MAN IN THE HOOD: Memories of my bedsitter days

I do not currently reside in a bedsitter but I have both pleasant and rancorous memories of the days when I used to.

There is no greater day than the day when you finally move out of the bedsitter to a one-bedroom or two-bedroom house. You can’t help but get that lingering feeling of glory, the feeling that you have made it.

It doesn’t matter if that one-bedroom house is in a shady estate, you’ll still feel like Neil Armstrong. By that, I mean ‘over the moon’. I hate saying ‘see what I did there’ but ‘do you see what I did there?’ No? I didn’t do anything? Okay.

When you move from a bedsitter, you feel like you should visit schools and give motivational talks on how to be successful. You feel like you can call Chris Kirubi to invite him for lunch and instruct him not to be late.

Even if you grew up in Eastlands or ocha, you feel tempted to start speaking like the Subaru-driving, lounge-loving dudes. Like “Jana si we were dundaing like crazy. Maze we kunywad some bottys of Jemy you guy my guy. Alafu later we got into Brayo’s motty and headed to Westy.”

EXILED
My first experience in a bedsitter was when I used to live with one of my older brothers in Pangani while waiting to join campus.

He would show up randomly with a female visitor and tell me to look for somewhere to spend the night. This practice is popularly known as ‘getting exiled’.

I was subjected to worse exiles than Koigi Wa Wamwere and deposed African leaders like Mengistu Haile Mariam.

The most brutal exiles were when he would come late in the night after I had already tucked myself in the blankets. Poor me! With my drowsy eyes, I had to start knocking on the doors of friendly neighbours in search of a place to sleep.

REVENGE
When I was in university, I also got to exile some of my roommates. I never lived in the hostels so I got to enjoy the life of a bedsitter for the entire four years.

I remember how I nearly got into a fight with a roommate once because he refused to find another place to chill.

One of the Miss University contestants, a pretty uptown girl, was coming over. She had fallen for me after seeing my interview in one of the campus magazines.

But this guy was putting up a rebellion, or as they say alikua amekaa ngumu. He insisted he wanted to study. I couldn’t believe it. I had hit a jackpot and he was about to ruin it.

I had to bribe him with a promise of buying him lunch for the whole week because I knew that food was his Achilles’ heel.

I never honoured that promise by the way. He still has a grudge with me to this day because of it.

TERRIBLE DATE

Anyway, so the lady came but the date was a calamity. As soon she stepped foot in my bedsitter, she was really shocked. She kept staring at the place like it was an early man’s cave.

“You mean you live here?” she asked. I nodded innocently, knowing that an assault on my ego was about to come.

"You don’t feel suffocated or something? I mean, can you even stretch your legs in this place? This is like my little brother’s bedroom. And is it hygienic to cook just a few metres from your sleeping area?”

If I was to rank my worst dates ever, I’d place this at number two. I’ll tell you about number one another day.

The beauty queen left after 10 minutes, regretting why she wasted her time coming and I, regretting why I didn’t pick someone in my own low-tier league.

IMPROVISING

After college, I got to live in like two other bedsitters before I finally got my big break to a house with a proper kitchen and sitting room.

While still living in bedsitters, I kept on experiencing countless challenges but one of the major ones was accommodating visitors.

If you are blessed with many friends, you usually find yourself having to improvise several household items to become temporary seats. Or rather, you let people improvise them themselves.

General rule – just sit anywhere.

Obviously, the bed and the single couch that you have cannot accommodate everyone. Some people even sit on your gas cylinder while some hang on the armrest like bats.

Not to forget the 20-litre water jerry can. It serves as a very good seat. But it has to be full of water. Otherwise heavy people will crush it and bring you losses that you don’t need.

LIFE ACADEMY

Visiting the toilet is usually a dreadful moment too in a bedsitter when there are visitors. Yes, not the washroom but a toilet. Washrooms or loos only apply to houses with more than one room.

Anyway, when you visit the toilet for a long call in a bedsitter when other people are around, you have to fire your cargo like a Stechkin silent revolver.

Any excessive sound you make will reach the people out there. And trust me, they will laugh. They might not laugh immediately but as soon as they are out, they will crack up.

Still, a bedsitter has its advantages. You can cook while lying on your bed. You don’t have to move long distances to anything; whatever you need is always three steps away.

All in all, I am grateful for my bedsitter days. A bedsitter is an ideal life academy. It toughens you up for wherever you will end up living in future.

Shout out to every guy who graduated from a bedsitter and everyone who is still living in one. It’s all part of the process