The heat of Makueni followed me into this night abode and cast a long shadow on any evening plans. Not that I was itching to wander out and investigate the nightlife of Makueni.
I was perfectly content when I discovered there was a swimming pool. A long one. Longer than the 25-metre pool at my gym, which immediately made it feel important. And seductive.
I hadn’t carried my swimming trunks. But I was boiling enough not to be concerned, so I told the pool attendant I’d have to swim in my boxers.
They were decent boxers, if I may say so myself. Baby pink, with thin black stripes. Respectable. I showered first—because civilisation—then flagged down a waitress to bring me something cold.
“Like what?” she asked. “Anything that isn’t a beer,” I said.
Then I got plunged into the pool. It was cold. Properly cold. My bones gasped. I swam a few lengths, back and forth, my limbs loosening.
Then a troop of very skinny high-school boys arrived and cannonballed into the water. They were terrible swimmers. Just slapping the pool with their palms, heads stubbornly above water, swimming like anxious dogs.
Their instructor, a matronly woman in sensible pumps, sat by the pool, occasionally demonstrating strokes from her chair, as though swimming were something you could teach by mime.
I wanted to correct their technique. Say something wise. Something muscular and aquatic. But the waitress appeared and slid my drink under the umbrella.
She had brought me a cider. Not my natural choice, but then again, I had just swum in my boxers, so “normal” wasn’t what I was gunning for. I lay back on the daybed, sipping my sweet drink, watching the boys commit small aquatic crimes.
When I think of Kusyombunguo, I will think of its grey communist look, the long empty corridors, and how surprising it all was, like a mirage in the desert. And the time by the pool, sipping all that sugar and watching a band of youth unaware of their great fortune but also pending misfortune.
