QUORA 3: STAKI MKATE!

Q: Has a homeless/street person ever refused food you've offered them? If so, did they provide an explanation?

Well, well, well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, my fellow repeat readers or repeat clients, if you may! Today I have a short story to bless your eyes and ears. Will it blow your mind? Maybe. Will it give you reason to come back here and check out more stories? Definitely! 

I assume that most of you my readers are Nairobi residents and if not, you've been here at one point in your life. This is a notably great city with beautiful people, a people with a culture so rich everyone outside it wants to come have a taste. It is a hub of 'unity', or so they say. It's here that the assorted bunch of the various tribes come to link up, all forty two of them. Our relatives from the rurals are fascinated by this city, no wonder they gather around to hear tales of its craziness every time Nairobians visit home for Christmas. The streets, as usual, are ever buzzing with activity from the wee hours of the day to the setting of the sun; the golden hours, ushering an equally busy night. Train stations and matatu stages are crowded at peak hours as people leave their homes for their various hustles, white and blue collars alike. The loud calls by matatu touts, the screeching and hooting of vehicles navigating busy roads, the whispers of  people growing into full on conversations in the day, the few relentless chirps of birds and many other beautiful sounds all merge to make the sound that is Nairobi life. Its set up is like a village market; there's a lot going on. In that same space, there's order and a touch of lawlessness, it's captivating to watch, let alone be part of it all! 

'Every market place has it's own mad man'. Just like any other typical market, there's good and bad happening here in equal measure; the law abiding citizen goes about his day avoiding anything that would place him at cross purpose with the law makers. Meanwhile, the mad man, well ...the mad man stays mad and thrives in his madness, it's his forte. Here's a simple tale of one of my many encounters with a section of Nairobi madness.

My relationship with bread is on/off. Sometimes we're bosom buddies, other times we fight a lot. Bread and I go way back. We've had our ups and downs but majorly ups. It's taken me through tough slavery days at high school and even when I want to let go, it doesn't disappear, it's everywhere - like that one ex who just doesn't wanna move on? This one time, a street woman picked a fight with me over bread and (to answer the question), didn't provide any explanation over being so petty.

I use Agha Khan walk on my way to work and usually there's several street kids that spend the night in that square lawn adjacent to KCB, Kencom. They have a habit of giving passersby a 'push' while in the process telling you a series of stuff that's happening in their lives and adding their key point which is usually 'Madam, si uniwachie ka chai aki...Mungu atakubless ile mbaya walai!" Whenever the heart is soft enough and there are some coins for them, they happily hop away to their hive but immediately you turn the corner, they're up again repeating the same routine to the next person. It's normal to see these - I mean, it's Nairobi! 

One morning my brother in law passed by my place after his night shift at the hospital. He brought with him a loaf of bread for breakfast. The previous night, I'd also bought a loaf because it would be needed. I knew that the extra loaf he had would go to waste if I decided to just keep it so I thought what to do...and my mind wandered to Agha Khan walk. "Mmh...those boys would be soo happy about this!" I concluded. Unfortunately, on reaching the lawn, the boys weren't there but as I kept walking down the lane, a small girl approached me. "Auntie si unibuyie mandazi ya chai?" she timidly requested. I was about to stop and give her the well packed fresh bread when I saw one of 'those women' with toddlers on the same lane, sitting there breastfeeding her child and occasionally calling out for help. I felt that she was more deserving of the bread than the little girl who seemed to have had quite a number of 'mandazis' that morning. I marched towards her like the good person that I was, ready to make her day! What ensued left me really confused, and somewhat sad too.

I stretched my hand to give her the well packaged bread and just as she held the package and realized that it was bread she roughly pushed it back to me! I was so shocked I didn't know what to do 😂! She then shouted, "Staki mkate!!! Nani amekuambia nataka mkate wewe! STAKI MKATEEE!!" the pitch of her voice gradually rising. I didn't know what to do because for a moment I just stood there doing nothing. When her shouting got loud enough to get peoples attention, I started slowly walking away, accompanied by my bread 😂😂😂 I didn't know whether to feel embarrassed or sad. It was about 7.15am, there weren't as many people on that lane but the few that saw me and heard her shouts probably thought I was there to steal what she'd gathered in her bowl that morning 😖😖😂😂! Had it been crowded, people would've really misread the whole situation, I can't even begin to imagine what that would've been like! 

My bread in hand, I approached a boda-boda rider just ahead of us who'd witnessed the whole ordeal. He'd initiated a conversation after he saw me leaving with a my package.

"Kama amekataa mbona anapiga kelele?" he asks.

"Gai, aki sijui nimemfanyia nini. Nilikuwa nataka kumpatia mkate akule na watoto akakataa!" I answer.

"Aaaaah, we usijali. Hao wanakuanga hivo siku hizi. Wanataka tu pesa. Enda pale mbele kuna mwenye atafurahia sana hio mkate yako," he concluded, with an encouraging simple smile.

"Oooh, waaah! Aki nimestuka ..." I hurriedly replied and proceeded to cross the road because the woman was still shouting and pointing at me and that got me scared, I was shaking. I didn't know what to feel. How was I to feel? Is there a way you're meant to feel when someone refuses your help? Someone you felt deserved a hand? Again, it was too early...the other person who'd have appreciated my bread wasn't there yet so I had to go with it to the office and later disposed it. I felt like it was a cursed bread - I couldn't let my colleagues eat it! 😆

Lakini maybe the mama was hustling like they always do (Check out this other story HERE)! Maybe she needed to have a placard with 'CASH ONLY' so that people like us are guided accordingly. Or perhaps she really didn't trust food that came from strangers - had she told me that politely, I'd have understood and respected it, because it's her preference. I hope not to have such an experience again. There's a good thing that came out of it all though, I appreciate my breads more 😄. There's a bunch of lonely breads out here... I am treating mine with some unconditional love, I had a sandwich this morning! #BreadLivesMatter

I love Nairobi but waaaah........NAIROBI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!