AFTER THE GAME

AFTER THE GAME

When I get to the office, I find a white girl seated at my desk.

I have come in late today as a result of last night’s binge.. In any case, it is Saturday I only have one game to cover.  Western Stima is hosting Top fry at the Mumias complex Stadium for a Kenya Premier League match. The stadium is in Mumias, a town thirty minutes away from Kakamega. Top fry, the newest entrants into the league this season had unexpectedly beaten last season’s league winners 3-0 in the match prior to this and everyone is out to see how they will fair against the western team.

Kate, the white lady is in town to shoot clips for a children show she is producing for a local TV station. Our photographer is her contact person in the region. Surprisingly, she is half Kenyan half Scandinavian with the white genes dominating.

As we leave, Mzee wa Kazi, our ageing cameraman as he is fondly called, offers her the co-driver’s seat in the Dmax Isuzu double cab that we use. Four of us crammed in the back seat having picked up two other guys, we head out. Up until now, we haven’t spoken save for a grunt to acknowledge each other as I was rummaging in my desk for my KPL accreditation pass.

“So where are you from?” I venture.

I come from all over, I was born in Holland but I have lived in Hungary all my life. My parents are from Hungary, though my father is Kenyan.” She replies confusing me in the process.

“Yes. My father is Kenyan; I was reunited with him about four years ago. He lives in Nairobi but he is actually from western Kenya. My mother gave me up for adoption and since my Parents are Hungarian, they raised me there.” She tells me.

Mzee wa Kazi sees his shot as I have sparked conversation and asks, “how do you find Kenya, or this part of western?”

At which she replies, “I love it! It’s such a nice place, and it is home, I am thinking of relocating permanently to Kenya, My father has already given me land to build my house.”

The conversation picks up with the other guys two guys offering the occasional grunts that make them relevant to the conversation. She tells us about Holland where she has been staying for most of her adult life working as a TV and Radio producer. She has just seen an opportunity in Kenya that is ripe for picking and is investing heavily on it. Journalism for Kids. She is appalled at how kids in Kenya do not actually matter. All the content on most programs is dominantly adult with maybe an hour set aside for a children’s programme.

We get to Mumias some minutes into the game. As our camera man sets up she pulls me aside, “where can I have a quiet smoke?” she asks. We are sitting in the VIP area or what passes off for VIP in this place. There are plastic chairs to sit on and none of the usual hooliganism that passes for official fan behavior. Of course someone will occasionally have one too many start shouting profanities here, but hey, its soccer!

We duck behind the changing rooms and she hands me a Marlboro. We light up. As we smoke, I inquire about her past life and why she chose to come to Kenya. She tells me she is divorced has two daughters and one son and her reasons for coming to Kenya.

She first came to Kenya six years ago looking for her father. The poor guy did not even know he had a white daughter. He had met her mother abroad while studying. He left back for Kenya without ever knowing that he had implanted his seed somewhere or without ever knowing for the past  decades that he had a daughter. When Kate first gave him a call, he was equally astounded and almost thought it a prank before she mentioned her mother’s details. “He met me at the airport and he was expecting a colored lady. It’s a funny thing I turned out entirely white.” She laughs as she says this displaying a set of browning teeth.

Then she saw the need for journalism for kids. After the usual groundwork, she dropped her jobs in Holland packed her bags and set out to Kenya. That’s when she met the rest of her step family in Western. After that, she got the land from her father, started producing content for one of the TV stations and also working on starting her own studio.

She finishes her fag, and stubs it out with the heel of a shoe. So unladylike I think to myself.

“I want to speak to the kids who come to these matches. Those who are accompanied by parents, those who come on their own and even those who do not manage to get into the stadium.” This last bit she adds after espying a rat-rag army of kids watching the game from behind the stadium boundary. “I may also want to speak to the parents and find out what they think of their kids attending such the matches.” The game begins.

We are sitting by the media section on the Terrace at kick off. The match commissar, a bulky brusque lady is kicking people who do have their KPL passes of the Terrace. They include other journalists. By then, Kate has gone off and is talking to the ball boys who have milled around her. There is something about Kenyan children and white folks. They congregate around them and start talking excitedly among themselves mostly in mother tongue or Swahili with the occasional English speaking one acting as leader and interpreter. They can follow a white person for miles on end without any apparent reason.

The match comm wants to kick Kate off the pitch. All the attention has turned from soccer to her as various people are asking what she is doing talking to children and why she is taking pictures of them. She also does not have a KPL accreditation pass. The rest of the crowd who are sitting by in the common Benches are shouting, “toa huyo mzungu kwa uwanja! Kuja twende kwangu leo! kuja unipige picha! Unapeleka picha za watotot wetu wapi?” Lately, there have been rampant reports of child trafficking and the folks here are naturally cautious. The other day a woman was arrested for trafficking and it was reported that she was working with a ring of white people from Russia.

She lies that she has a badge, borrows mine as half time approaches and continues doing her interviews. Quite a crowd has gathered around her by the time the whistle goes for the break. Western Stima is leading by one goal while Top fry are yet to score. Stima have been pushing the debutants who seem all over the place. Fry, however look resilient, they are fighting and attacking at every opportunity. Any lapse in the Stima defense lorded by a one George Wesa will see them concede a goal, and they know it! Stima and Fry shake hands during the break, Jerseys removed to expose torsos that have been hardened by days of practice and hard work. Bottles of water are thrown at them as they get off the pitch. They catch them midair, tear open the seals, uncork them and proceed to pour the water on their heads and chests before drinking the rest in quick large gulps.

Another fag marks how we spend halftime as she regales me with tales of Holland. Well, Its Holland, I learn that they grow their weed in green houses. I learn that it is a very small country, it only takes about three hours to drive from the eastern boundary to the west. Only a few people practice farming and they do it on large scale. I remember this internet meme describing the Dutch as a bunch of high people riding bicycles through the streets of Amsterdam and the picture of a one Louis Moreno Ocampo comes into mind as he rides his bicycle to the ICC. I muse, maybe he does that!

The game ends with the solitary goal from Stima. On the way back to Kakamega, Kate and I agree to hook up later for drinks. I also forget to take her number as my editor is already on my neck asking for the story.

Mzee wa Kazi calls me at around eight. “Come to Diamond there is free booze here,” he tells me.

When I get there, Kate is bored. She has also worked her way through a bottle of Penasol. She wanted to party in Kakamega. The photographer has taken her to the old guys joint. Here elderly people are holding onto their Tuskers in a cloud of smoke as the guys in the Kitchen work away at scorching the Nyamchom they are or will be enjoying. A rugged looking local band comprised of elderly men with instruments that look like they had seen John Rebman when he first stepped into Africa are badly belting out a rendition of Madilu’s Zele in halts and jerks that are not exactly rhythmical. Kate doesn’t get Rhumba. In fact she is even bored with Mzee wa Kazi.

“He keeps holding my hand, it’s annoying!” she tells me as we stand outside smoking. “And this place, it looks like it has no life. Could we go somewhere they play party music and stuff? I want to dance.” She does a little jig on her feet and continues.  “I had to ask him to call you, he did not want you to come by the way.” I can’t help it when I laugh maliciously.

We end up at Club Hush as Mzee wa Kazi leaves for home at around eleven asking me to take care of Kate. He also tells her to be wary of these little boys. As we walk in, the fat Bouncer recognizes me and clears a table for us at the balcony. Hush is already full. It’s a Saturday after all, and it’s end month. The college girls are here in groupies or hanging out with older guys or the monied younger ones who can afford them drinks.

Then the action begins. A bottle of Bond 7 lands on the table. Her Marlboros are out and we switch to my Dunhills. The usual friends are here. The party people! 

Davy comes over, “eh, Mose, umetoa wapi mzungu leo, ebu utupatie huyu.”  I play basketball with Davy. Fortunately, the basket ballers are not here or else they could be crowding me. Halfway through the bottle, the DJ plays Afro Jack’s Rock This House. Everyone gets up to dance. Kate is the only white girl in the house amongst a bunch of voluptuous girls on the dance floor gyrating and swaying to the rhythm. Their hands are outstretched up wards as the DJ swings into LMFAO’s Champagne Showers prompting the revelers to start shuffling. She is carefree, she is dancing, she is having fun. A big smile plastered on her face not caring a thing about the men who are trying in vain to get a white girl to dance with them.

I realize she is getting high when I get up to smoke and she joins me leaning heavily and onto me as she does it. These two Indian guys who have just come into the club are attempting to get her attention. As she comes back after she speaking to them, she goes, “I don’t like Indian guys.”  She then tells me she worked in India for a while in the late 90’s. I ask the question. “How old are you”

“I’m forty two!” she says and drags heavily on her cigarette.

“What the fuck!” all the while I had been thinking she was in her late twenties at the most, and she looks it.

The whisky is gone, we call for another. The fat bouncer comes back to inquire if we are okay. I ask Davy to keep her busy as I visit the Johns. The disco lights are casting a spiraling effect, I feel like I’m spinning round and round with them. My friend Teach hands me a Guiness which Kate grabs from my hand. “I have had enough of the Whisky.” She says nuzzling next to me, a cigarette in her other hand. I light it for her. The Indians are looking at me with what I perceive to be animosity. One of them comes over to ask for a Fag. I’m tempted to refuse him but I give it to him anyway.

I’m thinking, forty two? I really wanted to tap that! Now she is almost as old as my mother. 

@mossetti