I was hanging out on Saturday at the Afra Arfa Lounge at the 20th Century Plaza with a couple of my Ukrainian pals, Alexei and Sergei, just shooting the breeze about the(ir) war in Dontesk, waiting for the Chelsea match versus Newcastle to begin. Match? It was a 5-1 massacre, in our favour.
Anyway, here came my distant cousin with a broad grin on her black face. She is now about thirty, grew up in Kileleshwa, went to fancy Nairobi schools where she picked up a ‘getting high’ habit in high school that became cocaine by college – yet another private institution – dropped out, and finally got disowned at twenty two by her furious ‘no nonsense’ dad who is high in the military hierarchy.
What was the best thing that happened to you this week?Growing up, we knew her by an unfancy name (say, like Nancy Kemunto Kebaba), but now she is ‘Nikki Minaj Munto’ on Facebook, and offline in real life. For the last seven years, since dropping out of college, Nikki Munto has been one of those tall, dark, African women who hang around places like Village Market in Nairobi; and clubs like Black Diamond, Havana and K1 in Parklands hunting for whites.
Indeed, mtu huyu Munto has been living in different high-end apartments in this city these last six years with at least three different expatriates, one after the other. There was the Swiss guy from UN at the turn of the decade. Then the German with some Deutsche institution round about 2012 and 2013. Then the American contractor on a two-year contract which just ended on December 31, 2015.
The dude left, after paying one more month of rent for this Nikki, then she had to move out end of January. Now she is ‘couch crashing’ between friends as she hunts for the next white victim. But as ‘Munto’ told me in Ekegusii after partaking one too many Jamaican sunrises last Saturday, courtesy of Sergei, she now wishes to settle... “...and get white babies,” she said. I was appalled! As time has gone on by, and especially in the era of Barack Obama, I have become more and more pro-black and even a pan-Africanist, in the way at the turn of the millennium I was a Man U fan but a dozen years later, I am Chelsea’s foremost fan in the country ( I also used to root for Maria Sharapova in tennis, but since 2008, and having seen Serena in the flesh at Sadili Club once in Lang’ata), I am #TeamWilliams in tennis all the way, and pun intended, zero love for the racists.
So, why white babies? Ms Kebaba, sensing my underlying anger at her skinny colour self-loathing, and knowing I’d had a few Black Mambas backed off the ‘white baby’ talk, pretended she only wanted to be with ‘whites’ because they are more romantic and richer. (Sic). That’s the kind of s*** talk that makes one sick.
It is what made the brilliant Bob Marley, whose 25th year death anniversary we’ll be celebrating in a little under three months, singing emancipate your stupid nappy-head from mental colonisation. Sometimes, even when a wannabe grew up in Kileleshwa like Kemunto, the ghetto is still lodged somewhere beneath that blonde coloured weave which has the mildew of a fortnight .
I told Nancy Kemunto aka Nikki ‘Minaj’ to meet me at the same place, same time, this coming Saturday. And I will introduce her to really rich foreign friends. I intend to keep my promise to my cousin, Munto. I’ll be meeting two of my Southern Sudanese buddies with whom we used to watch soccer at the defunct ‘Hooters’ for the Chelsea vs Man City FA Cup clash, and tell Munto she can choose either Mayom Bol or Chollo Gok.
Now that peace has returned to the South, she can hook up with one of them. I cannot wait to be the distant uncle of a baby, maybe even twins, the colour of black berries!