Confessions of a Late Night Chef

I can’t sleep. Its 1:00am & I haven’t even hinted at a yawn yet.  I’m not supposed to go outside after dark. I guess it’s dangerous… I cannot sit in the house anymore. I wasted the best part of today’s sunlight inside, working, emailing, procrastinating… So I wander out into tonight’s darkness. I walk down outer-ring road looking for something, but not sure what yet. I stop at a pub that seems well lit. Sitting at the bar I order a beer & a pack of smokes. I open my Whitecap & fortunately smell its foul stench before taking a drink. I hand it back to the barkeep & she serves me a Tusker that smells closer to normal. The cigarettes are disappointing as always. The first drag tastes great. Halfway through I feel I bit light-headed (the benefit of rarely smoking), but by the end I feel disgusted by the stale taste on my gums.

I need some food to wash the disappointment out of my mouth. I leave and continue walking down the road. I know a good place to grab Mbuzi Choma (grilled goat) about a kilometer down the road. Arriving I find more disappointment. They are closed. I walk a bit further dodging the puddles left from tonight’s rain. Mud gets stuck between the bed of my Chaco sandal & my foot, as I notice that the air smells like a port-a-john in need of servicing. This has to be the only country that smells worse after it rains.

I spot a kiosk down the road with lights on. I head that way and begin to smell burning charcoal & see smoke. I walk into the brightly lit shack & find a 20-something man alone manning a fire with a large metal pot on it. I ask if he has anything left. He assures me that his beans and chapattis are always ready – 24 hours a day. I order a bowl, sit down, & pull out another cigarette.  It is just as disappointing as the last. The man brings me a very hot and very overcooked bowl of beans, a perfect chapatti, and a cup of chai. My first sip of the tea awarded me with a mouthful of slimy skin. I finished it all and silently hope that my stomach would not punish me for taking a gamble on food from a kiosk at 3:00am.

The late night chef takes a seat next to me & asks how I find my meal, Kenya & Eastlands (the area I am in). I lie a bit and tell him that I love all three. I offer him a smoke and we light up together. I notice two women walking down the street & suggest that it is a bit dangerous for “mamas” to be walking around this time of night. He retorts that business is good for them around this hour. “Oh… …They are prostitutes?” I half ask half state. He confirms my conclusion and then explains that they use the small hotel just down the alley from where we are. “The rates are good.” He explains that you can just go into the bar area and ask to see the magazine. “From there you just point to the picture of the girl you want.”  He goes on to explain that he used to find a prostitute to pay for sex every Friday night. It was his routine of sorts. He explains to me in a matter-of-fact tone that sometimes he wouldn’t even use protection. Laughingly, I tell him that he is being stupid. “You are a good looking guy, why would you pay for sex. Dangerous sex at that!” He quickly jumps in and reassures me that he doesn’t do it anymore.  A few months ago he went to a VCT (Free HIV testing/counseling center). He found out that he was “negative.” He went on to explain that now that he knows he is clean he doesn’t take those sort of chances anymore. I offer a few words and acknowledge his wise decision.

I ask him if he has any eggs I can buy, and he confirms that he has fresh ones. I buy three to boil for breakfast the next day. He puts them in a baggie and takes 100 KSH for the meal & eggs. I leave him the rest of the pack of cigarettes and nervously begin to walk back home. I really don’t want to deal with any punks on the way home. I’ve been called brave; I’ve been called stupid. Either way I don’t like to run into guys with big knives.

Its starts to rain again…