THE DRESS MY FATHER BOUGHT ME 

I was a scrawny eight-year-old with a coily afro when I first heard a Bob Marley song. It was 1996, and I was visiting my father and his new family. “This is my long lost twin,” Baba remarked as he popped a cassette tape into his am/fm player before pressing play, showing me a photograph of a dreadlocked man holding his chin in a pensive nod, the resemblance undeniable. “You are the child who looks most like me, so you are Bob Marley’s daughter.” I laughed.  

When Bob Marley started singing, ‘Get up, Stand Up! Stand up for your rights,’ Baba signalled me to stand up. “Point your index fingers and move your shoulders.” I followed the instructions. “Now move forward then backwards then drop your hands as you swing side to side.” I was asked to shake my imaginary dreadlocks while pointing a clenched fist in the air, and by the time Bob Marley sang his last ‘Don’t give up the fight’, I was to swing my body gently from side to side, allowing the tempo of the song to slow me down to a natural halt.  

Beyond his resemblance to Bob Marley, Baba’s ways were the closest a Muslim could get to embracing Rastafarianism – doing this, doing that, doing the other – all possibly influenced by life in Eastlands and especially Pumwani, the Swahili and Arab-heavy Nairobi neighbourhood where he was born and brought up, which happened to be the oldest Africans-only settlement in pre-independence Kenya. Born to a Palestinian from Jordan who had somehow found himself in Pumwani – and married a Ngazidja woman from Grande Comore, one of the islands of Comoros, Baba was a child of the ‘50s, Kenya’s defining decade in which Pumwani became a political nerve-centre for African activists and trade unionists; some of whom became Kenya’s founding fathers. 

Located two and a half kilometres from downtown Nairobi, Pumwani was a popular hub not just for Arab businessmen but also other African immigrants. Life was cheap, and the government’s plans for a housing scheme provided an ideal backdrop for migrant workers from other East African countries to stream in. This is how Bibi, my maternal grandmother who I’m named after, became an inhabitant of Majengo, Pumwani’s mud-built neighbour. Just as Kenya gained independence in 1964, Bibi gave birth to my mother – the last born of her nine children and the only one born in Kenya, to a Kenyan father.   

Baba and Ma’ are too private to share the story of how they first met, but Baba must’ve approached Ma’ on her way home from volleyball practice at St. Teresa Girls in Eastleigh. It was the early ‘80s and Baba must’ve been intrigued by this sporty eighteen-year-old who had just earned herself a sports scholarship to Canada. Between being the last-born son of an influential Muslim family and Bob Marley’s doppelganger (with matching football prowess), it must have been easy for Baba to get Ma’s attention.  

Baba and Ma’ must have bumped into each other around the Pumwani Maternity Hospital junction and walked down Muinami Street, then made a pit stop at the little wooden restaurant selling Swahili dishes and snacks. Ideally, Baba’s trip ought to have ended at the restaurant, which was opposite California where his family owned a flat off a government housing project birthed by the area’s first Member of Parliament, Tom Mboya, before his assassination in 1969.  

But this is not how to get a wife.  

Perhaps sharing a packet of vitumbua, Ma’s favourite Swahili snack to date, the lovebirds must have taken a turn down Digo Road and continued with their evening stroll until arriving at Bibi’s house in Majengo, – at which point Baba would have respectfully turned around and headed back to Calif. Being the good Muslim boy he wanted to pass for, Baba wouldn’t have wished to elicit any haram thoughts from Bibi by being spotted with Ma’ so close by. 

As they say, love blossomed, and soon the two lovebirds held their Nikah, welcoming their firstborn daughter, my sister, a few months later. By the time I was born six years later, Ma’ had traded in her Canadian scholarship for marriage, a decision which came to haunt her as her relationship with Baba turned sour. But even amidst the turbulence, Ma’ never stopped reminding me that I was her lucky charm since just after my birth she secured a job with the Nairobi City Council. Just like their courtship, the details of Baba’s and Ma’s divorce remain a closely held secret, but the hurried short story is that the years following Ma’s employment were turbulent, and it didn’t take long before Ma’ got her third talaka from Baba and their divorce got finalised by the Chief Kadhi according to Sharia Law. Ma’ quickly moved out with my sister and I to the neighbouring Eastleigh, where she’d later meet a young banker, Mwilu, with whom a fiery love affair ensued. Ma’ and Mwilu became inseparable, and just as I was turning six, the two had my brother.  

I now had two fathers: Baba, Ahmed; and Dad, Mwilu. 

Mwilu seemed to take up the role of being the family’s breadwinner with gusto.  Eastleigh, which was less than a 2000-acre grid, was becoming crowded, with two-storey flats being replaced with 10-floor high-rise apartments. Most of our neighbours were Somali refugees, and having no work permits, many began setting up small businesses, some converting their houses into stalls during the day in desperate attempts to make a living. Considering that the then minister for local government Moses Mudavadi had reconstituted the Nairobi City Council into a Commission in 1983 due to corruption, upgrading public infrastructure in neighbourhoods with burgeoning populations wasn’t on the City Council’s priority list when it made a come-back in 1992.  

By the end of 1996, Mwilu, who we now called Dad, decided to move the family to Savannah Estate in Donholm, a less crowded side of Eastlands. The neighbourhood, comprising rows of two and three-bedroom bungalows built next to each other and separated by short brick fences, modest-sized gardens, tarmacked roads, clean pavements and large trees had less noise and minimal outdoor activity. Inside our new house, a long corridor running from the living room to the back door led one to the kitchen, the bedrooms, a shared bathroom and the backyard where Ma’ kept a kitchen garden. 

With the move from Eastleigh to Savannah, Dad switched our old furniture for a new set, the centre-piece of the living room being a deep mahogany TV cabinet bought off an expatriate friend of his. If you could squint hard enough through the cabinet’s tinted glass front, you’d spot the hundreds of music CDs, vinyl records and cassette tapes. Apart from the dozens of rhumba albums from artists like Franco Luambo Makiadi, Madilu System, Zaiko Langa Langa, Werrason and Extra Musica, there was also music from Beethoven, Arrested Development, Sade, Elton John and Seal among others. His was an eclectic collection, which though somewhat rundown, my hoarding Ma’ has refused to let go of to date.  

It was interesting that Seal’s Kiss From A Rose was Dad’s favourite song. Although it was written in 1987, the British musician did not release the track until 1994 and when he did, the song was initially a failure. Seal himself revealed that on its debut week, Kiss From A Rose went into the charts at number 60 and dropped even lower the following week. This would have been the end of the song but director Joel Schumacher reached out to Seal looking for a track for his upcoming blockbuster movie Batman Forever. Schumacher wanted a song that could carry the film’s audiences through the love scene between his two protagonists, Nicole Kidman and Val Kilmer. Kiss From A Rose did not work for the scene but Schumacher loved the song so much that he added it to the end credits, propelling it to the top of the charts and winning Seal the Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 1996 Grammys. 

Like Seal’s ballad, Dad’s life story unfolded dramatically after his birth in the rural hills of Mitaboni in Machakos – the first administrative capital for the British colony before it was moved to Nairobi in 1899. Growing up, we did not speak much about the Mwilu family, but the story goes that when Dad was five years old, an acute polio infection left his left leg paralyzed. His family, without the means to care for him and spellbound by fears that he’d been bewitched, took him to a children’s home in Nairobi and left him there for the entirety of his childhood. A British couple who ran the home rehabilitated him, giving him an education and a brace that straightened his leg. His left leg recovered fully but stunted in growth, remaining shorter than his right leg and leaving him with a bouncy walk – for life.  

When Dad turned eighteen, the tale continues, his biological mother showed up at the orphanage, seeing him for the first time since he was dropped off thirteen years earlier. Possibly feeling jaded, Dad passed on whatever mysterious gift his mother had brought him, thereafter staying in contact with her and the rest of his family albeit at a distance.   

Then the ‘90s came and Dad became an embodiment of sorts of Nairobi’s urban culture. As American hip-hop took root and folks wore baggy jeans and tees, young men who were with it walked with a certain swagger called ‘bouncing’ – dipping one leg as they stepped forward, swinging their shoulders back as they strutted along – it all came naturally to Dad since this was his actual natural walk after suffering a polio attack. Working at Barclays Bank at the time, Dad rode a bike (motorcycle) to work and kept a huge afro. Occasionally, he would ask Ma’ to straighten out his ‘fro using a hot comb or plait it into cornrows when he was going fishing with his friends.  

Shortly after moving to Savannah, Dad changed jobs and became one of the pioneering wealth and investment managers at the Co-operative Bank of Kenya. The new job seemed to come with higher trappings, and wanting to bring us along, as he always did, one day Dad showed up with a desktop computer and told us it was an IBM Aptiva. After setting it up in a corner in the living room, he played for us Seal’s Kiss From a Rose on repeat as we got engrossed in the machine and played Adventures of Hyperman, Silent Steel and Cyberia, some of which we couldn’t get past the first level. Then Dad insisted I should learn how to type on the keyboard and switch to games like Solitaire. He’d soon ditch his bike and get more intense about my performance in school.  

***

Dancing to Bob Marley was one of the simpler moments for a blended family navigating the complexities of their new realities. There were stares from cousins, aunts and uncles whenever I visited Baba in Calif. Does his new wife like me? What is the dynamic between me and their firstborn son Omari? Everyone had their questions. Then there was that stubborn comment muttered about my brother whenever I tagged him along. Is that their brother from the other man?  

Back home in Savannah, when Ma’s friends visited, they too would whisper about the new arrangement. I would observe their eyes trailing Dad’s every move around the house as if waiting to see him make that one wrong move or turn. Once, when Ma’ was busy in the kitchen, one of the visiting women quietly asked me if I knew of my ‘real’ father, Ahmed. Her question left a bitter taste in my mouth, but I gave her a confident ‘Yes’, then avoided interacting with her for the rest of the afternoon. In my mind, there was no confusion. Both of these men were my fathers. Ahmed Baba and Mwilu Dad. 

By the time I turned nine in June 1997, my little closet had only four dresses. There was a red and white chequered dress; there was a yellow sundress which I rarely wore; there was a flowy white tunic which I ordinarily paired with white trousers for madrassa; then there was a deep purple pleated dress which I wore whenever Bibi was visiting from Bukoba. Bibi was a Hajjat (an East-African corruption of the word Hajah – a Muslim woman who has performed their pilgrimage to Mecca), and wouldn’t go a day without her hijab; not even indoors, not even when in bed at night. That I was named after her was supposed to be reason enough for me to emulate her. But I simply couldn’t give up riding my BMX in my oversized dungarees, and there was no denying how fast I could run to the kiosk for milk and bread when in pants.  

“Huyu ni mwanamwali. Anafaa kuvaa marinda,” Bibi would often lament to my mother, her deep Tanzanian accent cutting through her wavery voice. This is a maiden. She should wear dresses. Hearing this, I’d feel a little guilty, but whenever I imagined what yielding to these demands would snowball into, I’d choose to ignore her well-meaning insistence.  

I didn’t mean to cause Bibi or anyone else any much agony. In fact, in many ways, I was the quintessential mwanamwali; an ambivert oscillating between immersing herself in the extroverted madness of her family – like chilli-eating competitions and Congolese rhumba dancing sessions in the living room – and retreating back into her cocoon of solitude for days or weeks.  

During these more introverted phases, I’d allow myself to get lost in chores – scrubbing floors, washing dishes, deep-cleaning the fridge, dusting the TV cabinet, rearranging bookshelves and decluttering my closet. Routine grounded me. I was also growing fond of cooking with Ma’, who would make technical recipes look so effortless. Swahili dishes like biryani, pilau, and mahamri were now within my skills’ reach, and Ma’ would quickly oversee my transition from easier tasks like kukuna nazi (shredding coconut) to preparing complete meals  – wali wa nazi, mchuzi wa rojo, tambi, mkate wa maji, chai ya tangawizi.  

Much as Bibi preferred that I perform these chores while wearing a dress, she also couldn’t deny the fact that I was the tamer of her three grandchildren in Ma’s household. My tomboy tendencies sharply paled in comparison with the mischief of my two siblings. 

My sister, fifteen and outward-looking, was one of the more popular girls at school and belonged to the hottest clique in Savannah. She spent most of her evenings and weekends taking endless strolls around the ‘hood, exchanging the latest VHS movie cassettes and buying fudge, mint-choc and super snack.  

One eventful evening, one of the neighbourhood boys dropped a movie tape at our house and misleads my sister that it is the latest action flick that everyone’s watching. After dinner, my excited sister gathers the entire family in front of the TV, pushes the cassette into the VCR machine and presses play. A scene of a white woman performing oral sex on a white man who is performing oral sex on another white woman comes on the screen. A frenzy ensues. Dad and my sister both shoot for the remote control, but the scene plays on for a minute too long before Dad yanks a cable connecting the TV to the VCR out and shuts the whole show down. My brother, still a toddler, couldn’t understand what had just happened. I, on the other hand, was left traumatised. Is that what a penis looks like? And why did that woman have it in her mouth?  

Luckily, Bibi had left for Bukoba just a few days earlier.  

It could have been a scandal of unimaginable proportions. 

At two and a half, my brother was the classic Dennis-the-menace. He had a sweater with the phrase boys will be boys which seemed to amuse Dad immensely. His little totter had now evolved into a steady walk, making his toddler escapades increasingly destructive. Whenever he wasn’t smashing his toy cars against the wall, he was sneaking into the backyard and filling any container he could find with tap water, drenching himself in the process.  

One day, my brother got into Dad’s car, which was parked on our slanted driveway, and shifted the gear into reverse and somehow gathered enough strength to pull the hand brake down. Gently, and then with a gradual momentum, the car rolled down the tiny hill and crashed into our black gate. Somehow, this is one of those rare days when my sister has not left the gate open and the young man walks out of the ordeal unscathed.  

My brother and sister were almost always in trouble. I, on the other hand, rarely received a beating or a scolding. I was either too much of a goody-two-shoes or was somehow good at hiding my sins. The few times I got into trouble were all linked to my futile attempts at imitating Dad, and this always confused Ma’ as to whether she should punish me or not, because, after all, her husband was my inspiration in crime.  

Take for instance that Saturday morning when Dad, Ma’, my brother and sister were all away from the house. Walking past my parents’ bathroom, I spotted Dad’s shaving kit and a little debate ensued in my mind. Should I or should I not? I just couldn’t resist. You see, whenever I had caught Dad in the act, I had always dragged a seat from the dining room into the corridor, where I’d sit just outside my parents’ bathroom and observe Dad perform the sacred act of shaving off his beard. He’d spot me watching him, and make attempts at multitasking as he handled the beard and made small talk. How was the new school? Did I like it? Would I top my class? How was swimming and French? He’d then dip a round brush into a small metal tin containing a white creamy substance, then smear it all around his cheeks and chin until his face was covered in foam. He’d then take his Gillette razor – like the one on the TV advert – and slide it down his cheek, one clean line at a time. As the white foam was wiped off, it would expose a strip of bare skin, not a single blade of hair would be in sight. He’d then tap the blade against the sink, rinse it off then repeat the ritual. I was fascinated.    

Putting into practice what I’d watched Dad do over and over again, I hoisted myself onto the sink using a dining table seat, looked into the mirror then scooped the white cream with my finger, just like Dad would, then smeared it over my right eyebrow. I then took the shaving blade and swept the eyebrow clean. Right about that moment, I could hear the Gillette advert playing in my head; Gillette! The Best a Man Can Get! Looking into the mirror, I noticed the glaring difference between my right and left eyebrows – one was non-existent courtesy of Gillette – and so I shaved off the left eyebrow for the sake of facial symmetry. Everyone spends the next few days trying to figure out what’s wrong with my appearance, why I looked so different, until one evening at dinner when my sister exclaims ‘‘She’s shaved off her eyebrows!’’ and the whole table turns chaotic. I survive a beating and make do with a scolding, to never repeat the act again. I then buy a cigarette and try to smoke just like I’ve seen both Dad and Baba do, Dad Marlboros and Baba Embassy Lights, and Ma’ doesn’t spare the rod.  

*** 

The first time I visit Baba in Calif after our move with Dad to Savannah, I pack all my four dresses and even borrow a few more from my sister, for backup. Unlike my sister who spent most of her childhood in Calif, fetching water from the communal taps deep in Majengo, and got to witness our parents’ transition from their mud-house to their two-bedroom flat in Pumwani Highrise before Ma’ and Baba’s talaka, I am just discovering the inner workings of this place.  

On the first day, Baba takes out the Quran and asks me to recite Ayatul-Kursi. He says it is the most important Ayah in the holy book. I fluently get through the first three lines and then get stuck. Baba’s firstborn son from his new marriage, Omari, knows the entire Surah. He is two years younger than me and I am embarrassed. Baba notices and quickly steps in to salvage the situation. “Ukirudi, usome na ufanye practice. Kila Musilamu ana Quran kwa moyo wake. Kazi ni kuikubali,” he says, asking that when I get back to Savannah I should read and muster the Quran, that every Muslim is born with it in their hearts and their task is to accept it.  

Baba then switches on the TV, to watch the news. “You have to know what’s happening in the world,” he instructs, and now I want to know as many things as he does. Maybe I want to impress him. Maybe I want to be like him. And so I make a point to religiously watch the lunchtime bulletin even when Baba isn’t home. He doesn’t have to be present for me to do as he wishes. In the evening, Baba takes me to the nearby Riyadha mosque for Maghrib prayers. I am wearing my buibui and once we get to the mosque, he hands me over to a woman who chaperones me at the women-only section of the masjid. “Your grandfather built this mosque,” Baba tells me. I believe him. Everyone here calls him by a moniker which means ‘the sheikh’s son’. Grandpa was the sheikh. 

After the twenty-minute prayer, Baba and I reunite outside the mosque and walk hand in hand to Gikomba, an open-air market next to the mosque. The market’s tight and muddy corridors are littered with bales of second-hand clothing with a distinct smell. As we snake through the stalls, all the vendors seem to know my Baba but they call him different names whose meanings will take me decades to decode. In the middle of one corridor, Baba and I squeeze into one of the smaller stalls. A man chewing miraa exchanges pleasantries with Baba and then tells us that he has “vitu moto moto”. The man pulls out a pair of blue and white Reebok sneakers and tells us those are Reebok pumps. He and Baba proceed to tussle over the price as Baba scrutinises every corner of the shoe. “Hii ni ile original?” Baba asks. Is the sole intact? Does it have any scratches? Are the insoles okay? In the end, a firm handshake seals the deal as Baba and I walk away with the shoes.  No money exchanges hands. “Huyo ni mtu wangu joh,” Baba tells me as we walk back home. That’s his homeboy. 

When we get to the house, Baba plays Bob Marley. I remember every dance step. Point your index fingers up. Move your shoulders forward, then backwards. My brother Omari joins in and his mother, our mother, smiles in the kitchen. Drop your hands and swing side to side… slow down… slow down even more… until the song ends. Baba then turns into the funniest comedian, sending us into fits of laughter. The evening ends with Baba’s magic tricks, and after dinner, Baba tells us to recite our Isha prayers then head to bed. Baba and Mama Omari lend me their bedroom, where I sleep alone. They share a mattress on the living room floor. It is a lot for me.  

I close my eyes and try to recite Ayatul-Kursi under my breath. 

That’s as far as I can go. Much better than before.  

I’ll keep practising when I get back to Savannah. Baba said I should. 

*** 

It is June 1998 and I have turned ten. There’s a red box on my bed – Dad’s birthday gift to me. Inside the box is a red dress. It has a black velvety bustier with a white lace embellished with red buttons and a white delicate string dangling from the neckline to the waist. The red A-line skirt drapes over my knees gently. Ma’ says Dad sent her to look for the perfect dress at the boutique in town, the one along Aga Khan Walk, near Uchumi supermarket. It is an upgraded version of my red and white chequered dress, and now my dress-count gets to five. Without anyone asking, I wear the dress and dash to the living room to put on a show.  

For the first time in my life, I am happy to be in a dress.  

Bibi would be proud. Maybe she had a point. Or maybe it’s just my birthday and I am happy.  

Dad is lying down on the long green sofa, smiling ear to ear. He scoops his left hand using his right and holds it in support as if his right hand were a sling for his left. I can tell he is trying to lift himself to a sitting position. “Come give me a hug Ash Ash,” he calls out, cheerful and undeterred by his condition. It’s been a few months since he suffered a stroke that left him completely paralysed on his left side.  

Everything had changed that September evening in 1997 when Ma’ noticed Dad’s face suddenly drooping to one side. His struggle to speak began right after dinner on what was meant to be an ordinary end to a long weekday. Ma’ had urgently dispatched my sister to seek help from the doctor who lived next door. “I think he’s having a heart attack,” is all I remember hearing the neighbour say. The next thing I remember was Dad being carried into the neighbour’s car and being rushed to hospital. He’d spend a whole two months admitted at the Nairobi Hospital, and my brother and I wouldn’t be allowed to go visit him. They said we were too young. It was the longest two months of our lives.   

Overnight, Dad went from being the hyper-independent hippie and anchor of the family to being physically dependent on Ma’ for everything. Ma’ would bathe him, pick out his clothes and dress him. Then my sister would help him walk around the house and the compound, slowly. My brother and I would share meals with him and keep him company whenever he needed to take a nap on the sofa. Having heard the news, Bibi returned to Nairobi from Bukoba to help Ma’ with the caregiving. On days when Ma’ had to be at work and we were in school, a nurse would spend the day at home, keeping tabs on Dad’s progress. Ma’ had to go to driving school, and in the meantime, Dad hired a driver to make sure we could move around. By January 1998, we had to move out of Savannah into a bigger house in Greenfields Estate, just a few minutes away. With all the comings and goings, Dad decided the family needed a bigger space. 

As part of Dad’s rehabilitation therapy, Ma’ enlisted the help of Mzee Abdallah, an old Muslim cleric who incorporated ancient Arabic massage techniques in Dad’s treatment regime to aid his recovery. Each morning without fail, Mzee Abdallah would show up by 6 a.m. for the first phase of the therapy. He’d take Dad through a hydrotherapeutic massage in hot water, followed by a deep tissue massage using heated black seed oil or olive oil. After his recovery, Dad told us the whole experience of being under the care of Mzee Abdalla felt like reconnecting with a father figure. By the time he could walk again, he and Mzee Abdallah had grown extremely close, and before my tenth birthday, Dad had completed his conversion to Islam by taking his shahada and taking up the name Abdallah as an ode to Islam and especially Mzee Abdallah.  

So here I am, on my tenth birthday, sashaying in my red dress before standing over this man who had just had a brush with death ten months prior. A man who could neither walk nor talk properly. Yet in the midst of his fight to regain his strength and return to himself, he still had the thought to send Ma’ to buy me a red dress in celebration. I stand over Dad and help him to sit upright. As we share an embrace, I sense my tears dropping on his arm. Then I remember Ma’ said we should be strong and not cry in front of Dad. I pick myself up, share a moment with Dad then run to my room upstairs. I take the dress off and hang it in my closet. It is the first dress to make it to that sacred section of the closet, which is reserved for my favourite hoodies, T-shirts and sweaters. 

Two months later on Friday, 7 August 1998, Dad hits an important milestone. He is completing his first week back at the office since his stroke eleven months earlier. On any other ordinary Friday morning, my brother and I would have had breakfast with him and teased him about his thriving afro. Ma’ would have let out her quiet chuckles from the other side of the table before warning us to “stop ganging up against my husband.” The warm morning sunrays would have beamed soft patterns on the walls of our new four-bedroom maisonette in Greenfields. Ken, Dad’s driver after the stroke, a strict timekeeper with a gentle smile, would have politely interrupted the laughter in the living room, signalling us to get our bags. His namesake, Kenny, the nightguard, would have swung the gates open and off we would have gone to our school drop-off. 

But this is the first day of the August holidays and my brother and I are dead asleep. Dad’s deep voice echoes up the stairway as he leaves the house. 

 “Ash… Vee… Come say goodbye. I’m leaving.” 

Almost.  

When we finally woke up at about 8 a.m., my brother and I agreed to surprise Dad later that evening by baking him a congratulatory cake. He’s a week old at work. Bibi, who hasn’t left for Bukoba, confirms that we have all the necessary ingredients but informs us that she won’t be helping us because she’s on her way out. Ma’, who’s been accompanying Dad to the office, wheeling him into meetings and helping him on bathroom breaks, is to pick up Dad’s new prescription from his doctor at the Aga Khan Hospital in Parklands, and Bibi also has a doctor’s appointment at the same hospital.  

To make logistical sense, Dad has asked that Bibi be brought to his office from where Ken, his driver, will drive Ma’ and Bibi to Aga Khan. This means my sister too won’t be home either, because other than taking Bibi to Dad’s office, my sister needs to attend the school’s drama festival happening at the Kenyatta International Conference Center in downtown. But my sister being my sister, she decides to make a detour and delay the entire program, her misadventures having a life-saving silver lining. We’d live to thank her for derailing the day’s arrangements. 

There’s a new style of low-rise jeans called hipsters that has taken Greenfields by storm, and my sister’s idea is to show up at the drama festival rocking a pair. But because things have been hectic at home with Dad’s return to work, my sister hasn’t managed to buy the hipsters. But that’s not a problem. One of her friends from our old neighbourhood in Savannah says she can hook my sister up with a pair, and now the plan is for my sister to dash to Savannah, run this important errand then come back home to pick Bibi. 

By 10 a.m., at the insistence of Rose, the tea lady at Dad’s office who’d make national and international news days later, Ma’ has already had two cups of tea. Dad’s doctor has a small window at Aga Khan and will need to leave shortly for a patient visit in another hospital, yet my sister and Bibi are nowhere in sight. A restless Dad advises Ma’ to prioritise picking up his prescription because it would be disastrous to have him spend the entire weekend without his medicine. At 10.10 a.m., Ma’ and Ken start their drive towards Aga Khan.  

The street we live in at Greenfields is fairly new. Unlike Savannah which came complete with paved roads, Greenfields is more of a construction site, with soily murram roads. This means playtime outdoors can be dusty, and when it rains, things get muddy. To make sure that Ma’ doesn’t know we’ve been outside in the puddles, my brother and I decide we’ll spend the first few hours of the morning in the construction site opposite our house, then return home early enough to shower, douse ourselves in Vaseline and pretend to be two little homebodies.   

In front of the unfinished house, the fundis have dug up deep trenches all over the piece of land. It takes some practice and a lot of courage, but if you go to the highest part of a trench, sit on a flattened cardboard box and fling yourself down the hill, you can experience the best thrill of your life – better than a rollercoaster ride. Although my brother is four and growing stronger, the cardboard slide is too advanced for him. On the other hand, the daredevil tomboy in me has a field day. As my sister and Bibi walk past us to get a matatu into the city centre, I’m already on my third slide down the steep slope. I feel it as I climb up for my ninth slide. 

The ground beneath me is shaking and rumbling. For about half a minute, the pipes at the construction site rattle violently, prompting my friends to scatter out of the site. “It is an earthquake!” One of our neighbours yells as he runs towards their gate. I may be brave, but not brave enough to wait to find out. I scoop my brother up and run back into the house.  

It is about 11 a.m. when Ma’ arrives at the house. She is flustered and wants to know where my sister and Bibi are. They left for town, we let her know. In between going up and down the stairs in a panic and shuffling through the remote control for any TV station showing the latest news, Ma’ tells us that something bad has happened at the bank where Dad works. She says she needs to rush back to the city centre to get him out of the office. He still needs a wheelchair to move around and would not be able to run out of the building like his colleagues would have. Ma’ leaves in a huff just as she’d arrived. 

There are scenes of blood and smoke on the TV screen. The news anchor on KTN – the TV station I’d later work for as a reporter for nine years, a career choice inspired by Baba’s love for news and fuelled by today’s heartbreaking occurrence at Dad’s office – says there has been a bombing in Nairobi. I see men in suits being carried out with blood gushing out of their faces. There’s a woman limping with two people holding her from both sides. There’s a policeman with a bloodied eye walking into frame with his gun held tight. Then, there’s what looks like a huge pile of stones and rocks with people climbing on them and yanking injured people from underneath.  

From the cartoons I watch, I know that bombs are black and round and can be hurled from a person’s hand onto their target. They do not usually seem to cause as much damage as I’m seeing on the TV screen. Perhaps the news lady means dynamite, like the ones Coyote uses in the Looney Toons cartoon as he tries to capture Road Runner. But even then, the dynamite only blows up the mountains and Coyote always walks away unhurt – he just sees stars.   

My wandering thoughts are interrupted by Mama Riziki, Ma’s friend from Eastleigh. Even though they are not biological sisters, Ma’ says Mama Riziki is our aunt. Mama Riziki had housed us for months when Ma’ and Baba were going through their separation. “Shikamoo aunty,” my brother and I welcome her into the house and offer her water. She’s as unsettled as Ma’ was when she got back home. The folks on TV are now saying there’s been a terrorist attack and I wonder how to spell that word. Dad would know. I’ll ask him once Ma’ finds him and brings him back home. I’m sure he will have a big story for us about this eventful day of bombs and blood and rubble. 

As evening creeps in, three other aunties arrive. They hold us and comfort us and tell us Dad will be found. “He is probably in one of the hospitals,” they say. My sister and Bibi are now back in the house, and by the time Ma’ gets back home at 8 p.m., it is a full house. Ma’ is devastated. Dad is still stuck in his office and they haven’t managed to locate him. She cries as the women hold her. If Dad survived that heart attack and stroke, I’m very sure he will come out of the dynamite bomb, just like Coyote does.  

When I wake up on Saturday morning, Ma’ and Ken are already out of the house. My sister says they left in the night to keep vigil at Dad’s office. Bibi asks me to wear a dress because there will be many visitors passing by the house and I must present myself as the mwanamwali that I am. I pull out my red and white chequered dress. The news now says a bomb went off at the American embassy in downtown Nairobi, which is located next to the headquarters of the Cooperative Bank of Kenya, Dad’s office. The adults in the room are surprised that when President Moi visits the site, he sheds a tear. It must have been very bad. At dusk, Ma’ comes back home exhausted. They have been to all hospitals in Nairobi and can still not locate Dad.  

On Sunday, I wear my flowy white tunic with white pants underneath. I also wear a hijab because my sister says the Maalim will be passing by to recite some duas. We must find as many hijabs as we can from Ma’s closet and share them out to all our non-Muslim aunts. I now know how to recite Ayatul Kursi in its entirety just as Baba had always wanted me to, and I now know that it is the right prayer for this moment of grief and uncertainty because it says that Allah fully knows what is ahead of us and what is behind us, but no one can grasp any of His knowledge – except what He wills to reveal.  

Soon enough.  

On Monday, though hesitantly, I wear my yellow sundress. Our house is now like a restaurant. There are people I have never met. Some say they are from Mitaboni, where Dad was born. My brother and I must remember who to greet Shikamoo and Asalam Alaikum and who to greet in English –  “Hello. How do you do?” – just like Dad taught us. I overhear Mama Riziki telling one of the guests that Dad’s office was in the building that has now been reduced to a pile of rubble. Ma’ comes back home at midnight. Dad is not at any mortuary either.  

On Tuesday evening, the TV anchors announces that the last bodies have been pulled out of the rubble. I have had to borrow my sister’s buibui and have worn pyjamas underneath. Many guests stream into the compound and Bibi tells my brother and I to stay in our room and play with our dolls and toy cars. Then I hear a familiar voice downstairs. I know my father’s deep and calming voice. My brother and I exchange a quick knowing glance and without a word, we both hurry downstairs to embrace him. It is Baba. This is the first time he is visiting us since his breakup with Ma’. It now seems very serious because even Baba has come to help us search for Dad.  

Ma’ comes back home and announces to the full house that they’ve finally found Dad. He was among the last people to be pulled out of the rubble. Ma’ found him at the City Mortuary, lying on one of the morgue tables surrounded by the bodies of his investment banking colleagues, the entire department. Everyone’s face drops. An eerie silence engulfs the house.  

Bibi instructs my brother and I to silently recite the dua, like everyone else.  

إِنَّا لِلَّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ  

Indeed to Allah we belong, and to Him we shall return. 

As Muslim burial rites dictate, Dad, call him Abdallah, must be buried as soon as possible. The decision is made that the family will travel to Mitaboni, where Dad will be buried next to his father and mother who had both passed away in 1996. In between looking confused and distraught, Ma’ says we, my sister, my brother and I, should each pick our outfit for the burial. Being the eldest, my sister picks out my brother’s clothes, then turns over to me. “We need to move faster and not stress Ma’,” she says as she signals me to open my closet. My closet is full of pants, shorts, pullovers, T-shirts, dungarees; all the things Bibi tried to counsel me against. All my four dresses are in the laundry basket and with everything that’s been happening, no one has had the time to wash them. Then it hits me. The birthday dress is hanging in the next closet.  

My Dad has died and I must wear the red dress he bought me to his funeral.