dance with random hyped girls, and when a case is filed the following morning they say, `that was not me, it was alcohol talking’.  And the way this statement is said with finality closes the debate and moving on becomes Safaricom’s twin because it is the better option.


In a Kenyan hyped club, a man will want to have a girl in front of her rubbing his `nini’ with her behind; it’s a dancing style well known as `kusuguana’. I’m not sure what that style does to men but the way they react makes me think they feel manlier. Girls with a high economic sense will take advantage of men’s love for this technique. They will camp horning their dancing skills and when they feel like clubbing, they put on sexy clothes and carry a classy clutch bag which is full of make-up and two fifty bob. 250? Yes to buy the first bottle. As soon as they start drinking, they will show off their dancing skills and men will use their Kenyan legs to `pass with them’; you know hurry up when stocks last. This is after they chop money ensuring crates of alcohol are brought to the girls’ table and their `nini’ enjoy the entire night.



Back to our dear man, the one who has now pulled a complete angry cat’s look clinging to the thought that the night is still young and she surely will dance when the time is right. He has even taken away her phone to prevent distractions. She should be focusing on deciding when she will get drank and get down for him, and not how she will reply to some text and comment on Susan’s picture. All he wants is for her to drink that alcohol like a Kamba who has just landed at Two rivers (the water flowing there…weeh) because then and only then will the dancing energy come.


Her phone rings. Aaargggghhh who is this calling you at this time? he asks passing the phone her way like some waste that needs a visit to the dustbin. She checks; it’s her alarm ringing to remind her of duty calls. Nearly every evening she has to come to her friend’s rescue. Call and ask her why she is so late; what they’re having for supper; what time she will get home, whether she has seen her purple bra, and questions that housemates ask one another. Her boyfriend at times suspects that she is having an affair and on this particular day, he cannot hold any longer; his anger explodes and he demands for an answer to the million dollar question. Who is this that you keep calling very late? Don’t start saying it’s your nephew. She explains that it’s her friend Vero.


Vero, okay.


So you’re having an affair with a chic?


Not an affair. We act as housemates.


I’m confused.


Okay. Vero is my childhood friend; we grew up together and have grown so fond of each other. Call us BFFs. You’ve actually met her. Remember that house party that we went last year? The one where guys started fighting over some truth or dare shit? Then there is this girl who was like the peacemaker? (At this point his mind is on weekend looking at some ass which is to his disposal on the left; these explanations are way too long for a man to focus). Are you even listening?


Weh. Wacha story mingi, niambie unaambianaga nini na Vero.


I call and pretend to be her concerned roommate looking out for her so that some guy she likes and dislikes gets the impression that she has a roommate and cannot go past the gate.




Vero aside. This is the point I pause and introduce this class of mankind: Wafulas, Njoroges, Mutuas, Odhiambos…………… Some are tall, others dark and the rest are brown yet they have one thing in common. They possess this behaviour that is in between nagging and demanding. Girls at times like them because they are readily available; you can send them anytime, borrow money from them (which eventually becomes bad debt), ask for technical help anytime and they will always always be available. They are our `okoa jahazi’. For that availability, they are likeable and useable just that a thank you is hardly ever enough. They need more and this more means demanding to come over to the girl’s place and over staying. Yes, overstaying till one has to fake commitments, tell a pal to call and remind you of a chama meeting and while at it mention the hefty fines when you get late. You even ensure the call is on loudspeaker to make certain that this man does not miss any word. Many are the times he still remains as persistent as a mosquito. Damn!!


This kind is similar to those who want to stay longer at a girl’s house and keep drinking sleepover ideas, those who the world invented a kinder word for, plural of fisi? They are people who will make a girl look forward to a date, just for it to turn out to be either my place or your place. I will buy booze; we shall prepare us a peaceful meal (like there is a war one) and have a candle lit dinner. They have a way of using words to decorate how classy the date will be but alas! this was not the kind of date she expected.


Do girls need such men? Of course but as `okoa jahazis’. What irritates us about them? Overstaying; wanting to come to my place every day; that nagging element sucks to the feet. We hate it and it sucks even more when you don’t read in between the lines. Now we came up with that call and ask me strategy, what Vero has adapted. Sometimes it works; other times it backfires but what to do.


Dear accomplices, let us continue doing this for one day we will laugh this off over a carton of milk. Milk? You wonder. Yes, because I’m suspecting I’m just about to be someone’s role model and saying anything that does not sound healthy and sober may disqualify me for the finals, so let’s go with milk, for now.


Some things need to be said; stories need to be told.



2 thoughts on “CALL AND ASK HER

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