Ideally, when a passenger enters a cab, he or she is supposed to sit at the back. In the more developed worlds, that is what happens. But here in Nairobi, passengers like to sit at the front. So much so that if a passenger enters my cab and occupies the back seat, I will secretly loathe them with the abhorrence of a jealous ex. And that is what Reverend Sande does when she enters the car. She sits at the back left, buckles up, adjusts her dress importantly and says, "I don't like the music playing on your radio. Kindly switch it to something more Godly." It will be a long ride. I feel like Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy. So I smile at her through the visor – the kind of smile that evades the eyes with the agility of a tenant evading the landlord when he hasn't paid the rent – and say, "Yes ma'am."
The 'ungodly' music I'm playing is Nyashinski's Malaika. It is a beautiful love song and what's Godlier than love? Right? But hey; the customer is always right. Even the moronic ones. She needs to be driven from her church in Parklands to her house in Thome and as I play my lengthy 'Hillsong' collection, I vow not to say anything to her. I even pump up the volume as I drive her home to avoid any form of communication between us.
"How old are you?" She asks as she touches my shoulder to catch my attention. "And turn off the music, will you?" I don't press the power button. I jab it with my finger because I'm now seeing red. I don't understand why she is making me so mad when I don't even know her. "I'm 27." I snap.
Research show drivers are most obnoxious on Mondays. Do you agree??"Oh." She exclaims with utter disbelief. "You are just a child. My last born is three years older than you. And here you are earning a honest living." "Well, in this country if you don't work you might get thrown out into the streets by your landlord. And you could also starve." "I know that." She jabs her finger into my shoulder again for a reason I can't comprehend and continues enthusiastically. "You should meet my sons John and James. They could learn so much from you!" "From me? How so?" "They are both in their 30s, they have four degrees between them, they are both jobless and they have refused to move out of my house! How old were you when you moved out of your mother's house?" She realizes she might have jumped the gun so she backs up a bit. "Wait. You don't still live with your mother, do you?" "No ma'am I moved out when I was 21. Needed to find myself."
"Well, my children didn't. They got their undergraduate degrees and their Master's degrees and then they went back to where they started; on the couch playing video games and waiting for mama to come home in the evening with bags of shopping. I can't even have my own life now because everything revolves around them. I can't even have the house to myself with my own husband over the weekend because the kids are always there." She runs her hand over her face and sighs loudly. "I am so tired, you know?" "So what's stopping you from asking them to leave?" "Can I though? Can I tell my children to leave? I'd feel like I am giving up on them. Like I am abandoning them or something. I live in a house that my husband and I built together. Yet I am always so bitter within those walls. Then I go to church and preach love to my people. How can I preach love when I don't practice it with my own children?" "Love? According to whom? Look, do whatever you want with your kids. Kick them out. They can only resent you for so long and eventually, they'll get their lives in order. But if you keep them around, you will start blaming them for everything wrong with your life. I mean, you are already blaming them for the lack of quality time between you and your husband. I don't know much, but I know the definition of love is relative."
When I drop her off at home, I can't help but accommodate with a shroud of sadness the fact that when I left home, it wasn't because I wanted to be my own man. It was because there wasn't any family to stick around for.