Mgema akisifiwa, tembo hulitia maji (if the palm-wine tapper is praised for his wine, he dilutes it with water), our elders long warned.  That was my experience exactly at the Burma Market, where I returned last weekend, buoyed by the near-perfect experience at Nyambura’s tea kiosk weeks earlier.

I wanted to have my car’s engine cleaned. A friend proposed the Shell BP fuel station opposite the City Stadium.

First came the awkward question from a female attendant there: Was I in any particular rush as were pretty busy?

Fifteen minutes later, I was told there was a free slot in the washing bay.

Soon after an attendant embarked on his cleaning my scribe friends and I decided to venture in the nearby Burma Market.

Baby food

One of the friends recalled a favourite stall of his, which back in the day was so well loved by scribes they almost opened a bureau at Burma. The place is called Mama Baby’s.

I had had a bite before I left home, so I wasn’t particularly hungry.

But my friends were starving. When we arrived at Mama Baby’s stall, my friends ordered ugali and beef stew, but the portions were so small, my friends protested Mama Baby was serving them babies’ food.

“I’m not looking for an appetizer,” said one of my buddies, which was surprising since I have always known him to be a poor eater. He often says he eats once a day “like a puppy.”

Looking across the table, another gentleman was feasting on chicken stew and brown ugali. My friends drooled at the sight of the chicken. This is quite typical of humans – coveting at their neighbours’ goodies. They settled on chicken stew and ugali.

That appeared to momentarily settle their grievance. Ugali wembe (extra slices of ugali) ultimately silenced the two.

Rotten fruits

I saw a juice vendor. “It’s mango and beetroot,” she said sweetly when I asked what she was serving. I asked for a glass of beetroot. She delivered a glass of heavily diluted juice. The mgema had added water to the brew.

The last time I had beetroot, it was frothy like porridge, and deep-coloured like Guinness. This particular offering reminded me of the pink-coloured soda we used to call Schwepps, which was great, only that it left one with pink-coloured lips.

Anyway, I rejected the fake beetroot and ordered for a soda. The waiter disappeared. I waited for minutes before I could find another waiter to place the order anew.

The meals were paid for grudgingly.

I decided to look for some goodies to take home. We went through the stalls that stock meat. The water drains were full with dirty, stagnant water.

 One or two meat sellers were dozing next to the carcasses. They could have been mistaken for meat on sale.

We tried the chickens on sale outside. “This is an ex-layer, so it’s like kuku kienyeji,” (free range chicken) coaxed one seller. The actual kienyeji chicken fetched Sh750, nearly double the usual cost.

I was definitely on a losing streak. I settled for fruits – a pineapple and a bunch of mangoes.  We went to check on the car’s cleaning progress. It was so shoddily cleaned we had to picket for 15 minutes before another attendant offered to clean anew. Overall, the cleaning took two hours.

When I got home, I discovered the pineapple had a knock on the side that rendered a huge portion useless. The first mango I cleaned and cut open was rotten.

Burma! Burma! O Burma....

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A trickle of goodies ooze from Uchumi’s empty water bottle

If I’m getting short shrift in Eastlands, then I’m certainly getting pampered in Westlands. Following my last week’s tantrum over the elusive Maisha bottled water at Uchumi’s Sarit Centre branch, their publicist, Nduta Waweru, made a grovelling apology last week: “We regret the delay in communicating the procedure and sorting this in a timely manner. Our company’s mission is to endeavour towards excellence in customer service, and the consequent lack of apology from our team is therefore inexcusable,” she said.

 “We sincerely apologise for this incident and we wish to reassure you that the strictest actions are being taken to ensure this does not recur,” Waweru concluded.

Nellie Mburu, Brand Manager at Ketepa, the firm that bottles Maisha followed it up with an offer of a complimentary bottle of Maisha “and other goodies,” she wrote. The goodies turned out to be packets of Ketepa’s Safari Pure Tea and lemon tea.

To remove any smirk of corruption, or extortion –  actually Eric Wainaina sings if you want chai (euphemism for bribe) you better buy Ketepa tea, I took copies of my novel, Before The Rooster Crows, for Nellie and Margaret, the Uchumi Branch Manager who hosted the water hand-over ceremony.

Margaret crowned it all with a fruit cake delivered at home hours later – the portrait from my book’s blurb used as icing on the cake. If you don’t hear a lament from me about Uchumi, now you know it’s because I have a mouthful of cake – washed down by Ketepa tea!

Behold, a new star is about to beborn, with full set of strong teeth

One more time, a “star” will be crowned this weekend at the Tusker Project Fame. The beer is such a powerful brand, my five-year old son, Tumaini, identifies Tusker bottle tops: “Hiyo ni kitu ya Tusker Project Fame!” he exclaimed while on an evening stroll recently.

There are five young finalists remaining in the contest out of the 15 who made it to Ruaraka music academy.

That’s enormous pressure to place on anyone. But that’s pretty understandable, considering the hundreds of youngsters I saw thronging outside the National Theatre and spill onto Harry Thuku Road, waiting for their few minutes of fame.

They would sing their hearts out each convinced this would be their great break in life. The cut-throat competition would dog them into the academy, where setting up each other for elimination was part of the survival and winning strategy.

My son’s grandma, Cucu wa Guka, is utterly distraught when she sees that.

She can’t understand how anyone would subject themselves to be publicly humiliated. She worries about the youngsters’ self-esteem.

But this is only the beginning. The winners will be trailed in months to come by scribes who will tell us where they buy their clothes and where they eat, as though it matters.