Night clubbing is as awful as the city center. Town is the worst part of the world, it is dirty dusty and crowded.
Town always makes you feel like you are in a dustbin even though you can't see rubbish anywhere. Town is just magical dammit! And special.
You park at Nakumatt Lifestyle cause town is simply the only place that makes you feel a car is a bad idea? You can't just get to shops in town in a car. But then again shops in town have more non sense than anything of quality.
But sometimes you have to take a dive into the dustbin, right? No?
I parked at Lifestyle, and can I say this? I am not used to such nonsense, the basement parking...up to like three floors down. Are you kidding me?
The air is heavy. The parking spaces are meant for cars on diet, and we all know metals don't slim, even with the fuel prices and giving cars doses of fuel instead of liters. How do you just have jam at an underground parking lot? The air conditioner is bursted. I purely hated it.
But I had to look at the glass half full... spend as little time as possible then escape the town.
I was like climbing out of an oxygen deprived grave climbing up the bunch of stairs from the basement parking to Nakumatt proper. Nakumatt proper is like a street, so crowded. They should have traffic lights for pedestrians.
The chemists there have staff eating in them, who wants to give money to an accountant enjoying their stew and chapati? As if that's saddening enough the edges of the doors feel like they need paint desperately. You know the dirt around a bulb switch that needed a fresh coat of painting six years ago. I hate that. To make make matters worse they still have the audacity to charge as much as a chemist out of town; Where they order a full repainting of the building when there is just a scratch on one wall. Plough back profits man!
I placed my parking pass in the pocket and braved the streets walking. Such a dustbin experience, such complete torture.
I wanted to take a cab but that was a ridiculous idea.
So I walked instead, all the way up to some place near city hall. I like to believe it's the center of town. The center of all shittiness.
Again, I hate our former driver, pure evil man, he is the cause off all the misfortune in this world.
But let's leave that alone, am no Nairobians I come from the place where they grow Bailey that makes the beer that everyone in Nairobi finishes for everyone else in the country. So I don't get it when get into the building and some bustards want me to sign in a book leave my Drivers Licence and stuff. I wonder why the hell do people come to town to subject themselves to such torture?
I leave my Drivers Licence. Get to the office, pick the cake parcel i was meant to pick. Nothing but sweetness, nothing but sweetness, right? and it is as heavy as my problems. To add icing on it am hungry. But I would rather faint than eat in town.
Task one done but...
I still have one more building to carry my hungry stomach to and my heavy cake to. I get into Starcom, yes it's the building close to Galitoz Hilton. That awful place.
You should be charged a monthly fee for getting up those stair, I promise you they are a gym, with the heavy cake in my hand I can say I was at the gym. They feel like climbing a tree.
I pick the package I was meant to pick from the office there. The receipt read like a 40k, and am wondering who needs to buy computer parts that can fit in my arm for 40k! And they aren't diamonds? I guess that's why I quit I.T and joined law.
It's only in town where it is standard proceedure to show your receipt when you leave the entrace in a building. It's only in town that such non sense is condowned. And the guards in town remember are just completely crude, so...
"hiyo ni nini umebeba..."
I show them the receipt, cause its ridiculous to fight carrying a cake.
I walk out back again back to where everyone is, on the streets, walking almost bumping into me. My hands are full when everything wants to fall down including my trousers. And I get on edge when phone starts ringing and the vibrate is not helping my falling trousers.
I wonder whether I should let the cake lie on the street and do my belt. But that's ridiculous and dirty when you are in town. Even though the streets are clean in town, they are not. I could ask someone to help me out, a stranger samaritan, but we are in town remember, pick pockets and thieves are in ties.
Technically I don't think germs can jump of the floor to the cake cause of the carton wrap. But social rules dictates that I can't put a cake on the floor just like you can't pick crips when they fall on the table, or pick a spoon when it falls down in a restaurant and give it to the waiter.
So I walk like I have shit in my pants, apart... One step at a time like I have just being circumcised. And people are looking at me weird. Why do people look at you weird when you have luggage?
I am not going to walk like this to lifestyle. I can't take a bus cause it's not like it will drop me at lifestyle, it will drop me far from where I have to go which is like three floors underground.
Oh, I hate town. I am hungry, I feel like I want a shower, I feel like the sun has ruined me, the air is unbreathable. It's just plain awful I would almost rather be in a farm.
"lifestyle 200 bob boss, twende..."
I learnt that when you say 'hi' to a cab guy he adds a zero to the cab fee. If you call him boss, he subtracts the last zero digit.
I also leant it's easier to tell them the price rather than to ask them the price. Something to do with not giving people options.
"you will drop me at b3"
"we are getting in?"
"yeah my car is in the basement."
"ahh you will have to add on that price."
And I could see him judge. My luggage was not that heavy. I could see him judge like my house help judges.
Ati, huyu hawezi osha nguo, mvivu kabisa. You know, I don't get it, you expect my friends will not tell me about what you say behind my back in my house. I will fire your ass and advice you to stick it in. Okay, maybe I can't cause she is too good at her work, as in she washes brown trousers until they are gold. White shirts until they are diamonds.
I wish she would wash the air in town. Did i mention the air in town makes me feel like I have an extra layer of heavy vaseline on my face, only that it is not that but is a layer of pure dirt? I don't know, something about town makes you feel dirty all over, right?
So we were finally at b3, he got right to where my car was. I paid him. He turned his cab around to leave. I reversed mine, and immediately I was behind his car in my car for the next thirty minutes in the car basement parking jam. Did I tell you I absolutely hate town.
Google Maps. Shortest distance to Nakumatt Junction.
I wasn't hungry enough to eat in the dustbin.
I loved it the moment I arrived. The parking space is so close to where you are going, actually you park, seat under the tents at Java you look to the side and you can actually see your car standing comfortable under the stage. No need for car wax sunscreen.
And there are trees, and the air is cool. The air is fresh. And I am seated across a girl. The seats are benches, but it's Java and their food is great, so I don't care. We don't care.
You can't even compare those seats to the seats at Galitoz near Hilton, but guess what it's never about the size of the house...it is always about location location location...
They serve Coke in a very clean glass, and drop ice cubes in it for me as I watch. The guards don't ask me for my Drivers License, they are actually friendly, okay not friendly friendly us Stanley Hotel, they aren't friendly but respectful. Why the hell did I go to town? Why couldn't I have shopped here. Everything is here...
"hey, can I taste your chicken..."
"mhh delicious, I let me fork sink in her food."
She smiles, and the trees sing to the wind.
"this almost feels like the beach."
"yes, it does, you look even prettier here."
The more we eat, the more we get relaxed. The slower life becomes, the more comfortable life becomes.
And there is laughter, quiet laughter not like in town where everyone is sad, and those that laugh laugh like they want to show their throats.
"we go shop..."
And we pass through the shops, they have everything. And everything fits well. The trousers aren't made using a straight ruler like a Toyota Probox is, they have curves, you wear a piece and it falls on you nicely. The fabrics aren't paramountly synthetic like a sack of potatoes scratching your back. The fabrics are natural, they ask you to sweat, and they absorb, they don't ask you to sweat, and get stranded spreading sweat on parts of the body that weren't sweating before.
They don't feel like you feel wearing a paper bag or sand paper. They don't charge you when you go to the loo, like some shitty place I found in town. Or tell you loos are for paying customers, cheap bustards.
"I swear when I packed here my car had dust?"
"are you serious?"
"where is my dust..."
"really?"
Everything out of town is better. Town is okay, maybe at night but still...
If you find me in town, know that am there to make money. Never to spend it. Never to spend it! Never! You hate town to, right? Punish town by not spending money in it. Punish it mercilessly. You just realizing it now aren't you. Just be truthful. Isn't it easier to walk from Westgate to Nakumatt UK eight times than to walk that distance once anywhere in town.
If am in town am either being kind to someone I love by running their errands. If am in town, probably it's at night and parking is in plenty. Or we are doing stunts around roundabouts. Please keep off town. If you are in town what are you doing? Making money... Not spending it. If I catch you in town, am blocking you out of the blog. Who is in town?
