In the valley of Galana the sunset often has the colours of ripe papaya but not always in this period.
On rainy days, mysteriously before dark the clouds make a glimmer of sunshine pass and the papaya catches fire as if it had been put on the embers and instead of toasting it seems to melt. Its flesh becomes tempera on the great palette of the sky and lights up with violet, orange and deep blue, mixing the colors before spreading them on the endless canvas of the savannah.
"Grandpa, I'm sick and tired of this Crown."
Old Kazungu smiled under the hint of a little white moustache sticking out of his personal glass of palm wine, made from the neck of his pumpkin. He thought back to the last few months, to his head full of daily numbers that meant nothing more than that...numbers.
As if people had become numbers like prisoners, like phone cards.
Wasn't it better to stay a Kazungu, a Kitsao?
Poor, but with dignity written in their names?
"I don't see who could be happy about the spread of a virus, my nephew."
"The pharmaceutical companies" shouted from the hut next door the electrician Makotsi.
"It's true! They created it," echoed Kamongo, the mobile phone salesman.
"How can you guys... for work they find cures for people and infect them instead? It's as if our friend Matenge, the funeral director, went around killing people to make more money... I don't believe it."
"The fact is, Grandpa, I haven't been able to study for three months and I don't even know when I'll be able to go back to class. "What's the point of being the best in school if they shut it down?"
Young people... Kenya's future without a future.
Almost better in its time, when the future did not exist and one enjoyed the day more or at the limit one did not even think about it.
But it was right to let them imagine this future, otherwise you can't bear the present.
"Sooner or later they'll reopen it, you'll see, nephew. And you'll soar! Like they did with the Premier League and Liverpool which was the strongest, it only took them ten days to win."
"Let's leave it with these speeches, please..." shouted Makotsi, who was a Manchester City fan.
"Yes, but Mzee...you can't be such a fatalist, good, optimistic pacifist and ten other adjectives that end with "ista"..."
"Hoodlum, Ballista, Casinista!" Kibebe the fool stunned, jumping at the feet of the great baobab.
"The fact is, if they don't reopen the country, we'll all starve here."
"No one has ever died of hunger around here...look around...we have plenty of fruit, the fields with the rains are overflowing with sukuma wiki, mchicha and mnavu...we have okra, zucchini and pumpkin, white eggplant and soon corn is ready. We will die of malaria, cholera, pneumonia as we have died until today...but not of hunger. We have also forgotten how to hunt...we don't die because of the lack of the internet rate on the mobile phone, and not even if there is no fuel on the motorbike. It just gets harder... you have to go back a little bit. But not everything that was back is to be thrown away. I had a good time back. And look at me here, at ninety-five I can still drink mnazi, sing and dance."
"And tell your stories..." smiled his nephew Kitsao.
On the other side of the road, which had been paved for a few months, came the manager of the Safari Bar, who was preparing to close shop early in order to respect the timetable imposed by the emergency. The last tuk-tuks loaded sacks of coal and bags of vegetables and disappeared behind the curve that brought them back to the chaotic and depressed civilization.
"Did you hear that, Kibonge? - Makotsi said to his address - Mzee says we won't starve..."
"Oh yeah? That may be... but at least if they lift the curfew I could pay the rent at the end of the month and quench someone's thirst until late at night. We could watch the games together like four months ago, see Josephine belleppe again."
"Bravo Kibonge! They may not have taken our food, but they are denying us our lives!"
Grandpa Kazungu cleaned his mboko with a disinfected rag and put it in a jute bag.
"And what else is our life made of, other than joking around together, sleeping around, drinking beer, watching football, and admiring the girls who look pretty?"
Makotsi didn't think too much of it.
"Work, work... take home the money for the children to study, make the wife happy with a piece of meat and a plate of beans... to dream of getting a bajaji on installments... nothing special, our life of giriama".
"It's not because we are giriama - Kamongo warned him - the whole world thinks so... dreams change, maybe it won't be the bajaji but the off-road or the house in the city. But you always live between reality and dreams, if you are not rich".
"But you have to get into reality, otherwise dreams become nightmares."
"What if you're rich?""Ah, I really don't know... you'd have to ask a rich man what he dreams about. What will Kenyatta dream? What will Trump dream?"
"I don't think they even sleep, they..." said little Kitsao.
"The nozzle is ready," cried Grandma Conjestina as if she had lent her her uvula to a bat.
Old Kazungu put the stick upright and used it to pull himself to his feet.
Then he swirled it in the air as if to announce the arrival of the evening and ask for a moment's attention.
The birds stopped chirping, the wind seemed to stop.
Only a lorry drove noisily along the road.
He took a deep, grateful breath of the scent of tomato and sukuma sauce and heard it:
"Well, my boys, it's the world that's wrong, because everybody's dreaming that one day they won't dream anymore."