Leafy suburbs ain't really 'leafy'

Last week, my friend Sharon and I were invited to a baby shower somewhere in the leafy suburbs of Nairobi... I mean one of those hoods where you meet women in twos, at most threes, walking their chihuahuas and Japanese spitzs and scooping ice-cream from bowls past their red lips into their mouths as they catch up on various issues.

For Sharon and I who have been born and brought up somewhere in the heart of Komayole, this was a sight to behold. The closest we ever got to such was from watching movies that we took on credit from our local vendor who has since banned us from his shop.

The people who live in such hoods must have been born on a Sunday very early in the morning. Their lifestyle says it all.

While some of us rise at dawn to go and sit on our jerricans in a single file as we queue for water and talk in low tones about those of us who haven’t arrived with their jerricans, some lucky human beings wake up to plug earphones in their ears and walk around with dogs!

This world is definitely not my home. Abba Father, at what point did we go wrong?

Is it our ancestors who refused to dress their bodies fully and rely on animal skin to cover their behinds who caused this to us? Is it our landlords who have built poorly-lit ten storey buildings with 50 houses and one dry water point that have brought this curse upon us?

If it is them, we hereby repent on their behalf; we also want to walk our dogs, trim our lawns and gossip without having to lower our tones because the neighbour’s house is half a metre away. Most of all, we want to eat ice cream very early in the morning without catching a cold.

All through the baby shower Sharon and I were invited to, all we could think about was how God had cuddled these people using his right hand while he waved at those of us in Komayole using his left hand. On that very day, in that maisonette that we were sitting in looking confused, we vowed to join these women in this Hollywood movie they were acting in.

With that vow came our mission to frequent such hoods, not to attend any showers be it bridal or baby, but for a morning jog. That way, we stood a chance to meet a potential someone who would act as our bridge to cross over to ‘Hollywood’.

Whoever said an idle mind is the devil’s workshop must have looked into the future and seen Sharon and I. The next morning, we were among the first to get to the biggest mall in Eastlands, Inama Mall. I bet you are already asking yourself which mall this could be! Well, those of you who include ‘walking my dog’ in their daily routine call it Gikomba and those of us who include ‘running away from stray dogs’ in our daily routine call it Inama Mall.

Sharon and I got ourselves fifth hand gym wear and by the following week, we were part of those jogging every morning in the leafy suburbs (of course minus Chihuahuas; those things cost an arm and a leg, not like our gym wear.)

We would hit the road aboard Forward Travelers Airways as early as 4am to make it to the leafy suburb by 6am and join the Real Housewives of Kitusuru Jogging Sacco.

Unlike them, all we did was jog with our headphones intact pretending to be listening to music from our iPods while in real sense, we were on a mission to hunt for our future relatives.

Three weeks into the jogging and missing the daily entertaining fights at our dry water joint in Komayole, we aborted our mission to ever want to be part of that life.

No, these women rise up that early to jog and walk their dogs not to keep fit but to stay away from their annoying significant others who come back to the house from undisclosed locations just about the time our flight from Komayole begins! In short, pain and suffering engulfs our ‘Hollywood’.

That ice cream you see them enjoy on a chilly morning shows just how resistant their bodies are to extreme conditions. Again, whoever said all that glitters is not gold must have tried doing what Sharon and I did.

My sisters, when someone asks you to stay on your lane, please do because the house with the greener grass on the other side has very high water bills! This is where we walk back to Komayole singing, “I’d rather have bad times with you, than good times with someone else.”