Plot Diaries: I think I don’t like people

Bae and bibi ya Bae

My neighbor on the right has a five year old  daughter who sings things like- bacas bacas this gal you wan-

But would you expect less from a house that plays Vybez Cartel in the morning? They have exactly three dj mixes that they play every single day of the week. One is a gospel mix that the wife will put on on Sunday morning. 

The other two, a rough 105 matatu mix that is just someone shouting obscenities in dancehall lingua franca, and a bongo mix which the man of the house plays when he is cleaning his Probox, doors to his house open wide while I’m trying to respond to facebook comments on a client’s page without being rude, or smug like Safaricom.

My house vibrates when this music is playing. The mirrors on the door make a crackling sound you would hear if there was an earthquake  happening in Moshi Tanzania. I get a drumming in my ears, and my heart beat rate increases. I have  had a peep at this family. Vybez Cartel, the husband has a head that has a shape, that explains a lot. The wife calls him bae in a slay queen's voice. I’ve had a look at her too and my opinion is she doesn’t qualify to be calling her husband bae, maybe baba Shanaya or baba Tamara. But if that’s ‘what rocks their boat’- I hate that phrase but I need to use a phrase like that to spell out my disgust.

Bae’s wife has a clothes’ line that goes across my door.

She hardly hangs clothes on it but her neighbor does. This neighbor has an obsession with clothes washing.  She has two women that come to help her with washing every week. Two women that have marital problems so they go for church prayer meetings every day. The washing is then hang everywhere, the wet shoes go on top of my shoe rack, and the rags too, but I remove them when I am feeling like a warrior.

So last week the line was really sagging and it got to me and I decided I am done, I cannot watch this and do nothing about it. I know Biko Zulu said to be a good writer, don’t be part of the story but whatever, I climbed on a stool and redirected the annoying Kamba. It was Madaraka day.

Anyway, Sunday morning I woke up to various sounds. Vybez cartel and his wife and the laundry obsessor. They had gathered to put back the line across my door. They talked about how they were gonna buy a washing machine that washes as it dries..'you don’t even have to keep checking, it rinses the clothes out itself’ says he. I roll my eyes. The wife is singing loudly to the song playing from their dj mix mp4.

I’m smiling, thinking of all the confrontational scenes I could make.

Me, a single woman

A single woman who they probably suppose is in her 20s.

Me, a single woman that lives with a cat.

She, the town wise sharp tongued woman in her twenties with a bae for a husband. A bae that drives a Probox and listens to dj mixes at night.

Me, the infp whose body produces tears instead of words in confrontations.

Me, the recovering anger management strata.

I have managed to stay out of Langata women’s for this long.

But I had to do something about it.

After a whole day of deep thought I knock at her door and tell her the obvious. 

'Your line sags too much, find a way of raising it up from my door.'

-Oh okay, the clothes are not mine but that’s a good idea- and she squints her eyes like she likes my suggestion but I know and she knows she will do nothing of the sort.

'Coz you know, it might break one day,' I say.

( I will snip it with scissors or light it up one evening when my pms is not tolerating crap is what I mean)

She has a good singing voice, is what I was thinking. She could get into Tusker Project Fame and be a second runners up or something.

The Mrs.

The laundry obsessor has baseline beauty. Beauty that you could draw.

The kind you would use as a model checklist for a model sheet when auditioning for cooking fat models.

Nose: Tick

Eyes: Tick

Pigment: Tick

Teeth: Tick

She has a no nonsense aura but her voice betrays her. It undulates and has a gaagaa undertone to it. She would win an argument but he would not win Who’s smarter now?

With a teenage daughter and an adolescent boy, I kinda pity her.

But her boy is alright, he has a cat too and when I moved in and was doing my best to ignore everyone, he smiled at me and said sasa?Are you the one moving into that house?

Yes

Have you brought your things?

So I open my door and my cat peeps out.

Oh you have a cat? What’s his name? I have a cat too.

He runs into his house and drags out a fat cat.

The father says in a sullen voice- shut that door-

You cat is very beautiful. I tell the boy.

So of course, line or no line I cannot start fights with the mother of such a pleasant kid, because he reminds me of my kid cousin.

But Happy doesn’t like their cat.

He has become bffs with this pure white rogue of a cat. It belongs to my neighbours on my left.  I call the cat George, he has a long spout and looks like a George.

He used to come and eat and then go. But now he checks in for a meal, uses the litter, humors Happy with a bit of horseplay then falls asleep on my bed.

He is not well mannered though. He will climb walls to bring down the bag of omena, breaking glasses in the process, but if Happy likes him who I’m I to refuse them a friendship?

And I like George’s family though I wouldn’t recognize them on the street. They are very quiet and prefer to be unheard.

The Maids

I have always felt it was unfair to give Househelps names like Mboch and Maid but I now understand the derision. There are two such beings in this plot. They live on the second floor. Boisterous beings that bring the house down with their noise and gimmicks. When they have done their washing in the morning, they pour down the water down the stairs and it comes cascading down like Victoria falls followed by the kid one of them looks after.I think she is always trying to run away.

After washing they lean on the balcony railings to gossip in screechy loud sounds. Then one will realise the child has ran away and will come down calling on the child, stopping by Vybez Cartel to flirt and complement him on his wonderful music collection.

When they sun comes out, they go outside the gate with the radio singing from their kabambe phone and make everyone coming in uncomfortable with their staring.

The cat

There is  a cat too. It lives under the stairs where the communal bin is and sleeps on one of the motorbikes packed close by at night. He is a brownish color, long fur with half a tail that was either bitten off by another animal or nipped by a human. It twitches unorthodoxly.

But he is alright. Has a very tiny voice and runs away from people, Happy invites him and trys to play with him but he’s too old. If this wasn’t July already I would try shave off his fur, but I will brush him someday if he’ll let me.

He’s a sight, which makes me wonder why Happy doesn’t like the laundry obsessor’s cat which is well taken care of.

So I’m holding up, until I snap.

5 lessons learnt on the commute

I spend an average of 3 hours a day in a matatu. That adds up to 21 hours in a week, 84 in a month. I spend 3 and half days in a month sitting a matatu.

So anyway, I started reading. From the minute I get a seat, even if it’s the crack between two seats, I get out a book and read. At night, I use the torch in my phone. I was actually blown when I noticed how many books I was churning out just by reading on my commute.

So if you don’t have time to read, maybe you should leave the car at home few days in a month.

1. Your thoughts can derail perspective

One of the new things that people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts-just mere thoughts-are as powerful as electric batteries-as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body,,, If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live.

As long as Mistress Mary’s mind was full of disagreeable thoughts about her dislikes and sour opinions of people and her determination not to be pleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellow-faced, sickly, bored and wretched child..but when her mind gradually filled itself with robins, a moor boy and his creatures, springtime,,,they was no room left for her disagreeable thoughts which affected her liver and her digestion and made her yellow and tired.

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The secret Garden. 1911.

2. On Possessions

Everything should exist in the right place, in the right way. Store each thing carefully, giving attention to the fact that there are differences between caring for something by putting it in a safe place and hoarding it or imprisoning it. Storing items poorly or forgetting about them is no different from abandonment. Even if something is being put away for a great length of time, visit from time to time, remembering how it came to you, reminding yourself of its value, and checking on its condition. Make periodic inventories of any new possessions you’ve acquired. Lay them out and look at them. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge mistakes you may have made in selecting them. Above all, don’t ignore what you have.

Gary Thorp- The Sweeping Broom. 2000.

This little paragraph had me finally settle on a capsule wardrobe that works for my needs. When you accumulate stuff you stop appreciating it, and head out to Kawangware market to buy some more.

3. Positive Thinking doesn’t  just come, you need practice

Ken, you know the world is full of unpleasant things. Pain and operations and sickness and discomfort. You mustn’t mind. That’s just the way life is. Besides all, there is health and goodness and soundness and fun and happiness too for horses as well as boys-much more of the good things than the bad-

My friend Flicka, Mary O’Hara- 1940

-Even soldiers don’t like to go to war-

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The little Princess-1905

4.  What Love looks like

-I saw more than anything, that relationships are not sustained by violence but by love. Love is a creative act. When you love someone you create a new world for them. My mother did that for me, and with the progress I made and the things I learned, I came back and created a new world and new understanding for her.

Born a crime- Trevor Noah, 2016

If you find love-if a person or an animal finds love-it’s the same as finding safety, isn’t it? It’s comfort and friendliness and help. Everyone longs for it-any kind of love

But if Flicka-we’ll say-had found  it and yet didn’t have sense enough to know she’d found it-and went on being crazy and silly with fear-

Then she’s be loco?

Nelly noded.

My friend Flicka, Mary O’Hara- 1940

(I agree, if we let fear blind us from the safety of love, we are loco. Every dreamer should read this.  Also, your love towards a person or another life should have you fighting for their rights)

- I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn’t ought to let no stranger shoot my dog.

John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men- 1937

I won’t say we human beings still don’t have much to learn sometimes.

 We love and hate without thought. We expect too much from one another and often we are wrong.

Gail Tsukiyama, The Samurai’ Garden-1996

         5. Don’t be a loner if you can avoid it.

A guy sets alone out here at night, maybe reading books or thinkin’ or stuff like that. Sometimes he gets thinkin,’ an’ he got nothing to tell him what’s so an’ what ain’t so. Maybe if he sees it too. He can’t tell. He got nothing to measure by. I seen things out here. I wasn’t drunk. I don’t know if I was asleep. If some guy was with me, he could tell me  if I was asleep, an’ then it would be all right. But I jus’ don’t know.’

John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men- 1937

So, what did I learn?

Relationships are what makes us humans. With people, with ourselves, with animals, with things but we have got to be actively involved in all of these. It is our responsibility.

Commuter Train Route # 8hours plus- How I slept in the bus

I don’t , well, hardly ever sleep in the bus. I don’t like to talk either, I prefer to stare into the dark and and wonder how many more books I will get to read before I’m 45 at this rate.

So when I got on the bus last week, going on a 8 hour trip, I was ready to zoom out. I didn’t have the window seat so I would make the best out of it by just breathing.

 But the woman behind me wanted to talk.
She claimed she had long legs and needed more space and can I stop acting like I paid Sh 1500 while the rest of them paid Sh 950. I ignored her. She started to hit my chair saying I would not sleep unless she was comfortable. The woman opposite said to her- “please, just lean back your chair as well, that’s how the seats are meant to be.”

She said she was pregnant.

My seat mate stood up to look, and seeing no stomach put back her seat belt and slept.

I said to the  drama queen to go and report to the conductor, coz really, there was nothing for me to do.

 She stood up and went  to the front in a huff.

 I’m told the conductor ignored her.

 She came back and hit on my chair again. 

She was hurling insults and saying this world is full of selfish people. 

 

I wanted to stand up and tell her what I had in my mind.

Which was, I had murdering cramps. My hormones were all over the place and if she thought being pregnant was a bother, she needed to take a look at my face. I had had a long, stressful day and would have preferred to be in my bed with a hot water bottle on my back.

Her traveling companions asked her to change seats and she refused.

‘ I paid for this seat, I will sit here!’

They were feeling embarrassed for the scene she was causing.

She said she was tall. I thought to myself, 'I am a tall girl too.'

I didn’t see her point at all. When you have periods you only see the sharp points bursting on the bridge of your nose like it's Diwali.

I could also have challenged her to a fight coz my Testerone levels were quite high.

But I  closed my eyes and decided to do nothing at all. Until another self respecting woman, came and kindly asked me if I could level up my seat a bit. I did and went back to pretending I was asleep, until I fell asleep. 

Then got up many hours later to rummage through my bag for panadols. One of them rolled on the floor of the bus.
I slept again until I was awaken at the destination.