This has just come to my mind this morning while driving along the junction of Ronald Ngala and Tom Mboya Street.
There was once a general store (shop) known as Thimbigwa Stores right opposite a club formerly known as New York or something of the sort, which is located at the junction of Tom Mboya and Ronald Ngala streets. Now, this shop was known to serve its broke customers of soft drinks, expired cakes and scones at lunch time while other people were busy devouring ‘fish & chips’ at eateries along Luthuli Avenue while the rest (and the majority) attended crusades at Jivanjee gardens and or simply ate ‘air burgers’ at Uhuru Park building castles in the air on how some day they will make it in life. I was a stauch member of the latter.
After the death of the store’s owner and family Matriach, Thimbigwa Stores shiny eyed inheritors and new operators, some two 24/7 mutura stinking pot bellied brothers realized that a bulk of their lunch time customers were just some frustrated working class fellas who coudnt get their salaries arithmetic right to run them the whole month- who ended up in chang’aa dens in the evening after work, trying to make ends meet.
That’s when they went for the kill and introduced cheap hot drinks.
There was one condition though, you had to buy a soda (either a coke or a sprite) to be served a hot drink. No glasses here, so you balance your soda and drink depending how ‘conc’ you wanted yours. My favorite was Safari Cane blue label with a coke chaser. For new comers, you would buy your drinks and be directed to the yellow telephone booths out there as your counter. Interestingly, a telephone booth could host up to a maximum of five patrons (imagine 5 chang’aa drinking fellas in that ka space), I thank this place since I made many (useless) friendships. By that time I was still hustling at the KNT (Kenya National Theatre) and once in a while, my friends and I would come with some naive campus chics ready for a night of wild sex at Stella Awinja.
Woe unto you when the Kanjo cops showed up during the day and demand an explanation on why the coke you are drinking is colorless, that’s when you direct them to the shop owners and they would ruka you 60 feet insisting that the only thing they sold you was soda, hizo zingine ni zako. I ended up spending a couple of nights at the Kanjo cells and at central police station, but kept on coming back because of their friendly prices and the company of friends I had made there.
That’s when the two pot bellied mungiki brothers decided to knight me and promoted me to be drinking inside the shop while sitting on old wooden soda and plastic milk crates. That’s when I realized that what was once a shop run by an old mzee had since been transformed to a dingy wines and spirit joint, though I could still see some old stock on the counters, some dusty Kimbo and Cowboy cooking fat (not oil), a box of nacet razor blades, pictures of Jomo Kenyatta being taken to prison, an old picture of a fat man who sold in cash and an old weary man who sold on credit and another one of Dedan Kimathi in handcuffs, some sewing threads and handcarchiefs here and there, half a bottle of Tree Top juice still confident to get a buyer, a rusty weighing scale, etc,etc.
Memories…