roguebachelor/ With Eddo

While in shaggs, Eddo discovers just why old farmers blow their hard-earned cash on barmaids

In my mind, farming is a very sweaty business. I have therefore always wondered how and why old farmers blow their hard-earned cash on fat barmaids with peeping, orange coloured petticoats at nondescript village pubs.

My chance to find out arose when I travelled to shaggs last weekend for a funeral. While I might have made a few heads to turn in the city with my coolness, I didn’t elicit a passing glance at the village pub. Not from the barmaids, at least.

Racing into a pub to escape a sudden downpour, I grabbed the first seat, sat, shivered and waited for service. The barmaids cast bored glances in my direction and resumed what they were doing, which was hanging onto every word the man at the next table mumbled.

He was an old man with ‘farmer’ written all over him. His table was coloured dark with beer bottles, and for company, he was hoarding barmaids of different shapes and sizes. At the next table, a group of middle aged men sat chatting animatedly. From their constant reference to a recently announced salary hike, I discerned that they were teachers.

utter shock

I cast a quick glance at the barmaids and I have to admit that they didn’t look bad. But they didn’t look hot either. To my utter shock, they all wore jeans and had made passable attempts at fixing their hair. I couldn’t help musing that if I were an old farmer with several thousand shillings in my pocket after a year of word work on the farm, I wouldn’t mind swapping my wrinkled Mama watoto for one of these vixens. Luckily, I am no farmer.

After ten minutes of boredom, a girl walked in, took one look around and strode to my table. "Have you been assisted?" she asked. I was impressed! That’s customer service, right?

I said I hadn’t but could they by any chance have some brandy or vodka in stock? I mean, real brandy and vodka, not the phony stuff that blinds you in seconds. She laughed, said no but wouldn’t mind buying one for me in the next pub if I gave her the money.

It therefore seemed natural that I buy her a drink. She was pretty, in a village kind of way – very well bottomed if you know what I mean. "You must be from Nairobi…" she said.

the village tricks

Later, she let on that the other barmaids ignored me because I didn’t look like a teacher, a businessman or a farmer – the men of means in the village. We both laughed. I was having fun. It had been ages since I had spoken to a woman in shags.

When I rode off at the back of a motorcycle taxi, I left behind a Sh50 tip and a new friend. Strangely, I found myself at the very same ‘Mapenzi Bar and Rest’, the next evening. Needless to say, my new friend arrived in seconds. Later, I learnt that she was roused up from sleep by her mates. Her sonko had come, they told her.

The evening was even more delightful, especially because she gave me very intimate details on the anatomy of virtually all able bodied male in the village – including the chief and the chairman of the Parish Council.

By the time I downed my first quarter, I discovered that massive bottom aside, she had this alluring smile. By the middle of my second quarter, she looked gorgeous. So when she said, "Look, if you give me some money, I can buy meat and make supper," it made an awful lot of sense.

I woke up in just about the dingiest room I have ever slept. Dinner had been fantastic, lots better than the fair some of my girlfriends cook. It might also shock ‘Nairobi women’ to learn that this village barmaid knows several tricks that they have never heard of. And yet I am nobody’s farmer…