The day I apologized to my digestive system

BY ELVIS ONDIEKI

This is an article about a dirty and fishy 'hotel' in Kisumu.

Now, there is this hotel called Nyarunda-something located on the armpit of Kisumu town. I mean Kisumu city.

Nyarunda-something is a hotel with several problems.

One, the girl they have assigned to call clients in with the "karibu boss, lunch leo ni hapa" line is the most beaten I have ever seen since I saw a person struck by lightning in May 2000. She's so beaten I bet no doctor can establish where the rain started beating her. Perhaps someone from the meteorological department can.

Within the three seconds I stood looking at the 'call girl', a string of thoughts ran through my mind.

At first I thought it was a mad woman calling me, what with several of her front teeth missing. But I spotted some fried fish and chips on display behind her and calculated that a madwoman can't be allowed to be so close to food. Madness ruled out.

Then I thought it was someone inviting people to magician's place. But really? A mganga allowed to do bitch-ness on the armpit of Kisumu? No way. Mganga usher ruled out.

When I saw people eating inside the mabati structure, I joined the dots. That's when I moved from the spot where I had stood transfixed, in the middle of a street, for three centuries.

Being the UN sympathy votes ambassador and also a believer that not all 'call girls' with missing front teeth are vampires, I decided to go in; deceived by the wisdom of not judging a hotel by its 'call girl'. A bad decision.

As soon as I stepped in, I knew there was something fishy going on. All the seats and tables in the hotel smell so fishy that you wonder why the hotel management can't wash all their utensils after use.

I could have walked out at once, but I said to myself, "Hey Elvis, kama ni mbaya ni mbaya. Kula tu." Another bad decision.

Nyarunda-something is one of those downtown hotels that never have menus. So, as I sat there reading Claycourt on the free daily paper that Nation gives us, another 'call girl' came. By her appearance, this one looked like the goddess of obesity and dirty, fishy aprons.

As the goddess of obesity talked to me, I observed that she avoided clapping as some waitresses are wont to do. You know why?—because the heat generated by a clap is enough to set the hotel ablaze, given the fish biogas filling the hotel. I hope no terrorist is reading this.

I ordered for ugali-mix, which is the meal I could eat fastest then leave.

After some minutes, Ngamia 1 was brought to the table. I wondered what Ngamia 1 was doing in Kisumu, but didn't think very deep because Clay Muganda was keeping me engrossed with his account of the Government speaker.

As I smiled on finishing Muganda's Claycourt, I looked at the table and wondered when they would remove Ngamia 1 from my table and give me the ugali-mix I had ordered for.

On asking, the goddess of obesity told me that the two plates on my table were the ugali-mix I had ordered for.

"Whaaaaaart?"

The plate where they had placed a brownish piece of ugali was undisputedly Ngamia 1. It had very rich oil deposits on its bottom that I started thinking of breaking news to my editors that Kisumu has struck oil.

Looking at the plate where the 'mix' was alleged to have been put, I saw four or five pieces of meat trying not to sink in a pool contaminated with some sukumawiki and a red precipitate of tomatoes.

Disappointed to the core but not ready to pay for food I had not eaten, I decided to eat the substance alleged to be ugali-mix regardless. Kama ni mbaya, ni mbaya.

What the whole thing tasted like is something that gives a rough idea about how a boiled hyacinth tastes like.

What happened to my stomach is neither here nor there. It is currently inside a pit latrine at my rented residence in Nyamasaria.

For more stories about apologizing to one's digestive system, talk to a patient in the diarrhoea section of the hospital ward near you.