Nyachula

The beaut of the Lakeside

The day Nairobi finally broke me started with a text message at 6:47 AM. “Edwin, we are letting you go. HR will be in touch.” Three years at that tax advisory firm in Westlands. Three years of carrying coffee for managers who couldn’t pronounce my surname. Three years of pretending I loved synergy and alignment and circling back. And now, just like that, walisema niende home.

I sat on the edge of my bed in my Roysambu bedsitter, staring at the cracked screen of my phone, doing math that did not add up. Rent was due in eleven days. Mama had called yesterday saying the clinic in Bondo needed forty thousand for her treatment. My fiancée, well, ex-fiancée, had blocked me last month after she found out I had been hiding two loans from Branch and Tala. The KCB app was also somewhere there laughing at me.

I did what any self-respecting twenty-six year old Kenyan man would do. I put on my one decent shirt, the blue one with the slightly burnt collar from when I had ironed it drunk, and I walked. Just walked. Past the boda guys arguing about if Arsenal would win the league. Past Mama Watoto roasting maize. Past the matatu touts singing “Town town town beba beba!” like the world was not ending in my chest.

I ended up at Uhuru Park, sitting on a bench, watching the paddle boats float lazily on the green water. I think I was crying. Or maybe sweating. In Nairobi at noon, who can really tell.

That is when she sat down next to me.

“Aki this bench ndio iko free?” she said, like she had not just slid in uninvited next to a grown man having his moment.

I looked up.

Bro. Listen. I have seen women. I grew up in Kisumu before moving to the city for uni. I have witnessed beauty in many forms. But this woman, with her natural hair pulled back, skin like polished mahogany, and one of those long flowy dera dresses Luo women wear when they want to humble entire postal codes, she was something else entirely. Her earrings were tiny brass fish. Who does that. Who wears fish earrings and still looks like a whole prayer.

“Eh sawa,” I mumbled, scooting over.

She sat. Crossed her legs. Pulled out a packet of Nice biscuits and started eating them like we were old friends sharing snacks at a funeral.

“You look like a man who has lost something,” she said. No introduction. No how are you. Straight to my chest.

“My job,” I said before I could stop myself. “And my mother. Well not her, but, eish. It is a long story.”

She nodded, very seriously, and offered me a biscuit. I took it because what else was I supposed to do.

“I am Nyachula,” she said. “And you owe me a story now because I shared my biscuits.”

I laughed. For the first time that day, I actually laughed. It came out broken and stupid but it was real.

“Edwin,” I said. “Edwin Otieno.”

She lit up. “Eh wewe ni jaluo? Why do you sit here suffering in English like a Kikuyu accountant. Sema na lugha chako”

And just like that, we slipped into Dholuo, and it felt like cold water on a fever. I told her everything. About the job. About Mama. About the loans and the woman who left and the way Nairobi had been slowly chewing me up for three years like a goat with a Sportpesa receipt.

She listened. Properly listened. Not that thing where some girls nod while scrolling Instagram reels. She put her phone face down on the bench and looked at me with these eyes, dark and patient, like she was reading a book she had read before.

When I finished, she said, “Edwin Otieno, do you know why I came to this bench?”

“Because it was free?”

“No,” she said. “Because I saw you from over there and I told my friend, that man looks like he is about to do something stupid. And I have a rule. When God shows me a person, I go.”

I felt my eyes get hot again. “You do not even know me.”

“I know enough,” she said. “I know your mother carried you for nine months and did not go through that for you to give up at Uhuru Park on a Tuesday.”

Wueh.

Then she stood up, brushed biscuit crumbs off her dera, and said, “Come. Twende.”

“Where?”

“You will see. Are you hungry?”

I was. Painfully. I had skipped breakfast because of the bad news, and lunch because of the no money.

“Yes,” I admitted.

She smiled, and I swear something in my chest that had been holding its breath since 6:47 AM finally exhaled.

We left Uhuru Park together. She walked fast, like a woman with a plan, weaving through hawkers selling sunglasses and socks. We crossed over to Kenyatta Avenue and she turned into this small alley between two buildings, the kind of alley your mother warned you about. I hesitated.

“Aki you Nairobi boys are scared of everything,” she said over her shoulder. “Kuja.”

I followed.

Through the alley, up a narrow staircase, past a barbershop blasting Otile Brown, and through a wooden door painted blue. The smell hit me first. Fish. Proper fish. Tilapia fried and that magic only Luo aunties seem to know. Ugali so white it looked like clouds. Sukuma with that little kick of pilipili.

There were three other people inside. An older woman behind the counter who looked at Nyachula and said, “Eh nyathina, karibu.”

“Mama,” Nyachula said, “this is Edwin. He is having the worst day of his life mpatie ile maduong.”

The mama looked at me, looked at Nyachula, then back at me. She nodded slowly.

“Sit,” she said. “Tutakusort.”

I sat. Nyachula sat across from me. And as the food was being prepared, she pulled out her phone, scrolled for a moment, then turned it to face me.

“Edwin,” she said. “Before you eat, I need to show you something. And after I show you, you need to promise you will not run.”

I stared at the screen.

My heart stopped.

“Nyachula,” I whispered. “How do you have this.”

She smiled, but it was different now. Sharper. Sadder.

“Because Edwin Otieno,” she said softly, “I have been looking for you for two years.”

To be continued.

Part 2 dropping next. Tell me what you think she showed him.