Tag Archives: film

How I Met Lorraine

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And that’s how I met Lorraine. I was heading home one afternoon, and as I walked out the building I ran into a bunch of high schoolers hanging out. My eyes zeroed in on a Maxi skirt, this flowing phenomenon of fashion. A Maxi skirt is such a contradiction for me. My sense of style is all about minimalism; I dislike anything superfluous in a dress – bits the tailor should clearly have trimmed before the item made it to the store. Except when it comes to Maxi skirts: where excess is the new simple. And Lorraine wore hers with panache. The light grey skirt fit her perfectly, sculpting her hips and curves like marble. The cotton-polyester blend moved in waves as she stood chatting with her buddies. She wore her top a little small; if you paid attention as she balanced on one leg then the other, you saw a glimpse of her firm tummy underneath. And then her hair-do was a school-girl-blow-dried-pony-tail that’s quite common in Nairobi. More fashionable than corn rows, but not illegal like perms and weaves. Basically, she looked hot. I’d not seen this group of kiddos before, and they did not seem particularly studious. They all seemed to be at the library more for the company than for quiet study spaces. I overcame my prejudice. I also knew I had to step up and Carpe Diem, chances were that this beauty would not be frequenting the stacks. The surprise is that I somehow plucked up enough courage to walk over, say hello, and introduce myself. Two minutes later I could not have told you what her companions’ names were, but I did walk away with Lorraine’s email address. This was 2001, and we were all going digital. Cell phones were not yet in, so email was the way to stand out.

And we began an email correspondence. Mostly one paragraph messages that always started “I hope you’re well?” Sometimes I’d be adventurous and switch it up to “Sasa, I hope U r OK?” Once final exams were over, we had a lot more time on our hands. We could write more often. I was now a frequent customer at my neighborhood cyber café. Going to the “Cyber” was posh. This practice clearly marked as you not-villager, as destined for great things. It was all about being modern. Forget that connection was dial-up, and a few kilobytes of email took forever to load. The keyboards were clunky, and the monitors huge. Internet cafes crammed in as many machines as they could; most of them locked away in wooden cabinets for a semblance of privacy, but especially for security reasons.

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Going to the “Cyber” was posh. This practice clearly marked as you not-villager, as destined for great things.

Once Lorraine and I had established an ongoing conversation, email was no longer enough. We needed something more immediate, a way to hear the gasps, sighs, and heart throbs that accompanied whatever news we exchanged. And that’s how we graduated to evening phone calls. Lorraine gave me a cell number, and advised me to call mostly in the evenings after 5pm. The phone probably belonged to her parents. It was one of those 0733 numbers, the very first sequence of KenCell mobile subscribers. KenCell, rival to the much more established Safaricom, was rolling out phone booths by the hundreds, and signing new customers by the thousands. Their ideas was to grab as much market share as possible, then worry about profits later. At Vet, next to the first supermarket in the area, KenCell installed a phone booth. You couldn’t miss it if you tried: neon pink, bright and shiny. It called attention to itself, and whoever was suave enough to have business with it. The chemist in the same complex sold phone cards in KSHS 100, 250, 500, and 1000 denominations. My go-to was the KSHS250 card: affordable enough to my unemployed wallet, but not so cheap that you’d be embarrassingly cut off mid-sentence just as you were melting your Intended’s heart. Around 5:30pm I’d shower, get dressed, and walk to the phone booth. If I was too early, I’d hang around for a bit, before placing my call.

“Hello, may I please speak with Lorraine?” Most days, she’d pick up herself, clearly waiting for my call. Other times, I’d be less lucky. Or perhaps she would be on the line with other suitors. The worst was calling, one of her relatives would pick up, and let me know that Lorraine was around, just not in the house. That perhaps she’d just ran out for an errand and would be back soon; would I please call back in about 15-20 minutes? That meant waiting as the sun went down. And the mosquitoes came out!

Eventually, I did get through, and convinced her to venture out to my house. We arranged the trip; she was to come over next week on Tuesday. I was super excited; Lorraine was quite the catch – way above my pay grade. And I couldn’t wait to meet her at the bus stop and walk her home. I could just imagine how envious my Kangawa buddies would be. My instructions were pretty easy; she caught a 111 matatu, and got off at Vet. This stop was a little farther away from my house than Bul, but it was also more polished. The last thing I wanted to do was disappoint my ka-babe by walking her through the dilapidated slum that Bul Bul township was.

I was feeling all kinds of nervous that afternoon. My mom had errands to run so she was out of the house. Home alone! With a gorgeous girl for company – 7th heaven! I made sure to set aside some food for her, a plate of the githeri we’d had for lunch. I met Lorraine, and we started walking back home. Just a few houses away, we ran into my mother, she was standing by the roadside chatting with Njane. We, obviously, had to walk over and say hello. This was an excruciating moment and I couldn’t wait to be done. Meeting with my mother, and Njane’s knowing glances, was seriously undoing the cool demeanor I’d adopted for that afternoon.

Lorraine had some of the githeri. Then we just sat chit-chatting about nothing. I wanted to kiss her. And having no idea how to ask her, I suggested that I show her my bedroom. I’m neat to a fault, so my room was always a pleasure to show off, especially my small fiction library. These were still the days when teenagers exchanged Danielle Steele’s, James Grisham’s, and Sidney Sheldon’s: paperback American thrillers and romance series. We sat on my bed and flipped through the books, our finger tips grazing as we perused the glossy covers. I had all sorts of dreams about physical intimacy. I was done with high school, my virginity intact, and ready to lose it. A part of me hoped this afternoon might be the day!

Then Lorraine started coughing. Our house didn’t have a ceiling. You could see right through the boxed rafters, originally designed for nailing the ceiling boards, to the green-colored mabati sheets. Our neighbor to the right had a tall Acacia tree in his yard. The Acacia did a wonderful job of providing shade during hot afternoons, but it also shed leaves like crazy. The small twigs, a giraffe delicacy, would make their way into the most counter-intuitive spots. For sure you could spot Acacia leaves on the gutters which harvested rain water, but you could also see some of these leaves caught in spider webs on the ceiling or indeed floating down towards you from the rafters. As I tried to assuage Lorraine back into health, one of those brown, dry twig floated from my bedroom ceiling, landing neatly on a shiny Sidney Sheldon cover between us. And just like that, I knew my dreams of being an afternoon Casanova were gone. My libido dropped in tandem with the falling leaf. She was now coughing up a riot; she was in no position for a kiss, much less a sexual proposition. I ushered her out of the seclusion of my room, back into the living room. I dashed back to the kitchen to fetch her a glass of water, pausing momentarily by the side board with all of Mother’s delicate china. This was the stuff my family never used; it was only available for special occasions – like when we had guests over. Lorraine accepted the water thankfully, gulping it down before placing the glass – clear, with blue leaflets plastered on its side – back onto the table. We didn’t sit for much longer, since it was already getting late, and not only would Mother be back soon, Lorraine also still needed to catch a bus home.

Ever the gentleman, I walked her to the bus stop. Though disappointed, I had no choice since she would not have found the path back on her own. I’m glad that I did. I chose to use the shorter route through Bul; this was the path I had often taken to and fro school. Unless I’d gone to evening mass, I’d cut across town around 6pm, in my school uniform, and my back pack swinging on one shoulder. That late in the day, it was all survival mode: just make it home so I could sit down for a snack. With Lorraine beside me, though, I was in beast mode. I walked liked I owned the entire city, like a Big Dog. But I still had to play it cool: real men, I figured, don’t make it too obvious that they’re smitten by the woman whose hand they’re holding.

Deux Vultures had just released a hit single “Monalisa.” The song is all about this gorgeous babe whom the persona is in love with. His buddies are totally shocked that he snagged such a catch. Those lyrics described me to a T. No surprise then that just as we walked past the last block of shops, some joker belted out the line “Cheki vile Monalisa anatingisha!” “Watch Monalisa move her hips!” Lorraine chuckled; I squeezed her hand a bit and gave the guy a nod. I was basically like “yeah! You said it!” Heading to town on a weekday afternoon means you’re going against traffic. Lorraine didn’t have to wait for long before an empty matatu came by. One hug and a goodbye later, she boarded, and that was that. Lorraine and I met a few weeks later to watch “Captain Cornelius’ Mandolin” at Nairobi Cinema. But I moved to Singapore soon after and our love never blossomed.

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Of Bananas, Coconuts, & Oreos (Part I)

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So, the other day in class I was introduced – by my students – to two fascinating concepts: bananas and coconuts.

Bananas are yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Coconuts are brown on the outside, white on the inside. Have you caught on to the similarity: white on the inside? Students from mainland China and Hong Kong explained that bananas are used as a metaphor to define people of Chinese ethnicity who have adopted European mannerisms: yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Along the same lines, explained an American student of Indian descent, coconuts are deployed to describe a younger generation of Indians who grew up in the United States, speak no Hindi, Punjabi, or Gujarati, but have ties to Mother India through their parents: brown on the outside, white on the inside.

Aside from the retrogressive use of brown and yellow, terms that have not quite transcended their history of oppression in the same way “black” has, there was much that intrigued me about this kind of cultural analysis. On the one hand, I’m in the midst of writing an article about the use of African cuisine, especially in urban areas, to explore hierarchies of (symbolic) power. That bananas and coconuts are, first and foremost, fruits opens up a host of questions as to why communities repeatedly resort to food as a motif to discuss race relations, power differentials, and discrimination.

The other reason why I was fascinated by this discussion was more personal. What fruit, if any, would be most appropriate in describing the kinds of cultural mixing that forms my own personality?

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Let’s step back to kindergarten. I attended Silverbeck Academy for pre-school at a time when academies were still portent symbols of bourgeois social mobility. This counted twice as much in the rural Gikambura area where Silverbeck was located. The institution had both interior and exterior markers of class. On the one hand, its facilities were made of stone and mortar; windows had glass panes, unlike Gicharani Primary School – a public school up the road where paned windows were largely a foreign concept. Internally, Silverbeck used class trips to set itself apart.
There’s one particular excursion that is ingrained in my mind. The school took us to Wilson Airport, a small commercial airport outside the Nairobi CBD. Then, and even now, the airport is frequented by smaller planes, not the international Boeing 737s that one would find at the much bigger Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. It was a great day for an outdoor trip; the tarmacked runway was blindingly sun-lit when we arrived. After all 10 or so kindergarteners got off the bus, we walked around the airfield amongst the planes. Just touching the sleek metal must have been fun. The tail license numbers on the small engine Cessnas must have looked erringly familiar to the numbers and letters activities we did in class. The coolest part of the trip was getting into one of the 8-seater planes, sitting in the cockpit, and having my picture taken holding onto the controls.
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In other words, the sense of being different has always been with me. As I’ve grown older, I’m less perturbed by this outsider-looking-in feeling. I think this is part of why what’s foreign/unfamiliar has always been attractive to me. Back in those Silverbeck days, there was an outdoor cinema once a month in my village. Folks from the government’s Ministry of Sports & Cultural Affairs would show up in a van, rig up a white sheet for a screen, crank the generator, and project old westerns after dusk.

You can’t imagine how big of a deal these events were! They served as a lifeline for teenagers and young adults, connecting them to a “modern” world that barely condescended to visit the dusty market square that we called a town. Those images, those accents, and that music all pointed to a life larger than any of us could comprehend. And this is before we even begin to break down what it meant to view white people with guns riding at high speed towards, or away from, danger. Missing a movie show was tantamount to a midlife crisis, or worse.

My dad’s side of the family tells stories about their escapades attending these movies in the late 80s. The venue was often the outdoor pitch where our local soccer club hosted weekend matches against other teams in the region. One evening when a film was showing, aunt Wanja decided to attend. She sat upfront, on a rare patch of grass, and bundled up to keep warm. She had on an oversized coat, perhaps borrowed from an older sibling to keep the chill away. It goes without saying that there were no public restrooms available at the movie showing. As a result, movie-goers invented all kinds of ways to cater for their bathroom needs. The men, as you can imagine, would simply find a bush to the side and “do” it. Women had less options. And attending to a number 2, by either men or women, required even more skill.

On this particular night, my aunt must have sat next to a member of the audience who was particularly skillful. He/she did their thing, and wrapped it up using a polythene bag. They then deposited the package into my aunt’s coat pocket. Somehow, as she concentrated on John Wayne surviving, yet again, a fusillade of bad guy bullets, she missed both the stench and the newly added weight in her garment. It was not until the film ended, and they were heading back home, that she drove her hands deep into her coat pockets to warm them up and keep away the numbness. Her scream must have woken up any sleeping devils. Her curses would have made a sailor blush. She pulled her right hand out of her now very heavy, very smelly pocket and shook it till her fingers almost dropped off. Running to a patch of a grass, she proceeded to rub her hand and wipe off the offending goo. Getting it out of her coat pocket was another story altogether. All this time, the big village boys were having the time of their lives: pointing and celebrating her misfortune in between sending missiles of rotten eggs across the departing audience.

Getting home from a movie was rarely a peaceful affair; it generally involved fist fights or stone throwing. But not even the threat of human feces could keep us away. It was always a welcome addition of excitement to our usually mellow rural hamlet. Most importantly, however, the screen helped us imagine novel identities we’d otherwise not have experienced. A few days after watching a western, I put on a yellow rain coat and swaggered just like I’d seen the main character to. The coat was new, and came to just below my knees; the proportions couldn’t have been better if it had been meant to be worn out in the wild, wild west. And with my hands deep in my pocket, I thought that my twirling coat tail would have done any cowboy proud.