29/04/2022
I don't know who comes up with some idioms, but even more importantly, who uses them. Did you know that to "live like a maggot in bacon" means to live the soft life?! I mean, when are you ever going to say, "Kim is known to like inflating a cow" to mean Kim likes to brag?
Nonetheless, in the same spirit (no pun) ten years ago next week my mum kicked the bucket. Horrible, bad bucket. A few years later, as grief slowly settled around me, I would randomly call her number in moments of great vulnerability. Mostly when I got home from the pub in the dead of the night; tipsy, ship wrecked in the land of spirits (whisky) & craving a mother's voice. Often I'd call it randomly, in traffic, in a waiting room. Of course her number would be mteja. It was pure lunacy—a Russian roulette.
One day in 2017 the phone actually rung and it was so unexpected I jumped out of my skin (another silly idiom) and screamed "Jesus Christ of Nazareth on a donkey!" Okay, I didn't I just gasped dramatically like I'd swallowed a wasp.
Three rings then it was answered. I held my breath. A man said hallo & I heard a goat bleat in the background. I thought, "Wait...there are goats in heaven on top of the holy ghost!?" Which in hindsight made sense because surely why make it to heaven if there is no barbecue on weekends?
The man was called Hussein & he was a shepherd. (I wrote about this in 2017). You can imagine the looney conversation that ensued. Me explaining how that number belonged to my mom who five years before had pushed up the daisies (more idioms) and how I was just calling it for, I don't know, s**ts and giggles. He was unaware that the number, for years, was our intimate port of call for love & it felt strange that a stranger now owned it.
He was pleasant. He told me he was in Tana River which was like someone telling you they are in Ulaanbataar. No way I was ever going to meet him. No way I was ever going go to Tana River, right?
Wrong.
As it turned out I went to Tana River for work early this week. I had told Hussein years ago that if I ever was in his neck of woods I'd give him a ding. Now here we were in the heartland of Garsen & I was keen to meet him.
I don't know what connection I was looking for. It was going to serve no purpose at all. All we had in common was a wobbly bridge of a telephone number, ten random digits that belonged to a deceased person. We were as alike as chalk and fish, to gut another idiom. (By the way this story has no happy ending. In fact it has no ending, so I hope you aren't too invested). What this was, I was aware, was grief.
Losing your mum is like having gout that never heals. Ever. You just hobble and wobble in pain. For life.
When you are grieving you do mad stuff. A year or so ago as I was making that U-turn at Mombasa Rd's Business Park to access Enterprise Rd, I was sure I saw my mom seated in the passenger seat of an old pickup. It was one of those ratty pickups with P.O. Box written on its door. I raced after the damn pickup to see her but it weaved away through traffic. I was sure it was her. A friend I told this story said, Biko don't be ridiculous, that wasn't your mother. "Easy for you to say, you still have your mother!" I said petulantly, like a spoilt brat. (Are there brats who aren't spoilt?)
Anyway, I called Hussein. It's been years since we spoke. No goats in the background this time. I refreshed his memory who I was. He remembered; the lunatic calling his dead mom's phone. He constantly refered to me endearingly as ndugu. I like being called ndugu, makes me feel like I know what goes into a cattle dip. I asked if we could meet. He said sure, he was in Bura town, where he lives. Bura is two hours away from Garsen by car and three days by camel. Yeah.
I felt stupid. Stupid to imagine Tana River was a neighbourhood, not a whole county. I felt like those white folk who say "Omg, you are from Kenya, I have a friend in Kenya called Chelangat, you know her?"
Of course I didn't meet Hussein. One day I might find myself in Bura, who knows? Assuming I don't meet Chelangat first.
