Fair warning; Admin, am drunk…not to drunk but drunk. I may…scratch that…most likely, i will call upon your good goons to pull down this thread kesho morning when my faculties come home. When i do, i would appreciate it if you hire no monkey tricks. Just do it
Many years ago , i lived in nairobis Kariobangi south Kanju flats. Lived in my sisters place. Same flat housed a grown up cousin called Nduta. Nduta had not gone to school much. Well, class two drop out cant be much even by then standards. But she was good in English. Spoken. She was so good, we cowed at her presence. She was good.
Most evenings Nduta, who also doubled up as a receptionist at my old mans office in town, would religiously bring home the office newspaper and, before i was let in on the secret, she would attempt to decrypt the words based on the adjacent pictures. Honest to Chineke, Nduta couldnt tell ‘may’ from ‘way’. She was that lost.
But as is custom, if one sense deeps, another soars. She couldnt read, but she was fluent in English. She confided in me after i called her bluff on passage reading. I offered to help. Started her from scratch, to abc, to cow, boy, toy, jog…you get the drift. I remember our cerebration on the fifth month when she atlast wrote her Baptism name. We had arrived.
Nduta also sung in the church choir. Amont the three nuns who also sung in the choir, was a Rwandese who had just recently joined the convent. She only understood English and French. Non in the choir could speak French, and of the handful who could self express in English, Nduta was the best. Their inevitable friendship evolved fast.
Lets take stock…Nduta kusoma kaput, mabenda teacher, nduta NUN best friend…mabenda needs to be paid for services rendered.
The nun, i know the name but i wont tell you hata kwa dawa, the nun would visit Nduta on satyrday afternoons. At first, it was very exiting, especially for my nephews and niece, to have a NUN in the house. We all thought she was god and did our best to be on our best behavior around her. But time…oh time. .time has a way of doing the imposible. With time she became a regular. We no longer planned our calendar around her scheduled vissit.
One drizzly Saturday afternoon, i was busy feeling my way around the pritesting housegirl’s volumptious butt, when a knock on the door sent the reveered tree reeling back exceptionally fast. My sis, her children and Nduta had gone to vissit another of my Sis near yaya and hadnt come back. I had spent the whole afternoon trying to convince the mboch that i was better than Otis, the mechanic across the road. She didnt bite. She almost ran down the nun after i opened the door . She escaped to what i could only imagine were the crusty oily black arms of the Mechanic.
Back in the house, i settled The Nun in one of the single seater of the sofa. I sat across her sipping the notoriously hot tea i just cooked for my guest, and almost physically willing my head to come up with a line for the lady of cloth. I would think of a sneaky line, look up to tell it, but her nun Habit would cement my toungue.
Her mind, and eyes, looked far off. You know, like she was deep in thought. My feeble words rebound off her without much effect.
We talked. I attempted. I fell. Stood up ,dusted myself and made another attempt.
At six, my sis called. .landline…they would spend in Yaya .
At seven, I escorted the Nun to the stage .
At seven fifteen, mboch came back, i blurted out that sis and co were not coming back…she fled to the waiting arms of O_ferking_tis.
I was left home alone. Horny alone sounds just about it.
I had those movie tapes…Sarafina…pushed in and settled down to watch Whoopi Goldberg sing freedom.
…,
,
At around ten thirty that evening…a soft knock on the door brought me back to reality. I I opened. She was in civilian clothes but the headgear was as white as ever.
…
… at about six next morning, she hugged me by the front door…kissed my shin and whispered…“i loved it”
And i, friends, i loved it too. All the four ‘one hour’ sessions.
The next saturday she came vissiting. Nduta was home and they would both smile knowingly each time i passed by. They conived to pay me in kind. But they also wanted the nun to ‘gerit’
I aint complaining here
nice read