The weight of revelation under cover of city of lights

PETER KIMANI} seriously speaking

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I took Tumaini and his grandma on a drive around the city on Christmas eve. The mission was simply sight-seeing. They wanted to see the Christmas trees around city landmarks, so we started with the Governor’s Christmas Tree outside City Hall, before checking out the Hotel Intercontinental – whose decor was bare this year – as well as the Serena, which had also downscaled its decorations.

The Stanley was the crowning glory for the night. It outshone all other establishments in the city with its green tree-shaped adornments.

Our mission ended with an ice-cream treat at grandma’s old haunt on Koinange Street. The ice-cream parlour gained a reputation for excellence long before streetwalkers started hanging out there.

Then grandma made a new revelation. Glancing at a picture on the wall, she discovered it was the spiritual leader of a prominent Muslim sect. “Oh, does it mean the owners are Shia or Sunni Muslims?” she wondered. “All these years, I thought they were Patels…”

“They are Muslims,” the attendant responded with an ambivalent shrug of the shoulder that implied he couldn’t tell sect one from the other because it did not matter really.

Not that it mattered to any of us; just the weight of the revelation.