He wouldn’t have been expecting me to be in the U.S., let alone at an African Festival in Oakland; and in my outfit, to him I was anyone other than myself. Nor would I have seen him, except that on this second and last day of the festival I’d stopped giving in to the seductive music and food and I had gone back to work. Even then it took me several passes to realize that the surfer dude sitting at a table drinking Tusker beer and chatting away with friends at the makeshift bar we’d been at just a day before was the man I had let go in Nairobi, who, naked, had still somehow managed to get a motorcycle and rescue Sahara. Convinced it was him, I called Muddy and O. Julio and the teacher hadn’t joined us, they had some business to take care of. I didn’t ask what kind of business. I went over to the bar and ordered a Tusker, watching him, ready to move. Muddy and O soon joined me and I discreetly pointed out the man. We needed him to come with us quietly, so we could talk without urgency and fear of interruption.
What do You think about Black Star Nairobi (2013)?
