Plastic Bags and Lyrics

I love rainy weather. The gloomy air, the heavy grey clouds, the water. The smell of the earth changing after the rain. In the background, there’s Jay-Z a.k.a Baba Ivy (that’s as far as I will go with that), behind a mic, accompanied by a sultry voiced mama harmonizing his rap. He is singing something about apologizing for the miscarriages he caused because he wasn’t present. That’s deep, ama it’s just a metaphor, either way… in comes Minaj and Mama Ivy talking about women empowerment and ‘feeling themselves’. That’s music on shuffle for you, no mood flow whatsoever. Back to the feeling myself thing, if I were the one using that line, tsk tsk tsk. Imagine it, there I am, in the shower surrounded by all the foam from my bathing soap and then, I break into that line, “I’m feeling myself, I’m feeling myself.” No that just won’t work, at least not in the house I live in.
Yes, I do have Nicki and Beyoncé in my music player, gotta problem? I thought so!
So it is in this setting that I come to you today, on a rainy afternoon with my music on shuffle and I am in a jumper I used as the top-half of my pajamas in primary boarding school. The plastic ban is in full effect outchea on these 254 streets, I feel so cool saying that, like those kids in primary school who came to school with packed cheese and bacon for 10 o’clock tea, Sarah and your cousin, you know yourselves; while me, well, I had a fitting snack; bread with Blueband on both slices cut in half.
There’s obviously mixed feelings about this ban, how will we carry our chapos, mandazis, supu and githeri from now on. Then there is other side, now we will have clean streets and no blocked drainages during the rainy season. My worry was how I was going to carry sukuma from Mama Monica. She is the best mama mboga you will ever have. And her sukuma-cutting prowess is UNMATCHED, quote me on this. Typical weekday evening:
“Habari ya leo Mama Monica, utanikatakatia sukuma za sixty nikujie nikipanda ivi? Nimefika hapa stage nakam.”
Mama Monica, the Green Queen, works her knife magic on the sukuma like no one’s business. Sukuma Slayer, Mother of the Sukuma Dragons, I believe she should start her own Sukuma-Cutting academy and charge exorbitant fees to teach us how to do this biashara. Trust me, I would willingly take a HELB loan to pay the fees. So I come back from stage, my mouth is busy: roasted maize, with pili pili, you honestly cannot blame me. The evening, aah yes, the evening. Everyone is on the streets, in the market, to buy that last minute tomato, or if I were to be honest, we are all out here to hear what’s been going on.
“Ati Solo did what to his baby mama?”
“Aiii Caro can’t have bought her car off of her pre-school teacher salo, she must be knowing people, people with vitambis and butcheries.”
“Yes, I heard what the police did to Jamo, sad, very sad, and the way his nduthi (motorbike) business was going well.”
“Eeh, me kwanza I would send him to pick my kids from school, he even had the spare key to my house.”
“Eeeh, finally you have admitted it, and the way you go to church Mary, aiii hata huna haya, yaani you even sleep around with Jamo? Jamo, Jamo wa Mercy? You are a bad person aki.”
“Tebu mind your business Joyce, kwanza, who pays the rent for that salon business of yours? Ama you want to tell me business has been good?”
And so it goes, Baba Mike at the butchery discussing with the other gents about the English League’s Transfer Window. Football, politics, Sharon walks in, silence.
“Sema mrembo, na si umelost! Umekuwa wapi?”
Blush blush. Touch touch. Sharon gets VIP treatment in this butchery. She is given the best meat, no fat, no bones, just cow flesh, red cow flesh. She is ‘special’. Soon, she will leave her employment at Mama Frank’s to get married. Then, she will be the talk of the evening dust. I have seen enough, I am leaving, I have to get my sukuma from Mama Monica’s, but first, Kioko and his maize. So we (my maize and I) get back to Mama Monica’s. She is sipping something steaming from her mabati cup. The ushago type. The type I have been using on here in my recent posts.
“Ndio nimerudi, ushamalizia?”
“Eeh, nimemaliza, ndio izi apa.”
The sukuma is packed well, tightly with a perforation at the sides to get rid of the excess air. She hands me the package. One of many that lie on the counter next to the tomatoes and onions. From my trousers, I take it out. I blow air into it to make it look alive. I take my package and put it inside. Plastic on plastic. Mama Monica doesn’t care for what NEMA has to say, she has customers who need their sukuma cut, so she cuts, and packs it in the plastic bag she has been packing in since she began building and running her mboga-cutting empire. Me, well, I was feeling dangerous. Plastic bags under the sink, I took one, folded her (I assumed the bag was a girl, because well, I can. I didn’t name her to avoid getting too attached) neatly into my pocket (in case anyone stopped me to frisk me) and walked into the evening dust and gossip, knowing my actions could cost me my good conduct certificate and get me to that place where ‘please tuma zile pesa kwa hii number” messages come from. God, I love those messages, they make me feel rich, rich enough to be a scam target, indeed it’s the little things that bring us joy.
Mwaniki and Mama Monica, the plastic bag mafia (please be informed that I use the word ‘mafia’ in this context very loosely). Sixty bob passes hands, I take two packets of milk from her on credit, I promise to pay tomorrow morning, hoping the NEMA people don’t get me into the scammery a little too soon (scammery, I smiled when I read that word, a real classic). If you are reading this please note, I am not in the scammery, I wasn’t caught and that was because I chose a lonely path where I could easily discard my plastic if they caught up with me. You can only be too brave don’t you think? On that note, let me leave you with Jay-z and Kanye West rapping excitedly with a lot of energy accompanied by high energy instrumentals about Black Males in the French City Of Paris, also known as, The City of Light.

Well I’m not leaving you leaving you, just changing the subject. Ladies, gents, boys, girls a topic that is close to my heart- well it is basically the only thing I live for in this world: FOOD. How about some Microwave Chocolate Cake with Custard everybody? This recipe is super simple and it is obviously quite fast. That time when you are Netflix and chilling, or rather, DVD player and chilling, make them this and maybe just maybe…

Ingredients
¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoonful of sugar
2 heaped teaspoons of cocoa powder (not sweetened)
2 tablespoons of molten butter/margarine
¼ cup whole milk
2 drops vanilla essence

Method
Mix the dry ingredients together in a microwave safe cup. Make sure they are all properly mixed. Add the wet ingredients i.e. the milk and molten margarine. Mix these together to make sure all are properly mixed. Once the cake batter is consistent and well mixed, put in your vanilla essence and mix. Put this in the microwave for 1 or 2 minutes, or until the cake stops rising. Dress this with custard or ice cream. A simple custard recipe would be;

Ingredients
2 heaped custard powder
100 ml water
100 ml milk
2 tablespoonful of sugar
Extra milk

Method
Using the extra milk, make a thick paste by adding the custard powder. In a saucepan, boil the 100ml milk, sugar and 100ml water. Add the thick paste to the boiling mixture and stir to a porridge-like consistency. Let it cool before using it.

There you have it fam, simple cake in the microwave. Catch you next time. Thank you for reading through, kindly look at my previous posts and share widely.
Asante sana and Kwaheri.