Haidhuru

D is for directions

Km ask for directions: 1 point
Others don’t. They prefer to ride around lost for hours: 0 points

Km on the other hand, ask for directions in a way that leaves even the person from whom directions are being sought confused. Picture the scene. You’ve been looking for his aunt’s house for hours. You’re tired. Hungry. And you now have to pee. So you finally tell him to just quit it and ask “that guy” who’s selling three legged stools how to get to Ngatika. So he rolls down the window, leans over your shoulder and proceeds to confuse the hell out of the poor guy.

See Km don’t ask “How do I get to Nyatiks?” and leave it at that. Noooo… after being told to “go straight, past the Kenol, curve with the road, past the harambee school and then ask for directions there… ” Km proceeds to ask “Lakini si there used to be a road, with coffee trees on both sides that Kenyatta once passed through that will take me past the dam, over a wooden bridge and there’s a mama who sells samosas there?”… So stool-selling-pedestrian racks his brain until you can almost hear CPU sijui RAM quickly doing search and replace and he concurs tentatively … “For the truth, I think that you’re right. I remember that during the coup in 82, we passed through a road like that. How did we used to go? Ebu hold on I ask Mwangi… (aside) Mwangi, you remember that road that we used during 82? How did we go… OK… you have to go back to the primary school in Macegeca and the road that usually takes you to KyaMicheal. But you won’t take that road…. No wait… (another aside) Atĩrĩrĩ Mwangi, that road for Kihumbu wasn’t it made into a dam? OK… you won’t take that one… Now how shall I tell you to go? You know what, there’s a guy who lives in that house over there- he drives a bus for Jogoo-Kimakia, ebu ask him because I can’t remember…”
For confusing the man giving you directions, I give Km a demerit: -1 points
Others: “ I know a short cut… ” [insert long, long rambling scenic-route seeing drive in circles]… “This is the shortcut”
Others=0.

Total (this round) Km=0, Others 0:

E is for Eloquence

Or lack thereof.

Specifically when referring to a lady that you adore. You know how it goes. You ask an otherwise articulate Km “You love that squeeze ama?” and He’s like “She’s sawa”. Or when talking to the folks “She’s not bad” (translated from the vernacular)… At best, you might overhear him say “Yeah, I pendad the squeeze” (always in the past tense). Declarations of love usually revolve around him referring to you, when refuting the fact that his feelings to you might be trivial as “Zai- that’s wifey”… Ah, that highest accolade that Km offer “Wife”. Kenyan men declare themselves with statements like: “I would sell all my fertile land and be left with the dry leeward side for you” . Or, if you’re at a party, to show that he adores, just might tell his younger brother to “take the car keys and take her home and yes it’s burning gas petrol, but if I cannot waste petrol for her, who then? ” .

Other Men on the other hand use words like ‘adore’ and ‘love’. Like I was taken aback the very first time a man, in broad day-light, not in the throes of passion (as we all give excess vibes then) was like “Muts, I love you. You are [fill in conversation that would make a Mills and Boon reader proud]”. Of course, what’s a Kenyan to think? Yup you guessed it “What have you done, and is she on her way here right now to confess it to me and that’s why you’re being … ermm… you know?”… and next thought being “Oh my God!! I’m so glad we always used a condom”… It’s very different when a man says (and in front of witnesses sometimes!!!!) how in love he is.

But before I catch grief for this, this is not to say that Km don’t love. Noooooo. It’s just that actual mentioning of the word “love” (in English) is usually done by earing-wearing, probably corn-rowed or blond-haired, distressed-denim-wearing-sorry but I don’t speak-Swahili- very suspect Kenyan chaps in my experience. It’s time to mainstream this custom reg’lar Kms!!!!

For succinctness I give Km 1 for words to make you cry, I give the other team 2.

This round: Km 1: Others 2

Wah!!! This English Alphabet is looooonngggg….. I should have used the Xhosa one.