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Narok Kuku
by
Celia S. McClinton Narok, Kenya, the last stop before the Trans-Mara wilderness, is a primitive frontier town. Whores from a dozen different tribes work dingy, kerosene-lighted bars that by day double as butcher shops. Arrogant Maasai Morani wander the streets wrapped in cloth as red as their mudded dread locks, their razor-sharp spears flashing in the sunlight. Naked boys, their willies waggling, frantically herd goats through muddy streets alive with refuse and sewage. The city’s generator produces only when electricity isn’t needed. It roars and rumbles at high noon all during the dry season but falls silent before dusk and fails completely at the first sign of the seasonal rains. There are no working telephones. Regarding it all with an unenthusiastic eye, Dr. Condor felt that he at last knew what Laramie, Wyoming, must have been like in 1858. The Spear Hotel alone provides an air of respectability. Dr. Condor resided there when he was a consultant for the Wildlife Ministry, by day arguing with bureaucrats about how best to torch the infamous, tsetse-infested Ruma Bush and by night doing battle with his room’s inexhaustible population of cockroaches. His most pleasurable moments were spent in the dining room where he took his evening meals and often as not lingered over one too many of those rich, frothy Kenyan beers served, of course, at slightly above room temperature. “A beer, bwana, a Tusker,” he said, and he studied the bill-of-fare while he waited. Hmm, he thought. The rum steak, or Nile perch? Nile perch, Lake Victoria’s recent invader. As big as whales, they tear Volkswagen sized holes in fishing nets, upset boats and eat all the tilapia, Lake Victoria’s traditional catch. Patriotic to eat Nile perch, he thought. How I love the light, white meat. Two inches thick steaks. But, no, this far from the lake and with no refrigeration, fish, any fish, could be fatal. When the waiter returned with his beer, he impulsively ordered chicken, kuku, with vegetables in season. Shredded carrots and cabbage, and sukuma wiki, a kind of collards boiled to a thick green paste. Ugali, boiled corn meal something like grits but unsalted and thicker, didn’t have to be ordered. It came without asking. He wondered why he had ordered chicken and knew he’d regret it. Kenyan chickens are all alike. They spend a lifetime in insistent combat with large, rabid dogs, and they have been victorious in every instance or they wouldn’t be available for the cook pot. They are finally sacrificed only when death from old age is imminent. Their skin is like rhino hide; their meat worse than old auto tires, and these qualities are achieved only by boiling for a week in a mild acid solution. But the meal placed before him was rum steak, not chicken. Wasn’t I clear enough? he wondered. Well, eat it and don’t complain, he admonished himself while smothering a slight feeling of linguistic insecurity. It’s better than chicken anyway. The next night he was determined. He ordered in English and in Swahili. “Kuku, bwana, chicken, with vegetables in season. Is that clear enough? And, for God’s sake man, a second Tusker. Try to get a cold one, or a least a cool one.” “Yes, bwana. A cold Tusker. And kuku with seasonable vegetables.” His second beer arrived immediately and was warmer still than his first. When the chicken arrived it was once again a rum steak garnished with seasonal vegetables. The side of ugali would have fed the world’s refugees for a week. “Bwana,” Dr. Condor said with an irritated tone, “I ordered chicken. Clearly I did exactly that.” “Yes, bwana,” the waiter replied. “Just so. It is kuku, exactly as you have requested.” “No. No, it is not. It is rum steak. Well, maybe not, since I’m not really sure what a rum steak is. But, it is beef anyway. Beef. Nyama ya ng’ombe. Anyone can see that. I ordered chicken. Kuku.” “Bwana. That is the chicken. Or the Nile perch. Or the pork medallions. Or the lasagna. It is whatever you want it to be because it is what we have.” Dr. Condor sat in silence for a moment contemplating the plate of well-charred steak and the overcooked vegetables that sat like a damp dishrag in front of him. Across the dinning room, standing in the door leading to the bar, a whore studied him with her almond like brown eyes. A Kikuyu whore. He knew she was Kikuyu. Short and rounded in all the right places unlike the angular Maasai woman who wouldn’t dare whore so close to home. She was wondering if he, this foreigner, this mgeni, this Americani, might allow her some sleep and provide her a free breakfast. He was aware of her and wondered if she’d yet entered her fifteenth year. Outside the dinning room, just beyond its single window that stood fully open, a confrontation between a herd of goats and their small herdsmen erupted. The goats objected to some demand with raucous bleating and the boys, Dr. Condor was sure they were stark naked even though he couldn’t see them, responded with an explosion of Maasai expletives well beyond Dr. Condor’s modest grasp but raw enough to make his waiter wince with embarrassment. As the disturbance dwindled, he took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and said, “Right. I guess I’ve failed to understand these, ah, finer distinctions. So, ah, asante. Asante sana. Yes, yes, thank you. Thank you very much. I will enjoy, indeed I will relish my, ah, yes, ah, chicken.” And, attempting to maintain some dignity while avoiding the Kikuyu whore's puzzled stare, he sipped again at his beer before taking up the flatware wrapped neatly in a green cloth napkin. |
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