Judging on appearance

Liz and Chris’ night in Majengo continues – with a rather unpleasant surprise in store for Liz. ILLUSTRATION| JOSEPH NGARI

What you need to know:

  • “Hahahah!” he laughs loudly. “Skiza, peng ameulizaje, ati huwa na-mada miraa?” Everyone laughs except me.
  • “What on earth did you just say? You know I don’t speak Sheng. Did you just make fun of me?!” I fume.
  • “Oh, absolutely not. I just told them that you asked me if I chew this.” He shakes his fist with the twig in it about.
  • “Oh… But why did everyone laugh then?” I shift in my chair uncomfortably. I don’t like to think that I am the butt of anyone’s joke.

I am sitting in this dingy little clubhouse-cum-bar inside Majengo watching Chris bond with his childhood friends. I am so confused; nothing about the Chris that I know has anything to do with the Chris I am seeing here today. His Sheng, spoken in that way only people who grew in Eastlands do, is flawless and up to date.

His demeanour has changed, even if he is wearing the same expensive clothes he came to my house for dinner in. He even picks up one of those little paper bags full of miraa twigs, pops one out and starts plucking the leaves off. One of the others offers him a piece of ginger, which he takes a small, delicate, almost invisible bite out of, and then proceeds to sink his teeth into the twig and tear a layer of its top surface off from top to bottom in one clean move. I can’t believe what I am seeing. This is surreal.

“You chew this stuff?!” I ask incredulously – but quietly, leaning in so that only he can hear me.  I can’t have his friends thinking I am a judgmental bougie upmarket woman.

“Hahahah!” he laughs loudly. “Skiza, peng ameulizaje, ati huwa na-mada miraa?” Everyone laughs except me.

“What on earth did you just say? You know I don’t speak Sheng. Did you just make fun of me?!” I fume.

“Oh, absolutely not. I just told them that you asked me if I chew this.” He shakes his fist with the twig in it about.

“Oh… But why did everyone laugh then?” I shift in my chair uncomfortably. I don’t like to think that I am the butt of anyone’s joke.

“Because I make sure to come here one Friday every month and spend the evening doing the things I used to enjoy doing in my slightly misguided youth.”

Now I am really concerned. “Look, you know, I don’t know if I have time to be hanging out with miraa chewers and layabouts. Like, this is just so… random and… down-market and… no, it’s just not my scene, no. Do you people not have serious things to do with your lives?” I raise a judgmental eyebrow and wave my hands about in refusal of these circumstances. “Can you not find something more constructive to do with your time? Bring these hobos over to your house, for example, and show them what it means to have ambition. Don’t let them drag you down.”

Chris says nothing for a long time; he just sits there, chewing his miraa in silence and arranging a series of miraa sticks on the plastic table before him, nodding along to the soft reggae music in the background. An insect buzzes past my ear and I brush it away quite violently; it is the only thing I can take my impatience out on.

Eventually, Chris looks up from his hard work and turns to me. “You see this building?” he indicates around the room. “My friends and I paid to build it. During the day it is a classroom. Some evenings it is a social hall for the youth to engage in fun activities that do not involve drugs, alcohol or teenage pregnancy. Sometimes it is a shelter for women who got thrown out by their violent husbands and have nowhere to sleep for the night.” Then he indicates the circle of men around us. “And these are the community people who helped us build it.”

“Niaje,” the first man to welcome us says to me as he hears that last sentence and recognises that he is part of the group being talked about.

“This is Luke,” Chris continues, introducing us. “Luke this is Liz. Tell her what you do, Luke.”

Luke smiles wide and the big green wad nearly falls out of his mouth in the process. “I’m an architect by day. I run my own firm. Call me if you ever need a house designed,” he says in the most crisp English I have ever heard. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a business card which he hands to me, as I try to figure out how to collect my jaw from the floor. I take the card proffered and read the name: Njoroge and Associates.

“Oh my God, Luke Njoroge?!” I squeal like an excited fan. “Everyone knows your company’s work! Your houses are everyone’s dream!” He nods nonchalantly and goes back to his peaceful chewing.

“Would you like to know who everyone else is?” Chris asks me. And that’s the point at which I realise I am about to receive a conclusive lesson on how not to judge a book by its cover.