There is this time I walked into this shoe shop in Dublin, Ireland. It was winter and cold as a hyena’s snout. I had on this hoodie with “Safaricom” emblazoned on its front in green. So, there I was checking out these shoe when I heard someone ask, “Wewe ni Mkenya?” I looked up to find this grinning miro guy. I said, yes, I was Kenyan. Boy, was he happy to make my acquaintance! He bear hugged me, which is something I try to reserve for the opposite sex. He then rattled on, asking about home and how it was “back there.” Asking about politics and things. He told me he watched Citizen news online most of the time, but that still left him shelled with homesickness. He lived in Northern Ireland, which is really next to the end of the world, and he is probably the only black guy for thousands of miles before you run into a Nigerian.
I asked him when was the last time he was home and he said 11years ago. That depressed me more than the weather. I asked him what he missed most about being home and he surprised me by saying, “attending funerals for close ones.”
He said he had missed his father’s funeral (it was cheaper to send money for burial), something that seemed like a monkey on his back. In fact, he had missed tons of funerals for close relatives. And he missed Mukimo (he was okuyu). On a light note I asked him if he had a kiosk in Belfast and he laughed, that distinct Kenyan laugh that starts from the diaphragm and doesn’t leave it. We chatted for a bit, in Swahili, mine markedly tattered.