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Dear Nairobi.
I hope this missive finds you well.
I’m writing from the land of the white man, a place called Barcelona, Spain. It’s got churches and cathedrals, monuments and statues, museums and a beach. But no beach can hold a candle to your beach. I love your beach. Your beach is soft and big – and you know how that floats my boat. OK, it’s not yours exactly, it’s Mombasa’s beach but we all know what’s Mombasa’s is yours too, right?
Can I tell you about the dogs of Barcelona? They are everywhere because it’s summer. Dogs standing at pedestrian crossings, dogs walking in clothing stores staring suspiciously at the 50% discounts, dogs under tables in restaurants, dogs in the metros, dogs looking out of small European car windows, dogs with casts on their hind legs, dogs with muzzles, dogs with attitude, massive white dogs that look like wolves, dogs that have never seen a black man and stare at me for too long – racist dogs. Some are so small, the size of a well grown maize cob in Kitale. Dogs in clothes. Of course they don’t call them dogs here, they call them canine companions because I guess the dogs take offence when they are called dogs. Fable is that they met in a square on day and said they had to make humans stop calling them dogs because it was derogatory and demeaning to their persons. A million paws were put on a petition and they presented it to the authorities and man was hence barred from calling them dogs again.
This place is wonderful but it’s also kedo strange. The other day I paid one euro to pee. One euro! It was at this small square called Catalonia Square. I was pressed sana and had held it in for many blocks. See, there were no bushes to step into to pee. At a street corner, I asked some mustachioed guy where I could find a loo. He didn’t speak a word of English and I didn’t know how to say toilet in Spanish, so I grabbed my crotch and made a sound like “chrrrrr” and thankfully he was a sharp guy who didn’t have a dirty mind, he pointed at some building next to the Cathedral and I went in and I said to the lady at the counter, “Speak English, si? Me want to piss, like this…see..” and the lady said in calm British English, “Of course, I speak English. That is only a euro.” I could have taken offense by her usage of the word “that.” It could have meant anything. So anyway, I paid 118 bob to a take a one minute piss. Happy days. It’s easily the most expensive piss I will take in my life.
Then yesterday we took a train to Sitges, a small town an hour Southwest of Barcelona. There we sat at a beach bar and ate sardines and drunk whisky and watched topless women sunbathe and play volleyball. There I realized one thing; that although volleyball is not any more interesting than darts, but if topless women play it you can watch it for the whole day. If topless women played ajua – you know ajua,right? – I’m sure it can be a real popular sport.
Talking of whisky. These guys don’t know what a double is, they just pour. They don’t measure whisky, which means currently I’m in bed, hungover after a long night at a live jazz jam-session at an underground bar called The Jamboree in Placa Reial which was full of arty types with trendy owlish spectacles and long hippy hair.
Anyway, listen, Nai. I’m in dire straights here….relax, I don’t want you to send me money. Mpesa doesn’t work here anyway. But I want to say that I’m not doing any writing while here because of the sun and all these white chicks in small clothes and their dogs with brown eyes and thus I can’t have any story running here today. Also this is because it’s summer here and I’m lazy and I drink daily because the sun sets at bloody 9:35pm and I feel like you should understand and be happy for me because life isn’t about blog posts and most importantly we shouldn’t let deadlines be the bane of our lives. We should revolt a little to the IDEA of such slavery.
Stop rolling your eyes.
By the way, in other unrelated matters. Macharia of Pinklakeman lodge if you are reading this, I had an odd dream and you and your dogs were in it. That you had left me to stay in your log-house in Elementaita and I somehow wrecked it up – made a big hole on the wooden floor – and when you came back you were so mad you didn’t even talk to me. You sulked a good one. I said, “Macha, don’t be like that, stop sulking over a floor,” and you didn’t even bother saying shit, you just walked away and your pack of dogs took your side and followed you. All of them.
Strange dream. I think seeing all these dogs here had something to do with it.
Otherwise? What’s happening back there? Has our winter started?
I have to go look for breakfast. Si we talk when I’m back? Until then you can check out my Instagram if you have an idle moment. Just the usual silly things.
Haya, baadaye.
Oriti.
Yours,
Chocolate Man.
Ps. If I posted this letter through post, you would receive it just before Valentine’s Day 2018.
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