The Lady, Her Fries and The Christian – Ma3 Drama

You are a prudent christian who fasts once in a while. You decide to fast. However, this fast unlike all others is different because you have to travel. So you pack your water which is your only companion during this time and you are good to go. You also pour a can of lip balm on your lips because your don’t like embarrassment. Today is different though. As soon as you settle in your jav feeling all spiritually nourished, this mama with a bag of chicken and chips decides to sit next to you. Today of all days!! But on the days when you eat pizza the only people who sit next to you are miraa chewers!? Or chang’aa takers smelling like rotten hell! So horrible is their smell that your stomach ends up refusing to digest anything! And your pizza is wasted!

But today, it wants to ingest itself or the excess saliva if it has to. Before long, your stomach is not only doing tango but your nostrils as well are playing tricks on you. Tomato sauce looks like blueberry ice cream and the chips and chicken smell like chef Ali’s biryani. The presentation of this food, (never mind that it’s just a 1990’s printing paper inside a very basic black paper bag), looks like a five star buffet. It is the most perfect display. You don’t know why no one has taken it’s pic and sent to vogue magazine at the very least. The fries mixed with sauce look like a bouquet of heavenly roses sprinkled with water from Abraham’s well. You endure regardless because you have more troubling needs that make you lose appetite when you think of them although at this point, your bottled water looks and feels like an attempted suicide package.

But satan won’t leave you alone. So as you proceed with your safari, watching the lady taking all her time to lift a piece of chicken, tear the sumptuous flesh with her talons, and then lift a sizeable amount of chips to accompany the piece of meat to her mouth methodically, the driver misses a bump and guess what!! Because you were seated at the back, you are adversely affected. The bag of chips and chicken is tossed right into your face as you struggle to stifle a yawn and down to your lap. Hot pieces of fried waru (which is the most delicious thing you have ever seen) and chicken thighs lying hopelessly on your lap awaiting your verdict. They seem to be begging you saying ‘Though we didn’t serve your purpose, have mercy on us. Don’t throw us away. We are still useful!’

This mama who is motherly let’s out a laugh and says ‘Ni kama hii food ilikuwa inataka kuwa shared tu! Haya, chukua piece moja kama pole yangu. Hizi vitu hufanyika.’ Saaaiitaaan!! It takes Jesus Himself taking charge of your mouth for you to say no with a smile. And as you settle into your misery, your eternal crush, whom you’ve been drooling over since forever praying that his eyes are opened to your existence so that it happens even if it doesn’t last forever, sends you a text reading “How about a catch up lunch or dinner later today. You choose the restaurant by the way and I pay. I have missed you so much!” At this point, like Stephen you want to be allowed to say ‘Look, I see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of God.’ But you don’t sleep like him though. Because you have one more test like Jesus to go thro. La lutte continue my people???wueeh!! The rest of the journey the only song that is courageous enough to play in your mind is the one that goes like ‘Wanijua vyema baba, wanijua vyema baba, wanijua vyema baba, niko mbele zako…’??

Author: Wambui