Nairobi Dreaming - Complete!

Chapter 20: Lunch for everyone

Author's note: The Nakumatt I am referring to is in fact closed now (closed in 2019 after not paying its employees for months, unfortunately). However, this story is set slightly prior to the closing of this Nakumatt.

The Nakumatt bore an uncanny resemblance to Walmart. The details were slightly off, the colours a little different, the brands not quite right but it, like Walmart, had a large blue and white sign, endless aisles, sold everything from furniture to food and had high, lofty warehouse-esque ceilings. Standing there, in the entrance, with the massive store sprawling before me, I felt a certain level of confusing familiarity, a sensation of being in two supposedly different places simultaneously. I wasn't in Walmart, but I kind of was.

I shook the feeling off and went to go get snacks only to find myself overwhelmed by options I didn't have the patience to navigate. Did I want dried coconut, premium mixed nuts, honey coated macadamia nuts, dried mango, cashew nuts, peanuts or dried mango?

I decided to keep it simple and just grab a bunch of bags of whatever from the Out of Africa company because I decided I liked the cleanly designed white bags everything came in. Hopefully, good package design would translate over to tasty things.

I found James waiting in line with a jumbo sized box of condoms and two bottles of gatorade in his basket.

"That's really... optimistic." I said, eyebrows raised.

"What?"

"The giant box of condoms."

He shrugged. "I'm just stocking up."

"In general?"

He smiled mischievously. "In general."

I laughed. "I see."

He elbowed me lightly, "So this is interesting."

"What?"

"We've barely made out and yet here we are buying condoms together, just assuming it's a done deal."

"I feel like it is," I ventured playfully, "Unless... you get another random attack of conscience."

"That's not what that was."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," He said, suddenly becoming very serious. "I just wanted us to have a good story. I wanted this instead."

"And by this you mean a few days with a crazy lady in the Kenyan countryside followed by a long drive back to Kisumu and a slightly awkward trip to a Nakumatt?"

He smiled, white teeth flashing behind soft lips. "Absolutely."

I tore my gaze away from his mouth because without intending to, I had been moving closer to him. Also I had managed to forget that we were in a store in public. I glanced for the first time at the person standing behind us, a guy about our age who seemed immersed in his phone. I could bet that he was listening to the conversation though.

I needed to break the tension.

"Oh my goodness," I said dramatically, my hand over my heart. "What if you suck in bed? You'll end up wasting all those condoms. It will be a really long, uncomfortable drive back..."

He gave me a very direct, very concentrated look, as focused as a laser beam, and my face went hot. "I don't suck in bed," He said before turning to the cashier with a wide smile.

***

We arrived at the Impala Ecolodge to find ourselves magically transported out of the city and onto a resort on the shores of a lake so large it seemed like an ocean, the illusion broken only by the slightly brown cast of the water and its placidness. Leading up to the lakeside view were two turquoise pools surrounded by lush foliage and recliners. The hotel manager, who had elected to give us a tour after we booked a luxury cottage with all the extras, and asked for a bottle of champagne to be thrown in without once asking how much anything cost, told us that meals were served lake-side, either in the open air dining room behind us or out on a thatch roofed jetty that put diners right on the lake. He told us that the lake we were on, Lake Victoria, was the second largest lake in the world. The first was Lake Superior.