I’m at this bar in my wider neighbourhood for a couple of drinks. I somewhat like this one, because a section of it is light enough for me to read as I take my beer.
Like all seasoned readers of this column know, I carry something to read whenever I go for a drink.
Reason? It is not always that, while in a bar, I find fellow drinkers with whom I can have a conversation, any conversation.
So, here I’m today, carrying a couple of today’s papers as I walk straight to a piece of furniture that can roughly be defined as a couch.
As I sit alone on the couch meant for three, I’m glad that above my head there is a shining bulb.
There’s no table before me, so I place my papers and my mobile phone on the coach.
I read as I wait for a mhudumu. Time passes on, and I remain unattended, but since I’m busy reading, my patience isn’t that much tested.
But, as they say, enough is enough. I’m here to drink; reading is a very subsidiary thing, and in any case, this is a bar, not a library!
I heave myself off the coach and look this way and that way, then I notice a mhudumu.
I beckon her. She rushes to me and, without bothering to offer an apology, says, “Ninakusikiliza, baba.” I’m listening to you, Daddy.
“Get me a warm Castro Laiti, please,” you say.
“Okay, baba!” she says and walks nonchalantly towards the counter, which is some distance away.
Five minutes down the line, my beer arrives, and since there’s no table for me, the mhudumu hands over the bottle to me so that she can open it as we both hold it.
Ouch! I almost drop it, for it is ice-cold. I am allergic to cold beer! From my reaction, she understands something is wrong, so she asks, "What's the problem, baba?”
“I ordered a warm beer, didn’t I?” I say, trying my best not to yell.
She says samahani, explaining that she thought I ordered a cold one “like other people".
That’s the trouble with many of our service providers, taking things for granted! We say in Kiswahili, “Kufanya mambo kimazoea.”
She’s soon back with a warm beer, and together we hold the bottle as she opens it. I take a long gulp, straight from the bottle, and by the time I’m done, the mhudumu is gone.
I assume she went to get a table for me, so, in the interim, I place the bottle on the floor.
I’m familiar with drinking at makeshift beer joints, so I don’t consider this a serious matter.
That notwithstanding, I say to myself, “I could still do with a table, for this isn’t a makeshift facility; it is a licensed bar.”
I’m expecting one, and, actually, from where I sit, you can see several empty tables here and there.
My mhudumu is soon back after fifteen minutes or so. She picks up my bottle from the floor and looks at it clinically before giving it a little shake.
She notes it’s almost empty, so she hands it back to me and asks, “Should I add you?”
“Yes,” I say, “but how about a table for me?”
“Oh, sorry; I thought you were okay drinking from the floor!”
Duh! I say to myself while wondering where she learnt I’m a simple peasant at heart.
Or could it be that I look like one? This question lingers in me even as I soon get provided with a table.
