I am not used to being scrutinized the way they were… Touched… Especially not by a group of excited guys & chics (Our office is full of extra jovial people) lets say they decided to play… I don’t know how I can say this without sounding awkward. It started with one guy punching me on the shoulder, and he went like “You have grown! What have they been feeding you?” I tried to ignore it coz I did not want the issue to become a big story. There was a reason I was skiving this office for the last two weeks. I needed some time to wither a bit coz if I came in within the first two weeks after my return from Mombasa… It would have been another big deal all together. I had gained weight. But in the fairest of terms, I had built some heavier muscle… 6kgs heavier. By now half of it is all gone. Nairobi is an all new and challenging lifestyle that if I have to grow bigger… I need to try harder.
I am back to the City life. Life that starts at 5am and ends at 1am. Its an interesting lifestyle that had missed when at Mombasa. Mombasa is a lazy town. No offence, they have every right to, I believe, but that city was too slow for me. Not forgetting that I landed there at my worst of financial times. Nairobi life is where one is in constant need to keep moving, to keep up the pace to make a comfortable living. Just above the line of survival. I arrived here badly in debt. That is three weeks ago. I was wondering where to start since none of what I had laid a foundation for could be propagated from the point I left it. So I made a decision to just leave it and seek other channels to make income. All I needed for 2014 was to work smarter. 2012 & 2013 was a hard working year. I needed it. Having no time this year, I needed a bit more smart in my operations. Therefore, he had to forget home printing and publishing ventures, sale of ladies accessories, ladies clad, shoes, and photography.
This was a blow since all that income had to come from another source that wasn’t prepared for it. This is where the trouble began. I used to think that rent was the most important thing on the recurrent expenditure list, until January, February and March happened. I don’t know what happened but I know I never paid these rents on time… Dodging the house agent is easy the first time but not the second time. Situation got worse and I had to change my sleeping patterns because I couldn’t simply just go on exile. Then it reached a point that enough was enough. Commercial Wednesday had to get back online.
Commercial Wednesday is so named after the activities I assigned to this day. In my commodity selling days – Not so long ago, just a few months ago. Wednesday afternoons was the day I used to walk up and down River Road, Dubois Road, Gikomba & some warehouse along Mombasa Road to reload my stock or in and out of offices delivering these goodies ladies really love. I would like to thank all my clients who were part of my life that time, those I delivered & those I never really satisfied… Ahem. So as I was saying, I used to restock, or to deliver on this day. The reason Wednesday was preffered was because, this is a sports day at my College. No classes in the afternoon (I can hear you asking what I do… Relax, I do everything that I can anytime that I can) So the Engineering* student is normally free on Wednesday afternoons. However, there were special cases where I had to do deliveries on weird days like Tuesday Morning. Such days had to be combined with appointments in government offices like Sheria house where I was required to queue for some transaction to take place. Socially I can say I was pretty banged up since the same mind that couldn’t go to town to make one delivery is the same one that wouldn’t meet with someone “exclusively”. I mean I had to fix dates in between “Business appointments”. The disadvantages with working with borrowed time…
Then today, another Wednesday, I managed to wake up early today. 5.15am. I woke up on the second alarm. It was a big, commendable deal since I have been waking up late for most of last week and this week as well. Blame it on Mombasa. I had Ugali & Skuma – yester night’s off course and strong tea. I was so fired up. (I eat in the morning, you can calm your nerves now – it is normal. I guess it was this bubble of excitement that got me wearing two different shoes, & I had to walk all the way 6 floors down to realize it. Had I not noticed the dust from yesterday on the left shoe…? It would have been a day of drama! I went to school, took a nap for like ten minutes before I floated for the entire triple period of Engineering Mathematics – Fourier series… that stuff for someone who slept through integration at all levels, Challenging times I tell you! The period after tea was spent in slumber. Just on top of my desk, & since they know nothing else, all my classmates could mention in between my short periods of consciousness was how well I got laid last night. It’s the first thing that came to mind. According to them, since I no longer photocopy handouts at night… sex is the only thing that could keep me up and cause these blackout spells during the day. This is not the case. The sun at Embakasi is very unforgiving. I wonder what happened to the breeze that used to blow across the runway. I had the longest walk ever towards the cafeteria where I almost collapsed. Sun & starvation!!! I was so starved to realize that even the 100 grammes of meat (70% bone 15% cartilage) we usually get was missing today… I ate up quickly for I had some work to do before leaving for town.
The work, was digging holes. Six holes 1½ Foot deep and 1 foot wide for planting trees. Anybody who knows the soil composition of Embakasi will tell you that was not an easy job. Black cotton soil is a bitch this season. Hard as rock! I really sweat it out there… alone. And one hour thirty minutes later, I was done, sweaty like an athlete post race. I dread the day I will be at it again filling those holes with loam/ red soil before planting the trees themselves. I also curse the dorks who plant trees with their nursery wrappers on them because were it not for them, two of those holes would not have been dug today! They cannot grow!!! Anybody who has done strenuous work will tell you all the muscles involved suffer some stress and they tend to swell n eheee…. You look a bit “bigger”. Woe unto the shirt I left home with earlier in the morning. I filled it and my upper fuselage* was out there. Which is why when I arrived for a meeting in the evening with people I have not met the whole of this year… Touching touching happens. All this was engineered by our director who still doesn’t believe I am not dating & it was her idea to get the girls within earshot to know that there is someone here with a softie face who could protect them out there… After most had left, I whispered in her ear, “I know what you were trying to do” She smiled & my frown was gone, what I wanted to say to her, even floated off my mind.
Commercial Wednesdays. Back In The City