The Year Two Thousand and Mine (2, 000 and Mine)

Locust on Tissue Paper

I sit on the very cool toilet seat looking at the locust and worrying I might spend the holidays here alone. Here is a total of 3 days flight and road to home. I just sit on the cool toilet seat and reflect. It is the 16^th day of the last month of a very eventful year of a young African man. Very Young, very African.I have been to 11 countries for business and pleasure, and am now in the 12^th country. I have been to every single town in my own country, and meet an average of 7 new people daily. I have known and keep in touch with 197 new people since January. I have been in a plane that carries 700 people and in a motorbike that has no business carrying even one person.

So now am here in deep Africa. It takes a combination of 2 small aircrafts, Russian pilots, several 4WDs, illegal border crossings, corrupt soldiers, 3 days and 5 currencies to get me here. But now my eyes are on the locust. I finished my biological business a few minutes ago but I still sit. The locust is resting on the toilet paper, so I can’t use the toilet paper. I can of course use the toilet paper, by chasing away locust but that will excite the huge transluscent gecko that’s waiting by the door handle, something I don’t want to do. So I can’t leave even if I decided to not use the tissue paper and go to my room for wet wipes I stole from Zo’s room.

This is a big toilet by any standards. It’s the size of an SQ in Nairobi's Kileleshwa neighbourhood. The toilet seat sits in the middle, lonely, like a small child belted in the front wheel of a Toyota Surf. When sitted, one can’t reach the walls on either side. The door is ten metres away. The ceiling, well, you can’t reach it even with a ladder. It’s a black ceiling with many small lights. The ceiling is the dark night sky of black Africa. It’s a big roofless toilet with a locust on the tissue paper and a big albino-ish gecko on the door handle.

My room is equally big but it has a roof. 3 kittens are under the bed, they refused to leave, so I have to leave the door open. They got in when I left the door open, trying to plead with an annoying bull frog to please leave. The reason I was chasing the bull frog wasn’t because he wouldn’t shut up (he was croaking at full volume and I don’t have the remote control), the reason is because I once watched a documentary that some snakes dine on some frogs. I don’t want to keep a snake’s dinner in my room. So the litter of kittens got in, 3 of them, and their loving mum won’t come in, she is so busy ignoring this man and her 3 kids and staring at the darkness. The mother car is just staring at the darkness. So I leave the door open, some comfort in the knowledge that cats dine on snakes and so am safe from reptiles. I am usually happy with pussies in my room anyway, 3 young ones is a first though. Their mother outside staring at darkness.

And darkness indeed it is. Dark blackness. My room is in a very big compound. A giant diesel generator gives us internet, noise and light. It also gives us a cold beer and international news channels from giant flat screens and contributes to global warming in its own way. 3 feet outside the big compound is the deepest blackest darkness I have ever seen and heard of in deep dark Africa. It is so dark, you can pin stuff on it. You can stick posters on it. Its dark like the end of something. Dark and still. And warm.

I don’t know why am here. I met 8 new people today, I’ll be with them and only them for most of this holiday season. They talk about English football like everyone else in this dark continent. They also ask me about Obama. This will be a familiar bunch of strangers. I feel I know them by the 3^rd minute. And was glad I had made a good first impression when someone forced me to buy him a cold beer.

So I am seated here, topless and ugly, wondering what to do next. Giant brown locust with big severe legs that remind me of an accident scene. Big compound eyes like Beenie man in his new video. It sits on the tissue paper. Locust on door handle. 3 kittens under the bed. Mammals, reptiles, insects. Biodiversity. Am missing my rented house in Nairobi. It has some animals too, Zeph found a snake skin 5 feet long this morning. And the kite that lives on that tree behind the house. And the tortoise Marcel found sometime ago. And the dogs Tommy tommy and his pals. And the goose I have been given by the friendly people of this country. But I still prefer my house.

Outside it’s the bright lights from the noisy generator and the silence from the darkness 3 feet away from the camp. Suddenly, tkt tkt tkt tkt tkt. The gecko moved, the locust flew, landed on my naked ugliness. And the dancing started. Ladies and gentlemen, chubby naked ugliness dancing while chanting ancient incantantions in one of the languages of the tower of babel is not something you want to see. It is on my hairy nipple, I shout ‘bujujumburarara’ ‘Jesus Christ have Nancy!’ ‘Get off me you child of Lucifer!’ It jumps from my nipple to my hand to my back to my head. I am waving my hands wildly and shouting for help, at the same time, hoping no one comes to help. Shaking my waist like Awilo Longomba. Gecko is scared now, or confused, and so is racing round the walls like a formula one car driven by Schumaker. Making me dizzy. But I dance on like a drunk jungu dancing to Eric Wainaina’s 'Nchi Ya Kitu Kidogo' during that Oliver ‘tuku’ Mtukudzi concert at Carnivore.

A bat flew by and silently took the insect. Mother cat, from the top wall, silently grabbed gecko. Mammals to my rescue. Or perhaps it was something more sinister. The Manager from the depths of the darkness of black Africa, The Ancient One who speaks the language of the undead. I shiver. I wipe the thought away, wipe my bum and go to bed. I am not paid enough for what I go through. Yet, I am paid too much for what I would willingly do for free.

That was the year 2000 and mine. How was yours?