Bird Hunter’s Kenyan coast experience… continued

Last week I promised to ‘see you next week’ and here I am to honour my promise as an honourable hunter. Before the early retired rugby player cum my editor cut me off last week, I was telling you about my escapades at the Kenyan coast. I was telling you that after surviving a possible encounter with the dreaded extra-terrestrial creatures of the coast city I managed to discover a secret - a night club where tourists and locals mingled, danced and drank as if they were in Las Vegas. The place sharply contrasted with its surroundings where birds covered themselves from toe to face in bui-buis, despite the roasting humidity. Here, people were in total agreement with nature and wore as little clothes as possible ‘to avoid roasting. But some of the birds, especially the local ones, were a bit overboard in trying to ‘respect nature’ by leaving the biggest part of their bodies bare. Some were even bold enough to dress in bikinis despite the fact that the club was anything but near the shores of the Indian Ocean. But if you think I am trying to complain, then you are mistaken! Well, as usual, I occupied a strategic place by the counter where I was sure I could monitor the ‘imports’ and ‘exports.’ By associating with members of the most feared army in the African continent (don’t expect me to elaborate further because even if you were born yesterday, I expect you to know which army this is) I have been able to acquire a few strategic skills which I use in sustaining a bird hunt. Let me pass some of the skills to you. After winning a strategic point at the battle field, you start observing the moves of the enemy from every corner. Relax and let the enemy underestimate you before attacking when he thinks he is surely winning. Once you dominate, you will be able not only to conquer the area around the battle field, but an extensive area because the enemy will be too weakened and too afraid to stop you from marching on other controlled areas. That is why the military is the best school (but don’t try this at home). I normally use the military skills which I acquired without enlisting when I am hunting in an unfamiliar territory. That is why I unleashed them when I was at this club and I registered big successes. You know, without a sober mind, once in a place like this you could land in big trouble. You could mistake the bikini birds to be items up for sale and be ‘tempted to touch’ as a way of sampling quality and ‘featheriness.’ Before you know it, a bird would think you are being disrespectful and file for sexual harassment and you would end up in Shimo la Tewa for a long time – and by the time you come out you would no longer be able to hunt. You can never catch me in this act. Back to the club, I sat sipping on a soft drink as I enjoyed the scenes of muzungus dancing to East African hits and I can assure you that this is quite entertaining. These guys have no clue about shaking bodies according to the rhythm of the music. Their policy is ‘just shake your body according to the noise’ and you should see them, shaking their heads, legs, feet, hands, in an uncoordinated way, as if they were nuts. Watching these scenes engrossed me so much that for a while I even forgot where I was, until something caught my eye. I was startled to see a bird staring at me very hard from a far corner beyond a group of zungus who were doing ‘their thing.’ I could swear this bird looked familiar but I could not trace where I had met her since this was my first day at the coast – in fact, I had barely spent a few hours since I arrived. As I was trying to think in order to put my memories in perspective, the bird started pushing through the dancing zungus, towards me. For a moment, I thought that perhaps she was going out but the fact that she was staring at me made my heart start to race. Was this a jinni? I almost bolted out of the club when she came and smiled at me but I decided to stand my ground and face whatever was to come as a hunter. “I assume you are not from around here, judging from the way you looked amused and terrified on the ferry earlier.” Oh my days! So, the Jini that I thought I had shaken off had finally traced and caught up with me? I knew I was finished. My proverbial 40 days had come to pass for sure. My whole body started sweating as cold chills ran down my spine. Then she went on, “I am also from Nairobi but I work here in Mombasa. That is why it is easy for me to identify people from bara (non coastal area) - that is why I was staring at you when we were on the ferry.” This she said as she climbed on a high counter stool next to me. I took the opportunity to look at her feet in order to establish she was really human. She had shoes on and I sighed with relief. Apparently she had suspected my fears and she uncontrollably laughed at my action of probing her feet, she almost fell off the high stool. “So you thought I was a jinni? I suspected so! You seriously believe in such falsehoods? Come on!” Well, I ‘ceased to believe in such falsehoods’ and all I can tell you now is that that night and the one that followed went down my diary as one of the most memorable. As they say, entering Mombasa is easy, but when it comes to exiting, you need a bulldozer to move you. See you next week.