The Plug

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I met two interesting folk this past week. I say interesting because they both showed me their broken parts. (That sounds mad, but stay with me) And I like broken parts. I like to nose in there, pry them open further and shine a torch therein, because it’s in those dark, broken places that you see the true character of man. One conversation was with a man. The other was with a woman. They are both in their 50s. Both are high achieving jetsetters with grown children, some of whom are married, with their own young families. Both had framed pictures of those said children. I met one in their office and the other in their home. Both very tasteful and affluent spaces – the caves of the rich.

 

The lady lives and works in North Africa and was in town for a minute. She’s worked with the UN and some multinationals and has lived around the world. Her interview came from upstairs. So this is how it works: Some interviews come from the suits upstairs. Either the big boss of the gazeti calls me and says, “Biko I would like you to sit down with this person.” Or they they come through an email from my editor who got an email from a PR or the person above her who sometimes got a call from the big boss of the gazeti. You never quite know what the river will bring downstream. When I receive such emails I like to follow the trail to see where the wind is blowing from because when you know where the wind is blowing from you know how to tread the gangplank.

 

This one came from an email from upstairs. From the email trail I could see that the request came from their PR people called Africapractice, it went upstairs then it was sent down to my immediate editor who forwarded me the email  then called me and said, “Are you available tomorrow?” and I said, “No, tomorrow is bad, my day is in the shitters.” I suspect she called the PR people and said tomorrow is bad (she can’t use shitters, she’s conservative) and they called the subject and she said, “Can he come over to my house on Saturday morning,” and the editor called me and said, “Saturday?” and I thought, “Argh, Saturdays are for my children and the eldest had said she wanted to go ride a bike at Karura and if that doesn’t happen I can only imagine how much moodier she will be. (If it’s possible for her to get any moodier).” Also, I’m SDA, we only rescue sheep that have fallen in pits on Sabbath. So I said, “Is she not available on Monday or something?” And the editor said, “Nope, it’s Saturday or we lose her.” So I thought, if I look at this assignment as sheep that has fallen in a pit, surely God can work with me, no? Besides, it’s not like the moody one is training for Tour De France. So I said, “Ask them if 10am is okay with her.”

 

She lives in Kitisuru. Nobody lives in a servant’s quarter past a certain invisible line after Spring Valley. Well, except “home managers”, which the rest of us peasants know only as “The Help.” This means you won’t see anyone walking to the stage. Wait, what stage? She lives in a posh cluster of townhouses off a cabro road not too far from Peponi School. The kind of places where when you pull up at a carved wooden gate, a courteous, uniformed guard leans in your window and offers, “Good morning, sir, whose guest are you?” You know you are in a different address when the guard uses the word “guest” and not “visitor” or “mgeni.”

 

The house itself is something straight out of an interior decor magazine. The main door looks like something that was built by the same guys who build doors for Rolls Royce. It’s like opening a tomb. At the threshold is a carpet that looks like what a medieval king would cover himself with when addressing his subjects in a piazza. The room opened widely and tastefully, ending at a wall to wall, sliding glass door that overlooked a swimming pool, sparkling blue but uninviting in the wintry 16 degrees outside. From a regal and elaborate U-shaped settee, my subject holds court with her company’s  head of communications, a Gabonese with a G-flat major name called Fleur.

 

I have to mention the rug in that house. It’s whitish and looks like it has pieces of wood shavings thrown all over it. It looked so white and clean and expensive that for a moment I wondered if I was required to remove my shoes to step on it because if you grew up in a lower middle-class family – like I did – you never stepped on the carpet with shoes.

 

I unperch my newsboy hat as they rise from their seats to say hello. Even if I didn’t know that it was good manners to remove your hat when meeting a lady/ ladies, her very presence would have urged me to remove my hat. There are women who, by the very fact that their eyes are open, wring the chivalry out of you.

 

The email had come with her picture and my editor – Diana – had remarked how beautiful she looked. Actually in person she was more beautiful. She looked imperial. Courtly.  She looked like on her downtime she took long bubble baths, burning scented Jo Malone candles while she read a cerebral book like “You Are Not Your Brain” By Jeffrey Schwarz.

 

Plus, she’s ageing like a Chateau Lafite 1787.  

 

In the room too is Lennox, the associate consultant from Africapractice, an amiable young chap with a good head on his shoulders. You know those very ambitious types? I could feel his energy straining against the leash, wanting to be let to go to take a big bite of the world. I say hello to Fleur (don’t bother trying to pronounce this name, by the way.) Then I say hello to my subject. Of course she has that unwavering eye contact. And an assured handshake. She’s friendly but she’s also officious. She’s petite, so her hands are small and warm like the paws of an African wildcat. She smiles but before you catch it completely, before you warm against it, she takes it away. She’s a paradox.

 

I choose to sit  with my back to the swimming pool, next to a stool with a very small book with hundreds of African sayings like “In Africa, when an old man dies it’s like a library is burning. – Amadou Hampate. (1900 to 1991). There are African fabrics and African art on the wall. Walls curve into more spaces with more artefacts and more nice things. She sits to my right, crosses her right leg over left and turns her body slightly to face me. (Good sign for an interview). Lennox and Fleur sit directly opposite me. I’m never hot about PR or Comms people sitting in my interviews – that’s like someone staring at you intensely as you eat. But everybody has a job to do, right? Behind her, on a small table, I see a cluster of photos of herself and her kids when they were young.

 

There is a fireplace and from it crackles a beautiful, nice fire that warms the whole room and creates an intimacy around the moment. There is tea and cookies from expensive porcelain crockery. She says she hasn’t done a single interview in all of her career, which spans tens of years; this is her first. Well, she did one in London years back and she hated it because the journalist completely “misread” and “misrepresented” her. I want to say, “Well, now you are with a writer, not a journalist, so you will be fine.” But it’s too soon, so instead I opt for a more colourless response, I say “That won’t happen in this case, I can assure you.”

 

“What’s your angle?” she asks. I tell her I never come with an angle. I come to talk.

 

Interviews are like dates. The general rule of dates is that the lady is supposed to talk more on a date. But you have to prod her. You have to peel her off like an onion without it bringing tears to your eyes –  or hers. You have to be really interested in what she’s saying, even if it’s dead boring and all they want to talk about is their last visit to bloody Dubai. Another desert safari! Or their MBA…good grief! People doing MBAs should know that we are happy for them but we don’t care. And if she goes on about MB-bloody A, and they bang on about that for dog years – my MBA this, my MBA that – you have to smile and nod and chuckle and say things like, “That is remarkable, you must have had a wild time,” and off they go again about more MBA stuff that can be used as anaesthesia to bring down a grown elephant. Some dates, like some interviews go well, and some go badly. The trick is never to yawn or look at your watch or say, “What?! Your father sounds like an undertaker!”

 

So, no angle. You just go. You go to talk but mostly to be talked to.

 

I fiddle with my phone to find my voice recorder. Sometimes I can’t find that damn thing. I find it and I put the phone on Plane-Mode and slide it next to her. Now, I never have set questions to ask because I’m not that studious kind of writer who stays up all  night rummaging through the 12th page of Google. I just look at their bio, peek into their Linkedin profile and show up. The first question is always the one that determines the rest of the questions. As I write this I’m just from interviewing a wealthy, 74-year old Asian guy whose great-great-great-grandfather came to Africa on a dhow in 1897 when my people were still removing their six lower teeth and your people were making fire rubbing two sticks together to boil warus. He was a bit cold and suspicious at the beginning as you would be if you were sitting down with someone from magazeti. When people are cold you warm them with a nice, dull first question like, “So what do you do here, in short?” or “Twenty years running this business, I’m sure you can write a lot about running a business and longevity and such like things.” Then they prattle on about that because it’s easy and safe and you are establishing a relationship. The elderly guy (with whom I had a grand time) at some point answering the first question mentioned something about living in this house in Parklands with his son and four generations of his family under that one roof and immediately my ears shot up and I asked, “How does that work in mediation when your son’s wife hates and fights with his brother’s wife, isn’t there like some mad friction in that house?” And he laughed at that and the ice was broken.

 

Back in Kitisuru, I briefly turn to look at the fire burning in the fireplace and I hear the fire telling me, “Ask her if she is fire or water…ask her!” So I ask her, “So, are you fire or water?” She thoughtfully stares into the fire and says, “If I’m fire, then I’m a spark…but in life, I’m more of water. I flow. I flow towards the things that need me. And when things are stuck, I come and let things flow…” those words immediately sparked our conversation and it burst into flames.

 

She said many profound and lovely things that I loved. Words that you could place in a vase to beautify a room without needing watering. She spoke with intellect and depth and she unpacked her life at work and at home with introspection and sincerity. She said things like, “Fear is mental construct while bravery is a construct of the heart.” She didn’t bullshit me with corporate spiel.  

 

And after 45 minutes I said, “I think I have asked you all my questions,” and she said, “No, you haven’t asked me about marriage.” Then she said talked about that. She said, “My marriage didn’t fail, my marriage ended.” I wrote that pull-quote on my notepad and put a smiley on it. (Sometimes I draw cartoons when people are talking. It makes me feel balanced. You wouldn’t understand.) Then we talked about the politics of the wife earning more than the husband. And what distance does to couples. She dismantled the old notion of work/home balance, then constructed it back again in a new format. She kept unravelling nuggets, opening doors to her private life, speaking from somewhere different, surprising us with her vulnerability. She was a river and we were all in a boat navigating that river and she took us where she wanted to take us with her, sometimes through rapid falls but most times through calm waters which no doubt ran deep below.

 

The previous day I had interviewed the man and during the interview he had asked me, “Do you think people who commit suicide are weak or brave because they decided to kill themselves? And are the ones who don’t go through suicide weak because they couldn’t go through with it or brave as a result?” And I didn’t have an answer, so I pose the same question to her now.  As she navigates this rubik’s conundrum Lennox rises and throws some logs into the fire, stokes it a bit and a fresh burst of flames lick upwards, the fire cracking like little slivers of thunder, the flames dancing in our eyes. More tea comes. Nobody touches the poor cookies. They just stare at us like step children. We speak for an hour and 15 mins on the record and another hour off the record.

 

After the interview we stand on her driveway and make small talk. The Gabonese lady is off to catch her plane. The Lennox guy is off to the office. It’s quite cold now, but not as cold as I might find Tamms later when I tell her no biking will be happening in this cold. She hugs all of us because she’s a hugger and because we have all shared a special moment. In the car I think, “f**k, how am I going to compress all this beautiful content into 1250 words? What do I leave out and what do I have in because everything is so precious and so layered and comes with such lessons? As I drive out, I ring my editor and I tell her, “I need more space for this interview. And this is why…”

 

Listen, I will tell you about the man in the next blog post. I promise. I have run out of time. I have to get some shit down asap. Why am I telling you this story? Who is this woman? Why should you care about what she has to say? Why is this particular interview important? Are we even decent humans for ignoring the cookies? Why do we buy cookies and then ignore them? Why can’t we just buy grapes and apples, then? Why lead on these poor cookies? Have we not learnt anything about rejection to give us empathy?

 

These are all important questions. I think it’s a good story. It’s unapologetic. It’s says I’ve done so many successful things, but I have also made mistakes along the way. There are warts and nuggets. I think it’s a story I would want my own daughter to read one day because she will leave with lessons. I did. You will too. So pick up the Business Daily this Friday, or find it online. Then read it. Better still, do me a favour, read it while munching on a cookie. Right our wrong.

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106 Comments
  1. “Fear is mental construct while bravery is a construct of the heart.”
    She seems to have been oozing with wisdom.I’ll sure be on the look out for the Business Daily.

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    1. Noooo… you are not lost. I will guide you. It is angle theta. Unknown angles are referred to as angle theta and may be calculated in various ways, based on known sides and angles. Are we together? When a triangle contains a 90 degree angle, it is known as a right angle triangle, and angle theta can be determined using the acronym SOHCAHTOA. I really hope this helps. HEHEHE.

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    2. Hii Maisha ni kusaidiana. Noooo… you are not lost. I will guide you. It is angle theta. Unknown angles are referred to as angle theta and may be calculated in various ways, based on known sides and angles. Are we together? When a triangle contains a 90 degree angle, it is known as a right angle triangle, and angle theta can be determined using the acronym SOHCAHTOA. I really hope this helps. HEHEHE.

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  2. The writing, impeccable. Devouring each word and sentence one after the other, like some well roasted peanuts. The analogies always get me. “Cookies stare at us like step children.”

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  3. Are we even decent humans for ignoring the cookies? Why do we buy cookies and then ignore them?..haha

    I cant wait for Friday to read the article..Hoping to get great lessons from it and right your wrong while doing so…

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      1. I have reached the end and the question I have asked myself is why the story ended before it was even told. An elaborate story has been told about the lady’s house, the two assistants and the cookies. Where is the lady’s story?

  4. If I were a kid I’d throw a perfect tantrum over this article. I was hoping to be consumed by her nuggets of wisdom. The lady seems to truly have the hang of life. I will get the business daily just to see why she said her married ended rather than failed.

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  5. You’re a wordsmith Biko… I can’t help but feel insufficient when I read your posts. I hope to get to your level. Nice read.

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  6. And I like broken parts. I like to nose in there, pry them open further and shine a torch therein, because it’s in those dark, broken places that you see the true character of man. Yes Broken is beautiful.

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  7. Haha surely Biko you got me, I have been waiting for this article so long then you say till Friday, haa?! Anyway it is well, sounds like a good read.

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  8. I had the pleasure of being her chauffeur for four days during a conference in Nairobi. She is the closest thing to royalty that I’ve met. Yet she carries herself with grace and humility that by the end of the first day I felt like we were long time friends. In our line of work, we are used to arrogant, rude or dismissive clients. She was the opposite. She is warm and kind and treats you as a human being. A person. She is everything Biko describes and much more. Can’t wait to read the article on Friday.

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  9. Damn Biko! I have been waiting for your post today, now I have to wait some more, not fair. Oh well, Friday it is.
    Also this>>>”….and off they go again about more MBA stuff that can be used as anaesthesia to bring down a grown elephant.” hahaha

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  10. The way you play around with words Biko… I wish you could be posting atleast twice a week. Can’t believe I have to wait for next Tusday :(.. You inspire me! *Oh, and btw, drawing during interviews is not just your thing. Hehe.. I do the same just to keep me relaxed during conversations. Some people do find it rude though.

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  11. I too love broken parts because i feel like I am a collection of broken parts. Am not whole…Friday it is then

  12. I like everything about it, but today I feel you’ve played us Chocolate man. But hey maybe I’m just moody like the one that did not get to ride the bike coz its cold.

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  13. Whenever I start developing an ego about how good of a writer I am, I usually open your website, read an article (any, because all are amazing), get humbled and get back to work.

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  14. I finally read his blog on time. My reminder is set for Friday with Business Daily!! and Cookies Suck thats why they are left alone… hehehe

  15. hae Biko.next time u planning to postpone a story please let us know.recently i have been reading ur stories n they help me relax especially from my beautiful,amaizing and nagging wife.now till friday i have to come up with a plan b!

  16. Creative way of making me read that paper that I don’t usually read. There was a typo there ‘Then she said talked about that.’
    Great read Biko I almost practiced how she smiles.

  17. I’m just jealous that you get a front seat to all these amazing interviews and amazing people….now i have to sit at this office desk and think of the white carpet and how beautiful the lady is. But most importantly how her voice sounds like.

  18. A brilliant read Biko. N then this was a saying“In Africa, when an old man dies it’s like a library is burning. – Amadou Hampate. (1900 to 1991)….BTW what is it with people doing MBAs,they should just know we’re happy for them and we don’t care.Lol.Let me wait for the rest of the story on Business Daily.

  19. And for us in the diaspora(read Uganda) do we have to subscribe to the Business Daily?? Can we have a link….!!!

  20. OK. I’m waiting to read her story, or rather your interview with her. What did she tell you? I like a good dose of drama.

  21. The description is mind-blowing, but Bwana Biko has fawned so much over “the subject”, and her surroundings that he’s left out the ‘meat of the story.’
    Then Fri-yay will arrive and lo and behold…there’s a wordcount, and editors…to further condense any message therein..le big SIGH!!

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  22. Last week was my first time reading a bikozulu write up …it was refreshing..I loved it
    Oh and yes,the person who commits suicide is more than a brave knight.Taking your own life is no small feat ;requires alot of courage but then again they weren’t brave enough to ask for help or push through their situation any more so I am not sure who between the two is braver. The one who will jump infront of a moving train ,bear to hang from the tree/ceiling or they that can’t do it at all cause they will to push through

  23. I feel cheated. I had gotten all cosy and a box of tissues with me ( because it seems brokenness carries with it many tears). But Friday will come… There’s hope.

  24. Biko , you are one of the few , actually the only I know who can write a gripping story about “nothing” so here I was waiting to read THE interview , I got to the end totally bemused after reading the story about the story , I need to gift myself one of your masterclasses . When I grow up I want to write like you …..the count down to Friday begins !

  25. You just pulled a fast one on me. Lakini ni sawa tu anyway I read all your BS Daily Interviews they are interesting you never stick the conventional Q and A questions

  26. The Business Daily needs a plug on here? Times, they truly are a-changin’. I’m intrigued though by how you found out about the warmth of an African Wild cat’s paws….

  27. “Now, I never have set questions to ask because I’m not that studious kind of writer who stays up all night rummaging through the 12th page of Google.”
    The failed interview with PORK?

  28. Sometimes you sound like a mad scientist when you call your interviewees….. subjects!! Why not try something like participant or interviewee? I love the articles nevertheless

  29. :As I write this I’m just from interviewing a wealthy, 74-year old Asian guy whose great-great-great-grandfather came to Africa on a dhow in 1897 when my people were still removing their six lower teeth and your people were making fire rubbing two sticks together to boil warus.
    Biko please leave warus out of this ,…Okey?

  30. Biko! This is one of those reads I do while checking the scroll bar position; just to predict how long the article will still go before we hit end. Sawa tu, Friday it is.

  31. Biko! This is one of those reads I do while checking the scroll bar position; just to predict how long the article will still go before we hit end. Sawa tu, Tuesday it is.

  32. I love the title ‘The Plug’.

    Reading this story is like experiencing a flow of current-like sensations that ripples though the body only for someone to unplug it from the ‘power’ source.

    To rekindle the experience, you have to wait patiently for three days to plug it back to the ‘power’ source – The Business Daily.

    The read is riveting Biko. And the jolt too powerful. Friday here we come.

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  33. I have read this story while walking in a very busy town, ‘un’ distracted all the way. The words are catchy, now I have cookies on my list this Friday.

  34. The referred to BD story on Carole Wainaina left me with a somewhat sad feeling. The reality that one can seem to have it all, but in actual fact is really losing at big part of it.

      1. Jules and Myers, it is clear that my story touched you emotionally (as good stories should).
        The truth is, no one has it all. Life is a beautiful mosaic of triumphs and struggles both necessary for growth and joy.
        There is so much more to my story and this interview focused more on the struggles. The truth is I feel very blessed and would not change a thing. So it’s Ok to feel sad for a while but know that stories only bring out in others what already exists on the inside.
        At this stage in my life, I have more peace and joy than I have had at other times in my life. (Maybe that’s why I can share my struggles so openly)
        Embrace life with courage and be present to every moment. Life is, after all, a portfolio of experiences. I have had some really amazing ones. More stories to share ……..

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  35. I had a teacher of English in high school who would say “Write me a composition that will make me forget my tea and only notice it’s cold after I am done.” He would have loved you.

  36. Here’s the link people: https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/lifestyle/profiles/My-Marriage-Never-Failed-It-Ended/4258438-4683628-11d10snz/index.html

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  37. Hapa umetucheza Biko!!!! I kept reading hoping to read about the lady. Oh well, lets hope for better next time….

  38. In case you’re looking for the article on business daily it’s here
    https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/lifestyle/profiles/My-Marriage-Never-Failed-It-Ended/4258438-4683628-11d10snz/index.html

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  39. Thanks Biko!

    Caroles’ is indeed a world of endings not failures! I just finished reading the narrative on the business daily!

    Her kids grew up as third-culture kids! Balancing several worlds! It can either make one rest-less or care-free! Am not sure which one they adopted!

    Beautifully and unsurprisingly, in the end, Caroles’ most rewarding achievement in life is her kids! Being on the business daily, i expected her most rewarding achievement to be something sage-ish…on career! Clearly, my take home here is that after all is said and done, family is the priority! The irony of life!

  40. Biko, can we have a link to the article? some of us in the abroad do not have access tried looking for it in the online version of business daily na sioni. help a sister out. Intrigued and really want to read the article. thank you.

  41. I would like to read more on the marriage not failing but ending and the politics of a man controlling a woman who earns more

  42. I read the post in business in business daily…

    https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/lifestyle/profiles/My-Marriage-Never-Failed-It-Ended/4258438-4683628-11d10snz/index.html

    I love that interview and how the lady responded… she’s just too wise.. tell her to write a book..
    but honestly Biko,, you finished that interview with me wanting more…….

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