THE PUB: She’s new in this pub, she’s a little unique…

This youngish new mhudumu at a pub I’ve grown to like lately has consistently been rushing to my table to serve me.

She’s a likeable person according to my reasoned evaluation of her, that is.

I liked, for instance, the fact that, in our very first encounter, when she brought my change of one thou, she never said, “Au hii na miye ninywe soda?”

As any budget-minded drinker (like me) will tell you, there are times even a one-hundred-bob change matters.

Why, if you’ve only four hundred in your pocket, no Bajaj driver will listen to you, because the shortest Bajaj ride in the city is fixed at five hundred, period!

On my third visit I offered her a soda, and she was beside herself with shukran.

She even joined me at my table for several minutes before she left, her soda in hand. I thought that was because she could see I was keen on reading the newspaper in my hands. Besides, I wasn’t her only customer, or was I?

She would, however, return now and then to check out whether I needed to have another drink, and when I gestured to her that I was still okay, she’d give the thumbs-up sign before moving on.

I like that, which is contrary to what some of these wahudumu of ours do to you.

The type that comes to your table, lifts your bottle up, and gives it a big shake to check out whether it still has any contents left so that they bring you another bottle fasta-fasta, as we say in Kiswanglish.

If there are a few drops remaining, they pour them into your glass, which isn’t even half empty, then look at you and say, Nikuongeze?

Arrgh! You’d, of course, silently curse the unduly intrusive and bullish mhudumu.

On the other hand, Fetty—for that’s your favourite, well-mannered mhudumu’s name, would approach you and ask, without touching your bottle, if you want another.

Then, out of the blue, this other fellow, a well-known freeloader, comes up and, standing beside your table, says, “Why do you insist on getting served by your homegirl only?”

“What, homegirl?” you ask. He answers to the effect that your favourite mhudumu is from your side of the Bongo Republic.

Well, I didn’t know, and it really didn’t matter.

However, you must admit, it’s not a bad thing to get a little close to someone with whom you can refresh your mother tongue, being as it is that you live so far away from your ancestral land, where you were born and brought up.

So, you don’t mind when Mr Freeloader calls Fetty and offers to introduce us to each other as comprehensively as he could muster.

The young lady seems excited about it, more so after I tell her to get me a beer and, along with it, a soda for herself.

Space constraints make it necessary for this story to be suspended for now.

So, join Fetty, Mr. Freeloader, and me in this very space next week.