Be My Neighbour

I am not one who places adverts in the newspapers and in fact once in a while I have admonished people who have done so. But this week, I am close to doing so after my life turned into a mini-nightmare with the advent of a new neighbour.

First the good book tells us to love our neighbours. It would help if we knew what love really means! I don’t know about love; that is why I blog so much about it. It is also why so many musicians sing about it. In fact, Foreigner even went ahead and sang that craving we all have: I Want To Know What Love Is.

‘Love Is All Around’ replied Wet Wet Wet but they were wrong, wrong, wrong on account of my neighbours.

Even people in love don’t know what love is.

Many a time, when we have fallen ‘in love’ with someone we have tended to imagine that this is the best love we could ever feel. Thus statements like: No one, no one will ever make me feel like this. Then the “love” ends, and then someone else makes you feel like that again! Older geezers will tell you that therein lies the mystery of the definition of love.

So, hitherto I have said that no one would ever read KTN Prime News better than Kasavuli. Or that no woman would ever sing better than Whitney. Or no one would ever play football better than my Dad. Yet, years later there is now Lilian Muli, there is Britney and there is a Gerrard. What is even more, their names rhyme with Kasavuli, Whitney and Dad!

Before my tribulations began, I had this neighbour who had dashing looks and a body to kill for. Each morning, she would don some skimpy exercise suit and I would sip my breakfast as I watched her through the window going through her exercise routine. Whoever sang about ‘sometimes dancing can make you fall in love’, had clearly not seen my neighbour exercise.

She would then jog around the estate. She would look so perfect. And when you see someone from afar, that person is always so great. They seem so perfect since you don’t know them and thus you do not know their faults.

Once in a while, whilst I would be taking a shower, I would open the window and to my consternation, I would find the neighbor also taking a shower with her window open. Only when my water run dry, or when she wrapped her beautiful body in a towel would my shower end, whichever came first.

From that window view, all I saw was a fine, sweet, shapely, sensual, sexy body that seemed to inwardly shout: Make love to thy neighbour.

This seemingly blissful co-existence came to an abrupt halt when some chain smoking guy started appearing at her doorstep each Friday carrying a bag. I always assumed it was a lap top he had in there.

His presence in our court was just as reassuring as a grave digger paying a visit to the Old People’s Home.

Soon, I couldn’t sleep a wink due to some passionate noises emanating from my cute neighbour’s house. The sound she produced when they were fooling around could only be called a neigh. So finally I figured out the real meaning of the word ‘neighbour’!

I also figured out that the bag the dude carried was a Fornication Bag as he would not leave until Monday mornings. But oh what those moanings during the entire weekend did to my ears. Credit to this mystery man for turning my neighbor from a hot woman to a woman on heat!

Sometimes I wondered whether they did the ‘nice times’ next to an amplifier!

I bumped into mystery man one Monday morning as he left her house. He nodded his head at me as if to subtlety let me know he is really hitting that! I figured he would soon be texting her some short message to the effect: It was a joy just being the object of your loud screams.

It turns out the screams, nay, neighs, had been heard from as far as Lodwar as during the next neighbourhood meeting, the woman who lives in the next-next house said this noises had to be stopped. Without batting an eyelid, the hot-on-heat neighbor replied: Prease! Give me a bleak! You don’t hear me comprain about your brack cat –which is the rargest cat I have seen – miauwing the whole night. You radies just don’t rike me!

Fault number two. Her accent. I think she just killed it for me. There was an uproar and a few days later, she terminated her tenancy and moved houses.

I was hoping that I got an eye candy of a neighbour as a replacement. One who wouldn’t hang her teddy bear near my clothesline as the recent one used to do.

So when I opened the Nairobi Star and read about a man who had killed his wife, I mentioned it to the Chairman of our Estate that neighbours killing wives are not the neighbours you want to have around you.

The Chairman was amused. “What do you mean, man? The guy killed his wife; not his neighbour!”

I have never figured out how this heartless man whom I am told is a Doctor became our Chairman. During one meeting, some neighbour suggested that we place signs at our gates saying: ‘Slow Down! Children at Play!’ He simply retorted, ‘Why do you not let the brats play in the compound’

I wanted to blurt out a ‘Very well put Dr. Bullshit’ but, to my credit, I suppressed it.

He is also some form of tribal chauvinist. He went ahead and placed on our main gate, some sign whose meaning I am still yet to decipher!

The Movers turned into the Estate and with them brought the new tenant. I held my breath. I had to witness this because ‘so I am told’ is a dangerous source of news.

Out stepped a Plus Size Woman with a frown. Her elbow could take all of two rolls of tape measure. She slowly turned her gigantic head and gave each house a glance. I immediately rushed upstairs and shut the bathroom window, permanently, I believe!

I switched on my TV and gladly absorbed the vuvuzela noises from the Confederations Cup.

What a huge woman that was! I wouldn’t complain if she was a neigh-bour too. I wouldn’t cross the paths of any of her daughters, if she was capable of producing any.

My TV watching was interrupted when the door bell rang.

I stepped out of my comfort zone and opened the door only to be confronted by Plus Size Woman with a panga in her hands!

‘Hi,’ I cowered as she analyzed me from head to toe. ‘What can I do for you?’ I asked whilst silently praying that my breakfast would not take leave of my tummy.

‘Is it OK if I cut off some branches on that loquat tree?’, she asked as she pointed the panga at the tree.

She was swinging the panga rather dangerously. She had just moved in and the first thing she is thinking about is chopping off some branches from the only fruity tree I have encountered in recent years?

‘No’, I replied.

‘It is not OK?!’ she thundered with what must have been a trademark frown.

‘No’, I protested, ‘I meant I do not mind! It is OK!’

If you ask me, especially if you ask me without waving a panga in your hands, it is not OK! But at that moment, I was remembering that the previous week, my Medical Insurance had expired and the only medical cover I had at the time was Jesus.

‘Good!’ she said and moved her body mass out of range. 'That was a close shave Our Kid', I said to myself.

I miss my old neighbour! Even if she would have said this was the rargest woman she had ever seen! Even if she squeaked like a chew-toy! Even if her mystery man’s car-alarm used to go off at 3am in the middle of my sleep.

Seriously though, there’s a telly soap that has been running for years known as Neighbours. In it we are told, ‘Everybody needs good neighbours…’ I think the key word there is good. Not hot. Not on heat. And certainly not Panga Wielding but cake baking ones.

Next time, just let people apply for the position of neighbour.