Servant Quarters

Boy I miss those SQ days.

When did we all grow up and have babies, and become wives, and have monthly shopping budgets and mortgages? When did life become sooo..... serious? When did we start needing to have fruits after dinner? What happened to Mama Mboga downstairs who perfectly cut our mbogas and tied them in a ka-small paper bag? We only needed two onions then. Now we buy them in kilograms. Counting them carefully to make sure they last through the month and praying that it's not our turn to host Chama as this would reflect negatively on onion supplies for the month.

Boy I miss those days.

I miss sharing a room with a roommate you didn't get along with most of the time. I miss getting upset over who's turn it was to cook, and who's visitor left mud in the living room or who's little brother came for the weekend and refused to leave. *Sigh*. Now I'm all grown and married, now I'm paying school fees and preparing packed lunches, attending sports days and dropping off kids at Sunday school.

When did we become so serious?

What became of those days, when we jav'd to every place and knew the spots where it was 10bob less to catch a jav to town? Now we calculate how much distance per litre our cars travel. Back then, if you had a car, it was either borrowed or stolen. Okay, so it was borrowed. It was a rundown Toyota that your folks let you use to 'tarmac'. Huh. Tarmacking. Boy was I young. Back then all I needed was to make 5k. 5k was enough to pay my share of the rent and bills. 5k would get me a jav to and from work 5 days a week. And I could catch a movie at Kenya Cinema once a month if I wanted to. Now my feet can't even find their way to Kenya Cinema. We don't walk that side of town no more do we? We do Silverbird Westgate. Preceded by dinner at Art Caffe. Back then it was Kenchic or BUST! Now, Java is the new Kenchic.

Today I'm having a 'meeting' with my househelp. I have a fully LIVE-IN househelp! And we have 'meetings' to discuss her conduct, or more aptly put, her misconduct. Goodness! Things have spiralled since those SQ days. Back then we had a Mama Nguo who came in once a week to wash our knee-length blazers, faux silk tops and hipsters. Thankfully I don't do official wear anymore, but when I did, it was serious power suits, enough for me to wear for 4 weeks straight without ever having to wear one outfit twice. Our lives have since been cluttered by needing to keep up with some guy named Jones.

Those SQ days were really something. We had one hard mismatched sofa that we inherited from our folks house, and a couple of dining room chairs. Mismatched. Also inherited. A run-down coffee table, a 1000 bob carpet from Ukwala and a tiny winy 14-inch television (with no external aerial). We had a Meko, and no fridge; you buy, you cook. We had a double-decker bed; very space friendly. Look at us now. I have a fund to save up for a corner-sofa and would have loved to be able to afford one of those hang-on-the-wall plasma tvs. Come in handy during future Barcelona-Arsenal games. But I have bigger priorities now. I have monthly shopping and school fees to pay. I have investments. I've got things to do. From time to time I find myself with a good amount of month at the end of my money. (Trust me I've come a long way, I'm not as bad as I used to be. Tee hee hee)

Still, I miss those SQ days.