By Malia Thandiwe
I wore Mama’s black dress, hid my afro under a wig of long, straight, auburn coloured hair and went to the bars at Safari Park, 680 and Nairobi Safari Club, to pursue the ‘providers’ Nekesa had told me about. The men in my neighbourhood were not my type. We had attended the same catholic school, seen each other’s runny noses, dusty school shoes, and dishevelled uniforms; we remembered Sister Magdalene the headmistress — memories that were, as certain as death, mood killers.
Existing as if from pleasant dreams, providers were older men who did not mind being caretakers and demanded little physical affection. I sat back in my chair so that as they leaned forward to talk to me, they smelt Mama’s perfume. I spoke softly and toned down my wit to come off as accommodating of their opinions. I revealed as little as possible about myself while I asked to know everything about them. None of my dates called to meet again.
At Unseen, Nekesa accompanied me to seek intellectual partners who were agemates. After the movie, we mingled in the lobby clouded with cigarette smoke, scanning the crowd for an eligible mate. In comparison to Sadiki and Jamila, former university schoolmates I had ran into, I looked like I had lived through an age. I realized much of my ambition had been weathered by the years I had spent taking care of Mama. Her physiotherapy sessions, review appointments and other medical demands left little time for social connections that would have kept me focused on my aspirations. I had wanted to be the president, at the very least. Instead, I worked at ‘Joints’ in Westlands as a receptionist and cashier, billing seniors for low impact strength classes.
Wavinya: I prefer reading romance novels to watching TV. The stories of love affairs torrid or divine transport me to reality beyond present time. My boss warned that if she finds me buried in a book again during working time, she will take the novel and read aloud the last chapter.
Sadiki: Wow
Sadiki and I had exchanged phone numbers to catch up. I spent Tuesday afternoon daydreaming instead of reading and on the back of an envelope for a CV dropped off by a graduate, I wrote: Engagement ring, no later than Valentine’s Day 2019.
Wavinya: Dinner or an activity? I want something that conveys I am interested and available, but not easy.
Nekesa: You will be fine! Keep your options open. Mutua is in the race too.
I decluttered Mama’s possessions: curtains, bedsheets, her clothes and that threadbare pink carpet; and contributed them to Nekesa’s Donations for Widows. A fresh start, as refreshing as a glass of cold zobo.
Lunch at Tin-Tin, an outdoor restaurant under a copse of flame trees. Fitting the occasion was the Ugandan folklore about those trees, its branches believed to be as soft as a woman’s heart, they had sprung up at the grave of a lover who, utterly bereft, died suddenly after receiving news of her beloved’s death in battle.
I beguiled time with a game of Tetris on my phone. Apart from mine, the only occupied table belonged to a party of six. An older couple, their toddler and the woman’s nieces dressed in identical thigh high pink boots, brown miniskirts, and black leather biking jackets over red bandeaus.
Sadiki never showed up for our date. In hindsight, I should have blocked him. He texted two days later and said;
Sadiki: I am deeply sorry about Saturday. I am trying to set up my roots here. I divorced Cherry in America. She has Pinto. I want to get firmly on my feet and raise him at Kiboswa with Ma’. I am building a big house there. I had to travel to follow up on how the fundis were getting on with the work.
Wavinya: I never want to see you again.
Ignoring my scowl at her facetious remark, Nekesa said, showing off a platinum ring with Tanzanite studs, “I warned you about these college crushes. My provider promised to marry me. I know a silver fox who will eat away all your blues.”
Mutua was in his forties, twice divorced, and a Scorpio. After we hiked Ngong Hills, we picnicked at the crest where we played a love game, ‘How Deep’ to hasten the process of getting to know each other. While he knew all the ways to encourage me if I had a bad day, my ideal gift and pet peeve, I hardly remembered the details from his exposition of romantic preferences shared during daily, hour-long phone calls in the month leading up to our date.
Wavinya: Come over for dinner
Sadiki: Okay
I returned from work to find the curtains drawn and Sadiki still in my house, sprawled on the couch watching TV, his long legs taking up half the sitting room, in the pair of green shorts he’d worn as boxers last night. Yellow sweat stains formed crescents at the underarms of his white vest. The bathroom floor was a ghastly sight of a puddle of water around the grey bucket under the tap. My pink towels, dirty with uneven brown patches, lay heaped in a corner; the toilet bowl stunk of urine, and soiled tissue paper disintegrated in a slurry of brown coloured stool, bits of whole green leaves floated in the mix.
“Get out,” I told him. He looked at me and shrugged. “It’s a small mess. I’ll clean it up as soon as the highlights are over,” he said. Enraged beyond further reaction, I called the estate watchmen to eject the intruder. Later, I went out, it was a fabulous full moon night, for a sundowner party at Ole Sereni. The national park beyond the balcony stretched tranquil, to boundless distances.
© 2026 Malia Thandiwe
Image by pexels-emilianovittoriosi