Dan Okwiri
Penning my journal.
It was in the mid 80s’ that I met Wanjiru, she seeded from Nyeri county. Wanjiru a lady beautiful popped out of the crowd. She sheened unblemished fair chocolate brown complexion with a yellowing hue. Bootsy, she dazzled everyone with her ritzy twinkling gorgeous hazel brown eyes.
Even with all this beauty, she rivered a distance forlorn smile. Something in her smelled of sad. Couldn’t pick it out, but could nose it.
Ageing gracefully In early 40s’ Wanjiru reeked of money. Her husband was a monied businessman with a chain of 4 pharmacies in Nairobi’s CBD. Once in a blue moon, he would pick her from KQs headquarters. He pulled in different machines, but his metallic Merc 350 coupe always got my eyes drooling in green envy.
Her hubby was banty, short & portly, his belt prevented his bloated hanging stomach from spilling over. His paunch wiggled as he plodded step. We can’t have it all ice cream, Wanjiru for some eerie reason was always uneasy in his presence.
Wanjiru on the other button, was curvaceous beauty, and taller than her hubby, the couple a miserable mismatch. Thought to myself, money has its magic & glues any discordant couple.
Wanjiru and I sat next to each other in a tiny cramped office which hobbled at least 10 other souls. KQ’s Expenditure Division them days late 80s was notoriously manual. Rolls of ledger paper of KQs creditors oozed messily everywhere, competing for floor space, it was difficult to find a place to walk.
We were tasked with paying suppliers, but the company was dead broke. We spent our time creating fibs for our creditors why payments were delayed, but on the perky side, we at least gave them hope!
Our salaries were often delayed, and we lived from hand to mouth. Lunch time was fun in bun. We all took a matatu to the near Embakasi village, Njoroge’s Butchery was our meaty choice destination. All 12 workmates would frill, as we chomped daily on 3 kilos of meat in barbecue grill. On Fridays, members day as we called it, would wash it down with an orgy of Tuskers.
One Friday, the unimaginable struck. Kiplangat one of my colleagues who loved his smoke and Tuskers had too much to guzzle. He slipped as he boarded a KBS bus as he was making his way from lunch back to KQ head offices. Somehow the bus back tire flattened his head in a chapatti roll, in a horrific bloody scene. He had done the unspeakable, boarding a moving bus on a bend, high in rocks.
Poignantly he was the only child of his single mother, and was scheduled to proceed to USA for studies the next week. He was doing his final stint in KQ. He died in his early 20s. I couldn’t eat nyama choma for a long time, the bloody scene of Kiplangats last moments kept threading my mind.
The year was 1989, we had a rough sad year and we all decided in unison to chip in and have a weekend Christmas party in Naivasha.
Office parties are dicey events, colleagues let their feelings fly in dine after mugs of wine. Anyone with beef with the other prone to exchange fist. On the other hand, those who have fizzy attraction to each other an opportune to exchange kiss.
There was a young Masinde from the Bukusu community, in his mid 20s, handsome, & gladiator tall. He voice milked with eloquence of Kijana Wamalwa. Wanjiru was drawn to him honey to stinging bee, and he ready in golf for tee.
Was startled to see Wanjiru drink, piously religious, this was not her. They spent the evening waltzing to Kenny Rogers blues, that all Kiuk lassie love. Clasping each other gluing in pod. The next morning they came for breakfast together, it was obvious she hadn’t spend the night alone. It was the first time, I had seen her smile, some one had done his job.
The next week in 1990; after new year Wanjiru was a changed woman. All over sudden she started sporting luscious minis and high heels. She exchanged desks with me and moved next to Masinde. She flaunted her love for him in broad daylight.
Masinde was young, he was having a good time with a dewy middle-aged woman. Copped out, stonewalling Wanjiru from a permanent relationship became almost full time duty.
They would take days off from the office for spicy live sessions on the push from Wanjiru. It was getting to him though, but for now he didn’t have a way out.
One afternoon they both took off, and booked themselves in a hotel in Ngara. In a hot kitchen, young vibrant Masinde thrusted in her all his goodies. For the first time in her life she came to orgasmic spurt. Little did Masinde know that Wanjiru was epileptic. The sensual excitement lit an epileptic reaction. Wanjiru passed out, froth foaming mouth.
Panicking Masinde thought she was bewitched to her dead, ran out naked dangling his long ding la dong screaming to the hotel staff for help. The women in the hotel precincts in shock & panic of the sheer size of his ding la dong awed them, perhaps the trigger of Wanjiru‘s epilepsy attack?
A hotel patron who happened to be a medic resuscitated her to life, meanwhile both naked. She made it, but the orgasmic experience is one she had never had before, her hubby had a limp tool, she was a changed new woman.
Monday morning, Masinde arrived the office looking disheveled & choppy crestfallen. He called Wuod Baba aside, and narrated the incident. He was finding it difficult to contain this relationship with this married Nyeri woman. The only way out was to quit.
Wanjiru on the other hand leaked to Masinde that she was leaving her hubby for him. He couldn’t believe it! She had a good luxurious life, lovely children. Why do such a foolish thing?
Masinde asked her to give him sometime to think, to butterfly her to pink. There could be a dint of light in this tunnel.
The next week Masinde didn’t turn up for work which was unlike him. Then out of the blue come one morning handed his resignation. He was never to return. Didn’t give reason for his resignation.
Wanjiru was never the same after Masinde deserted her, became a melancholic alcoholic. Her world collapsed, and a distant soul to everyone’s mourn.
A year later, she was found dead in a grisly accident on Thika road. This woman had everything in life a woman would crave, and she lost it in an office love rave.
Wuod Baba hears from grapevine that Masinde is today a prosperous maize farmer in Kitale. Happily married to three wives. Ladies beware, Bukusu men are no child’s play for bray.
The energy in the office was never the same after her exit. With Kiplangat dead & Wanjiru too, both my deskmates, the place was jinxed, I frantically sought a transfer to a new department.
Believe me my dude, office affairs are a nasty pasty. Avoid them like the plague or you may dine in Hague dizzy swimming in vague.
If you insist on marrying an office mate, seek a new job in a different organization. Whoof tell me! I lived it, am in know.
# okwirimy journal, my thoughts, my walk…
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