KT Shop: Base of the united mix of everyday Kisutu

KT shop is a place where you go to quench your thirst, and fill your stomach.

To chat, rest your legs, meet your friends, and also the ones you don't like so much. But what can you do?!

Fastafasta.

Because you are doing businesses, and you're usually in a hurry.

Unless you are too old for this and only come there to hook up with what is now and new.

You place yourself in an empty seat. Worn out by many others before you.

Greased by the oil cooking in the kitchen next door, turning ingredients into samosa, Ghandi’s Balls and the kachori served with the coconut relish.

It’s free seating, and you wait for your turn if full. One day you sit next to a Sunni Muslim, the next an Ismaili or a Catholic.

On this day next to an mzungu who cannot hide her curious looks detecting how you manage to eat only with your right hand, leaving a clean plate.

You stare back shamelessly. Why should it even be considered a shame to have eye contact in a room so crammed with things going on? You have no time to wonder why.

Or of what stressed those many ones who sat in your seat many other days while they took a break off the noisy street life: Money, love, rain, the inflation, the particularly smoky taste of the tea, or the fact that the samosa contains something which doesn't belong in a samosa as far as most mamas wopld be concerned.

You move forward. You can’t sit here all day, and you will come back tomorrow or next week anyway.

You munch. You make chewing sounds. You sip your tea loudly. You wipe your mouth with the back of your palm. The heavy smell from your armpits and the sweat running down your spine make the required infusion to the united mix of everyday Kisutu. Which on some days in fact also does carry a dash of aftershave when someone makes a contrasting entrance in a crisp, white kanzu or a newly ironed shirt.

You look up at the walls impregnated with grease and dust turned into a stale coat on top of what once was bright green.

Your eye catches the framed, selected statements from the Holy Quran, placed next to the menu which capital letters are even readable from the entrance.

You come here to make time stand still when things are crazy.

And it’s the perfect place, nothing changed much since KT Shop was established in 1968. Several wars in surrounding countries later, and a couple of presidents, some of them you did not like so much because they made business hard. You wonder for a split second that the president's portrait will be exchanged in 2015, but with what?

Otherwise, things are still pretty much kama kawa.