Last Saturday, I found my brother sitting in his backyard, drinking a cider and listening to some soapy ’90s RnB music. He said it was his wife’s birthday. He couldn’t leave, so I called my friend, who said he was at a place called Rixxos Bar, all the way in Kitengela. I felt adventurous.
I found Rixxos empty and sad. It felt like a doomed ship at the bottom of the ocean.
“We can’t sit here,” I told him. “I’m too young for this.”
So, he took me to a place called Kwa Daddy. It was an open bar built around a large tree. A hole in the wall. A pool table. It was about 3pm. A group of raucous, bulky, middle-aged men in tight shirts sat at a table, already drunk and happy.
My friend, who lives in Kitengela, told me the place was owned by a guy called Daddy. I pictured a big, dark guy in a green polo shirt, with a bulging wallet in his back pocket. No facial hair. A silent chap with a slow smile. He wasn’t at the bar, but my friend said he normally makes an appearance.
Kwa Daddy was unpretentious and airy. It seemed like a great place to have a lazy drink on a weekend afternoon. A local spot of camaraderie, where people know each other.
I played a game of pool, beating a guy wearing loafers that resembled a new canoe. Then I was beaten by a guy in very tight jeans, which embarrassed me because men who wear very tight jeans are caricatures. He had deft cue-stick moves, though.
Humbled, I joined my friend at the bar and asked, “Is Daddy here yet?”
He said no. Daddy hadn’t come.
There isn’t a great variety of drinks at Kwa Daddy. With nothing I fancied in terms of whisky, I settled for a KO, which I was drinking for the first time. It was like drinking a honeycomb. The music was great, but I left before dusk.
