It began on an innocuous Saturday afternoon. The noises of my new hometown flooded my senses. Birdsong from weavers stealing the cereals outside a kiosk, children chattering as they run with rolls of cassette tape attached to their waistbands (for added flight perhaps), the church and the bar competing for worst loudest amplifier May 2022, people talking, people singing, people hawking, people cooking. A weaker woman would have gotten a headache. I am currently nursing a migraine.
My new residence is a cosmopolitan village. Every time I cross the road I encounter Mercedes sedans that are a few classes shy of a Maybach. Public transport, however, requires boarding buses held together by inshallah and chewing gum or fighting with tuk-tuks over pavement space. Chicken butcheries litter the streets, with business so frequent they have prepackaged measurements. When my mother came to visit recently, one vendor asked us “Kwota, nusu ama mzima”, showing us a peek into her near-empty freezer that evening. Business had been good to her that day. Perhaps, many mothers were visiting from their homes.
This is my first time being responsible for my well-being. It feels irresponsible. I’m not ready to adult. But life comes at you fast. Since November, my life has been Upheaval: The Movie. A 10-year relationship ended in scandal and chaos. I had to leave my father’s house and live by myself — without my consent. I started a million new jobs yet I’m somehow still broke because milk is now the price of a beer in Uganda. And some people somehow still believe, “This will be the best thing that ever happened to you.” Is it crack?
But perhaps most upsetting about my new home is its conspiracy to make me like it.
I grew up in this little town that sprung up around a roundabout like ants on a drop of sugar. When I lived here, the town bragged a few blocks of flats, a small supermarket, and a horrible road exiting the roundabout towards the boondocks. But now it’s a bonafide town complete with a library under construction for years due to a contractor feud and/or funding lost to corruption, depending on whom you ask. And a stadium. One of the Jubilee stadia perhaps? When I last lived there, the most generous name I had for it was a field.
My new hometown has the spirit of a rural town with urban amenities. Everyone knows everyone and everyone makes sure to know everyone. I’ve been there three months and a few shops already know me by name when I couldn’t even begin to tell the difference between KK’s butchery 1 and KK’s butchery 2. Also, when will my people ever be released from naming their businesses after themselves and mounting no signage? The number of times I’ve been told “Thie hau kwa Gicheru, ndungimiaga.” Who the fuck is Gicheru? It’s almost charming.
The town thrives on nicknames. Insider knowledge. If you want to go to a block of flats, “Hau kwa gas”. If you’d like to go to a salon, “Hau macontainer-ine.” If you’d like to buy alcohol, open your eyes and a wines-and-spirits will happen upon you. It could be the only establishment that outnumbers M-Pesa shops. Every shop has mismatched tiles on its floors. Like it rained tiles one day and the townspeople didn’t know what else to do with them.
I don’t want to like my little town. It’s nothing like the one I grew up in. One that was silent, full of trees and hope. One that held the last time I felt absolutely happy. Before trauma acquainted itself with me. One that made me feel like I didn’t need much else outside my little house.
It’s also the town where my first cat died after my mother gave it away without telling me. Where I was first transferred from a school I’d attended for five years and would subsequently move to three other primary schools. Uprooting me from the roundabout city left me unmoored. I have never been able to find any communion since. Anything that bumps against me hurts, disrupts, unravels me.
It’s hard to walk in my last place of joy and see the ghosts of smiles past. The first time I ate mutura. The first time I had long hair. The first time I tasted beer — it tasted like the disappointment of my ancestors. I look at it all and wonder if I could ever reclaim it. If I should mourn it. If I should replace it.
Its rustic charm and mismatched buildings notwithstanding, this place is — peaceful. Everyone minds their business until you enter their businesses. There’s no saying what they talk about when you leave but as a wise woman once said, what people say about you behind your back is none of your business. Not many people know I speak our language so they gossip blatantly. Only once have I had the pleasure of making a chemist pop his eyes when I answered him in Kikuyu. The poor man almost choked on his mannerlessness.
The city also let me down during the lunar eclipse. An exceptionally bright moon was hidden behind clouds like the rainmakers of the county were making up for lost time. All night she eluded me and when I woke up to see her in her resplendent pinkness, the clouds were even darker. Denser. Preparing to mist the little town by dawn.
Then the following day, the commute gifts me with the best sunset shot I could possibly ever take. I am a point-and-shoot photographer. I appreciate depth and compositions and angles because I read about it. But I couldn’t operate a camera beyond holding down the button till the light goes flash.
I don’t know if I love my new home or living alone. I don’t know if I love my life right now. But as long as this roundabout city continues to share its crooked grin, silly secrets, and breathtaking views perhaps I’ll relearn to be happy here.
Translations
Kwota, nusu ama mzima- Quarter chicken, half chicken, or a full chicken.
Thie hau kwa gicheru, ndungimiaga- Go to Gicheru’s, you can’t miss it.
Hau kwa gas- Where the gas is being sold
Hau macontainer-ine- Where the containers are.
