It’s been a few weeks plus, inflation, interest and some change but at some point this year I turned a year older. I woke up and looked into the mirror and thank God there were no strands of silver grazing shyly over my beard or scalp but my face does look older and mostly tired. The spark of my younger self seems to be lost in the creases in my forehead and most times my smile hides behind the beard which I have let grow out for no specific reason whatsoever.
I thought about what to write about and decided against giving a long boring list of 33 things I have learnt over the years. Everyone is doing that and to be fair some are interesting and others are boring. Most times they are pretentious and by the time you get to point five, everything else begins to feel made up or cliché. Yes, Samantha, we know God is everything, you just did not find that out when you turned 25 so sit down.
But some of the things I can say I am thankful for is that my knees have not given up on me – at least not yet. I am yet to go to a pharmacy and ask for supplements – are these usually self-prescribed or do people actually get advice from a doctor? No grey hairs yet and my hairline is still intact – I can walk into a barber shop and get a fade without feeling like all my hair needs to come down to hide the nakedness of my forehead. A sense of clarity but not in what I want but in what I do not want. That’s kind of important to me because at least then I cross some things off my list and make it smaller. But that’s just about it. Now let me tell you how it all went down.
Finally the dreaded 33 hit. I looked back at all the dreams I had and milestones I wanted to achieve by this age and the only thing that I really did, was question myself a lot and a tear rolled down my eye. I quickly wiped it off it was no time to be sad. I always spend my birthday alone but here in the village that is a rumour they have never heard of and my cousin did the honours of snitching on me. Now everyone knew it was my birthday. Here do not expect a surprise party but definitely expect a feathered animal to pay homage to your existence. But unlike back in the city you do not walk into butcheries and ask for a dead bird. No. The thrill here is getting one live, and it being your birthday, you are given the honours of slaughtering.
I did not particularly enjoy that part about my birthday but feels good that after 33 years of existence I learnt how to slaughter a chicken, de-feather it and clean it out. The one thing I can tell you about slaughtering a chicken is that it feels so much different than buying one from the butchery. You feel connected to the bird as you feel its life drain out of its body slowly and its blood feeding the earth in which fed it. It is almost spiritual in a way. Would I do it again? I do not think so – if that was the only way for me to enjoy chicken I think I would just vegan because suddenly a cocktail of vegetables in a bowl doesn’t seem like a bad idea.
But the idea of celebrating my birthday with people still kind of bothers me. I usually prefer spending it alone, not to reflect or anything deep like that, just to enjoy being a fly on the wall and watch what other people are doing away from anyone that knows me and wonder what they would say if they knew it was my birthday. But down here, I have a little cousin who would hear none of that. She is not that young just slightly past the 18 year mark but not the government has decided she is not yet responsible enough to hold an ID so she clings on to her waiting card hoping one day she will own that precious document that tells the world you are grown.
So in all her youthful excitement and energy, she managed to find balloons and this is no mean feat because I cannot find cold soda even if I summoned a team of bounty hunters to help me. I think the last time I had balloons on a birthday must be over 25 years ago but now here they were and I went with the flow I did not want to see the gleam of excitement in her eyes deflate like the same balloons after sitting a while under the hot sun. Secretly though, I liked it. We spent time where she wanted to hear stories about my previous birthdays and I realized for the first time I actually do not have many that are void of debauchery. I had to keep it PG for the sake of KFCB. She laughed at most of them and was shocked at others all the time as she was making chapatti while I tried to figure out how to cook chicken I slaughtered without feeling bad for it and worse still without an array of store bought spices. Safe to say I did have a good time.
But tradition is tradition and I am not one to break it. Funny thing about this though; is that most people do not really know when my birthday is and that is why I am actually posting this now. I have never been one to expect an appreciation post on the socials neither have I been one to wait on empty messages – they do nothing for me. In total I got 5 messages and those really did count the most over everything.
Back to tradition, I mentioned earlier about places you need to find when you go to a new place, so I did hit the local. Excused myself from the guys enjoying the meal – after all I had made my technical appearance – then found my way to a local which has no name but every one refers to it as “Maskani”. Even their till number brings up the name of the owner and there is no signage whatsoever. If you want to know how subtle this place is, the entrance is a gate that looks like the entrance to a church and the first building you see is painted in the colours of a police station.
The whole set up of the place is designed for guys to sit where air flows. It is just made up of verandas and plastic tables littered around the place, a surprisingly good music system that is controlled by Janet (as I later came to learn her name – story for another day) who shows off her youthful side by balancing the playlist for the young, young at heart and the ones on the last pages of the book called life.
The drinks selection is limited so if you ever intend on visiting make sure to carry your favourite plus a cooler with lots of dry ice hehe. Janet will easily rattle off what is available and this will take her less than 20 seconds. Yes, it is that limited. As advised by a pal who also comes from these sides too I stuck to what I know, what I’ve tried and something with a security seal. Thank God they had that also maybe God does not want to be involved so let me thank the sales teams at EABL they’ve really done a good job now if they could only sneak in soda and those branded fridges.
Although it’s in the village the spirit that lives there is admirable. I mean it is as with every local but it felt different here. Maybe because I do not have history and the walls haven’t heard stories they can whisper into the night about me when the witches are out to play – just kidding there are no witches that come out to play at night but I can definitely show you where the ones suspected to practice live. There is life in every corner and you notice how the young and old all sit together and share stories with laughter cackling all around. The dress code seems to be shamba. Okay, I made the name up but guys do not dress up, same way they left in the morning to tend their gardens is the same way they will show up and considering my birthday did not fall on a weekend this was most of them.
I eavesdropped into conversations where people would be talking about things you would never hear in Nairobi. For instance, two guys sitting behind me were talking about how prospectors would be coming to town towards the end of the month; this is literally something you would never expect to hear. Another table had some young people three guys and a girl. The guys were okay but what struck me about the girl was she had a really good tattoo on her forearm of a beach sunset that had a palm tree too. I do not know why I expected it to be a terrible tattoo. But other than that getting my attention her other hand was bandaged at the elbow. A neat clean bandage so it looked like a new injury or maybe a fashion statement. I will never know but if I ever see her again I will ask because I will never forget that tattoo.
I called it a day after my glass became lonely. As I took the long walk home (I could’ve taken a boda-boda but what fun would that be?) the critters of the night began singing and I thought maybe they were singing for me. Maybe they remembered it was my birthday. But the one thing that kept lingering was damn 33! Wasn’t that the age Jesus peaked? Well maybe there is hope after all.
With all that said. I just have to leave this here: Happy Freaking Belated Birthday To Me.