Do you sometimes feel like a part of a sunken ship that floats about willy-nilly and no matter how far it drifts it ends up on a certain shore each time? That’s what I thought when I ended up at Cedars Bar in Nairobi's Kilimani to meet a friend.
It felt like I had been washed ashore. I was meeting an old friend who used to frequent the bar. The kind of fellow who sits down and his drink is served in a precise sequence without him ordering: one sparkling wine, another one after 30 minutes, a double whisky, another double after 40 minutes. A renaissance man.
Cedars has the uncanny power to hold time at ransom. Nothing seems to change Cedars. Patrons still walk through the bar, like it’s their home, to access the inner rooms. It’s always the same pedigree of people, bureaucrats, plutocrats, businessmen, politicians, and the usual cast of sharks that follow this ship.
At 7 pm everybody still turns to the TV in the corner of the bar to watch the political cancer in the news. Parking is still very much a game of russian roulette. And most telling of all, Kioko - the honcho barman - is still there.
He is probably the only staff member that doesn’t wear a name tag because the assumption is if you don’t know Kioko then you are way over your head. He is an institution in himself.
Cedars Bar without Kioko is like a virgin mojito. He says hello to my friend, and they have a very brief and respectable small talk; I haven’t seen you in a while, you still look young, no, I’m turning 60 this year, no you don’t say, you look trim. Etc.
The bar is the best place to sit, great high seats, intimate enough for conversation. We had whiskies. I sent their famous chicken-wings to my beloved whose father was dying in ICU. [Now deceased]. A friend of mine, Paul, who works next door at AFP joined us. He knows of my friend, everybody in the media and PR knows my friend. At some point, I leaned in and told Paul, “that guy looks like Gitobu Imanyara.” He said. “That’s because he is.”
