You will most probably miss today’s lunch and a couple of days to come and this is why.

My timetable reads that lunch breaks run for one hour between 1 and 2 o’clock. However, on days like Wednesday the mid morning lecturer is gracious enough to be brief and straight to the point. Within 1 hour, he covers what takes others three hours. His briefness allows us an extra one hour for lunch and today I’ll be talking about that extra one hour.
After class, my friends and I leave headed for our usual lunch hang out place. With the extra one hour in mind, we walk slowly,bantering about everything that crosses a student’s mind. The topics range from the deplorable state of washrooms in our lecture hall block to the hot gossip of who is dating who and who got dumped latest. If for a second you thought we were going to a fancy restaurant, you were right, only on the restaurant bit though.

‘Welcome to Mama Otis hotel‘

Reads the sign board at the entrance. The yellow piant is slowly peeeling off and the board itself is falling apart and is only held together by the three stones at it’s base. Considering this hotel has only been around for only two months now, you would expect that the newly erected tin walled building would still be new with the paint smelling fresh. Well, things on this end don’t work like that; at least not when you hire Wamaiko and sons company limited poultry farm to do your painting. They most probably will do a crafty job.

The extra hour is 20 minutes less but the extra 40 minutes is just what I need to enjoy my lunch or so I think. From the outside, Mama Otis‘ two month old hotel looks too old to be just 60 days old. The paint is checkered in almost all corners and the ceiling on the corridor hangs dangerously low. The aroma from the inside, however, does a good job at masking the deplorable state on the outside and it seems to draw everyone to the tin walled restaurant.

The interior is done to an admirable level. There are mirrors on the wall creating an infinite array of images . Wamaiko must have thought that the revellers in this hotel needed a reflective space to reflect on their thoughts.

It is a busy hour. With lunch hour fast approaching, everything is being done in a haste. Mama Otis herself is seated behind the cashier’s desk. She is barely seated on the high stool as her hips displace more horizontal space and hang on the side. How does she do it? Seating on that high stool must require some physics on equilibrium and stability. Her head is covered in a poorly done headwrap; this orange leso has always been on her head for the ten or so times I have been here. Maybe she has a collection of orange lesos and my brain is just overthinking that it has not been cleaned for a while.
We take our seats at a table in a corner. The tables are small but big enough to fit my three friends and I. A nylon paper lines its surface, its surface is dusty with apparent evidence of a failed attempt to wipe it. Streaks of water marks crisscross the surafce making incomplete concentric circles that seem to be making out a word. I try to follow the lines to find out what it says but then my mystical adventure is rudely cut short.

“Njoroge,harakisha hiyo bean!”

It is Mama Otis voice. She has the most high pitched voice I have ever heard. I don’t mean the symphonic voice that is music to the ear; I mean the scratchy voice like that screech when a metallic chair is drugged on the floor or a piece of chalk is held wrongly on the board. That is definitely no music to the ears.

Our table is approximately 5M from the cashier and you can anly imagine the mechanical trauma my poor ear cells go through.
One of my friends Ann* had gone to place our orders and it’s taken her more than the usual 5 minutes to wobble back to our table balancing three plates in hand and occasionally a botlle or two of soda. Amongst the four of us,she has the best balance and thus most fit for the job.

The man behind the Kitchen counter is called Njoroge but we call him Njoro. The much we know about him is his skinny melanin rich hands. He serves the food swiftly and is kind enough to add an extra piece or two of meat to your plate if he likes your hand or voice; I assume that’s the much he knows of us. His hands are always sweaty, maybe from the steamy food he serves and his venation is apparent on his back of the palm. Veins showing on your arms doesn’t add a score to your attractiveness, it’s just your body trying to keep you cool. Just saying!

On this particular Wednesday though,something is not right in Mama Otis’ kitchen. The queue stretches almost towards the door,a rare eventuality with Njoro’s swift hands. Just to be clear, corona protocols do not apply around here so social distancing is as non existent as the hygiene seems to be. The unfortunate thing is that nobody is bothered. Nairobians minding their own business at it’s best.

“Njooooooroooge!!!”

That voice again. Oh my poor ear drums.

“Madam Nirishakuabia hakuna Mafuta!” The man I assume is Njoro says. His voice is heavily laden with an accent indigenous from Central Kenya. “Kira kitu iko kalibu kuisha huku,hata mshere hakuna”

“Mama Otis hata unajua sijapata mshahala ya rast week…..” he continues, unbothered by his wrong placement of L and R in all words.

However,that is not what catches my attention. This man Njoro, is short in stature in his mid thirties from the look on his face. He has an unkept moustache and is adorned in a black vest, a pair of khaki shorts that have clearly seen better days and a pair of what I can only imagine were meant to be sandals. Sweat trickles down his face, dripping his already wet vest. His hair is too long and uncovered, which I totally agree is very inappropriate especially in the kitchen. To make matters worse, he seems to have a flu because he keeps using the bottom of his vest to wipe of sweat and mucus from his face.

He continues to pout out his complaints to Mama Otis but non of it is of importance to me as the revelation of the man who has been serving most of my lunches slowly dawns on me. From his looks,I am more than certain the devil would not allow his admission to his place leave alone the devil’s kitchen. His level of hygiene is non existent, has been for some time because an unpleasant oduor emanites from his cordinates.

Just when I think I have seen it all from Njoro
He gets into a coughing spit and coughs out sputum which he spits on the kitchen floor and goes ahead to wipe his face with the same vest.

And just like that, my appetite is gone. Eeew!
I thought hygiene is common sense?
But the common sense isn’t common.

You can be sure I was not stepping foot to Mama Otis’ hotel again. Never Again!

*****

Hello my royal highnesses

If you love kibandaski’s food, please never be look inside their kitchens🤧

Never again would you eat their food🤢🤣

Hope you enjoyed this one, share it with your friends😉

^Faith❤