Mzungu

Written by Eme Ferreira

1- It took one year for me to lose my kindness. When I’m driving along Peponi Road and the children ask me for money, I just say: Hakuna pesa, pole sana. I don’t have any money, sorry. And then I protect myself behind the tinted windows.

2- The last two days were hard. How easy it is to lose track of time when I’m squeezing myself, becoming, reincarnated, a sore.

3- I am having lunch in Artcaffé while reading a business magazine. I read the word “love”, and I think it is so disgusting to mix love with these affairs. The issue is the value, in both cases, I know. But businesses are more proofing, I guess. Love is like this salad that I’m eating, dressing with apple vinegar. It goes down easily.

4- I realized that in Karen there is an animal refuge. I’m glad for the animals who are abandoned in Karen. I want to spit into those people’s minds. What the fuck. Save animals? Go to Makuyu, the dogs could eat that fucking sukuma without cooking. And nobody cares. But in Karen it is different. Do you know why? Because the money fucks the people’s brains.

5- Oh yes, money is also fucking mine. I drive with the windows open in the middle of the night. Along the Thika Road. I know someone could shot me. But I don’t mind. I can only think “Kai utoi noowe kiambiriria na kirikiro giakwa“, which means “Don’t you know you are the start and end of me” in Kikuyu. I’m dissolving in love. I’m dissolving in money. I’m mixing them.

6- When I arrive Makuyu, in the night, a patient is dying. I text you. And you are there, telling me “be strong“. And I just wanna fuck you. And the patient is dying. And I’m thinking of your fingers sliding inside me. In you beside me, in the car, putting your hand on my thigh, as if it were a political act. Like colonialism. Like now your land is my land.

7- And the death is just painful if you are not watching me. So, my love, look at me. Look how I’m healing rotten flesh. Look how I’m loving the fucking humanity just because when I’m mitigating their pain. I’m loving you.

Eme Ferreira was born in 1989. She is Spanish but lives and works in Kenya. She loves Tea, Diet Coke and Poetry. She writes at Menos Lobos, Caperucita.