Kali opened his eyes; it wasn't dawn yet.
He heard noises he wasn't used to, but he was so pleased to be able to roll over on a real mattress and be intermittently smothered by a real pillow that he had no intention of getting up.
Turning around, however, he saw that Hussein's cot was empty.
“He ran off with the money!” he thought.
“Moko, Moko... wake up! Hussein has run away!”
His friend was in the middle of some kind of nightmare. A big bearded man was beating his mother and refusing to give her the agreed money, but at a certain point he arrived and handed the woman a wad of shillings and shouted at the customer, “Get out of here, or I'll use the rest of the money to pay the police to put you in jail for two months.”
“Moko... Moko!”
The boy jumped up, looked around for a moment as if he were still in the brothel in Pangani, then realized.
“Shit...”
“Where could he have gone? He has all the money!”
“Where do you think he could have gone, Kali, without shoes or pants?”

When they entered the bathroom, which appeared to be empty, all they had to do was look up.
They found him, in his underwear, clinging like a monkey to a rusty pipe running parallel to the ceiling.
“Oh my God! What the hell are you doing, Hussein?” squealed Moko.
“I'm hiding some of our money, the money you didn't let them steal, in a safe place. We can't take it all with us...”
“You're right, boss, sorry...”
The two washed their faces and took turns relieving themselves on the most comfortable toilet they had ever tried. Kali wasn't used to straining while sitting down, so he stood up on the toilet seat to defecate.
The breakfast of champions awaited them on the street, in the small bar opposite the Riverside Hotel.
Hussein took 500 shillings out of his pocket and placed them prominently on the table, then called the waitress, a girl with watery eyes and teeth on top instead of bottom. And vice versa.
“I see your mandazis aren't very big... bring us six, please. With three chai and lots of milk.”
“Yes, sir. Would you like scrambled eggs as well?”
“Of course!“ squawked Kali.
“Yes, two for the boys... I don't want any, thank you,” said Hussein with the intonation of a little lord of the Islamic courts.

Little Mogadishu was already teeming with souls: women of all ages, almost all veiled but of many different colors, with hard plastic bags full of leafy vegetables, potatoes, and paper bags full of spices, old men preparing to leave their shoes at the entrance to the mosque on the corner of Eighth Street, from which came the sounds of car horns and the cries of vendors. Ladies struggling to contain their oversized suits, revealing enormous backsides, and skinny young people glued to their cell phones were entering and leaving the shops.
“That's what we need, first of all... a smartphone!” said the ringleader.
Kali glanced over, puzzled, his face half-hidden by his teacup.
“What are we going to do with it?”
“We'll take pictures, selfies! Then we'll buy bundles and watch movies on the internet like the boda-boda in Wajir,” replied Moko, who was the techie of the trio. Then he added, ‘We need an adult again to buy the SIM card with their ID.”
“Do we have to wait until evening to find another old drunk?’ asked Kali.
“No, there's no need... we can find one even at this hour, trust me...” Hussein reassured him.
A boy with a nose like a hornbill's beak and wild eyes got up from the table next to them.
He was wearing a red T-shirt with a picture of a fist full of rings that seemed to come out of his stomach and a gold chain around his neck with a tiny wrench, a medal, a padlock, and a tin Africa hanging from it. He had Ethiopian cheekbones and a Somali mouth, but he could also have been the son of Sudanese immigrants from Kibera.
“Hi guys... can I introduce myself? My name is Dee Faxx, with two X's. I'm a DJ and graphic designer, and I have a photocopy shop, but I also sell eggs and rent out a tin Africa.”
“Hi guys... can I introduce myself? My name is Dee Faxx, with two X's. I'm a DJ and graphic designer and I have a photocopy shop, but I also sell eggs and rent cars and, above all, I'm a consultant...”
“A consultant... what?“ asked Moko.
“Let's say I help people for a small fee.”
“How small?” asked Hussein.
“Smaller than you, little brother... not them, but I've seen you around here before, haven't I?”
“Maybe, I live in Pangani... where are you from?”
“I'm from Kasarani...”
“Where the stadium is!” Kali interrupted.
“Right there, champ! I know the caretaker, I can get in whenever I want...”
“What are you doing here in Eastleigh?“ Hussein interrupted him.
“I often sleep at my girlfriend's place here on the 11th, her name is Afswa, she's a sales assistant at the Royal Mall. She's the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“Does she only sleep with you?” asked Hussein.
“What a question, little brother... of course she does! Otherwise I'd slit her throat like a goat!”
Hussein thought he was lucky not to have a father, otherwise his mother would have been killed long ago.
“Okay, so can you tell us what we need and you tell us how much it will cost?”
“That's what I'm here for, and given your young age and how nice you are, I'll give you a very special price!”
Hussein explained that first he wanted a Samsung S7 and a SIM card, then a taxi at his disposal all day to show Nairobi to his two friends who had come to visit him from Wajir.
“Wow! That's a fantastic plan, little brother... but do you have all that money or are you kidding me?”
Hussein took out some of the banknotes he had, the rest were safely tucked away in his underwear.
“With twenty thousand, I think we can do everything, including eating at a good restaurant. How much do you want to take us to the shop and get the SIM card? And how much for the taxi?”
“I already told you, I have the car and, as a special favor, I'll be your driver. Hey, I know Nairobbery like the back of my hand! Fifteen thousand will cover everything, including the SIM card and cell phone. Deal?”
Hussein turned to Moko and got a nod of approval.
“Twelve thousand.”
“Fourteen.”
“Thirteen and five hundred.”
“You're tough, little brother. Let's go with 13,500. But I want five thousand up front to reserve the Toyota Corolla Deluxe.”
“But isn't it yours?”
“Yeah, right! I said I rent cars, not that I own them. Anyway, the Corolla belongs to my uncle.”
“Okay, here's the down payment, but you have to give me your ID card until we're sitting in the car with the phone in our hands!”
“You're really smart, little brother! You could be my partner. How old are you?”
“Fourteen,” lied the ringleader.
When they left Kismayu Electronics with their brand new Samsung and Safaricom number with 500 megabytes of free data, the three were happier than Liverpool fans at the end of a match against Barcelona. Moko couldn't remember ever feeling so good in his life. His belly was full, his eyes were like cameras scanning the world freely, and he had the power that money gives adults.
“Take a picture of us, Dee Faxx!”
There they were: three enterprising brats on First Avenue in Eastleigh, leaning against a shiny black Harrier, with the Royal Mall in the background.
“Let's go see your girlfriend,” Moko asked.
“Eh... no, little brothers, I can't during her working hours, the Somali she works for is very strict, he'd fire her on the spot... and she'd dump me in a heartbeat!”
“Yeah, right...” said Kali.
“And besides, our car's waiting for us! And the CBD, the skyscrapers downtown, the statue of Mzee Kenyatta...”
Dee Faxx spoke intently for ten minutes with a mechanic covered in engine oil up to his neck, in a language unknown even to Hussein.
He received a set of keys and invited them to follow him.
The Corolla wasn't exactly the latest model: the front windshield had a noticeable crack and seemed to be leaning decidedly to the right. After five or six attempts, the engine started and black smoke poured out of the exhaust pipe, as thick as when they burned the police truck in Wajir.
For Moko, Kali, and Hussein, it was a presidential limousine, and the three watched the city and its busy neighborhoods roll by through the dark windows, laughing that no one could see them.
Hussein, sitting next to the driver, memorized the route, Moko was enchanted by reading the names of the shops, while Kali never stopped filming the people and children running free between sidewalks and markets.
Dee Faxx had turned up the volume on the radio, which was playing little music and a lot of chatter in Sheng from entertainers, jokes that he punctuated with loud laughter.
At one point, he changed direction from the road Hussein had imagined.
“Where are you going?”
“Don't worry, little brother... I'm taking a shortcut. You don't know what Lusaka Road is like at this time of day... it's better this way.”
But when the shops thinned out and dirt roads, tin shacks, and piles of garbage reappeared, Hussein began to smell something burning. And it wasn't the truck tires on the side of the road.
“You're not taking us downtown, Dee Faxx. Turn the car around or I'm not paying you.”
“Hey, little brother... don't you trust me? Let's stop in Soweto first and have a drink with my musician friends.”
“No, we decide here, we don't give a damn about Soweto, let's go to Uhuru Park.”
In response, Dee Faxx pulled out a gun and pointed it at Hussein's temple.
“Here, we do as I say or you're dead, one by one, you little bastards. You'll tell us who you stole the money in your pockets from. I work with the police, and you're just petty thieves.”
Kali was about to cry, Moko reacted instinctively and tried to strangle the fake DJ from behind, who, in order to free himself, pulled the trigger of the gun, which was now pointing at the gang leader's cheek, while the car swerved violently.
Fortunately, the gun was empty.
When Hussein realized what was happening, he threw the hardest punch of his short life into Dee Faxx's side, who felt the blow. At the same time, Moko poked him in the eye and Kali slapped him across the face, albeit rather weakly. But when Hussein aimed for his testicles, the car began to swerve again. Dee Faxx lost control completely and was unable to avoid a dividing wall between a fork in the road and the entrance to a gas station. The Corolla rolled over twice and ended up against the tire inflation hut. Dee Faxx was stunned, Kali and Moko managed to jump out of the car, crawling like snakes, Hussein was stuck but seemed to be okay.
To confirm this, he took his gun and hit the impostor, who had already passed out, on the head with the butt.
“Help me get out!”

A growing crowd of onlookers was approaching from Kobil station, led by the two attendants and a limping Indian who must have been the owner.
Moko and Kali pulled hard and managed to create a gap in the door to let their boss slip out.
They started running as fast as they could, without looking back, while half the Donholm neighborhood poured out onto the Toyota. Someone recognized the driver as Abdullahi, known as “the condor,” a notorious drug dealer and fence in Soweto.
They searched the car for money or drugs, but found only three thousand shillings and the instructions for a Samsung S3.
They crossed the road and sat down on the traffic island to lick their wounds and take stock of the situation. Hussein noticed that Kali's shorts were all wet.
“Well... you wet yourself, rookie!”
Moko burst out laughing, Kali gave two of his famous slaps in the air and started to pout, then he saw Hussein smiling and he too burst into liberating laughter.
The three hugged each other and made high-pitched sounds like Akamba women during propitiatory rites.
“We are strong! We are invincible!” said the chief witch doctor.
“That fucking thief wanted to rip us off.”
“But we have the cell phone... and still a lot of money!”
Hussein pulled out a thousand shillings and waved them around, attracting the attention of a red sedan with an elderly African man wearing a jacket twice his size.
“Taxi!”
The car stopped at the side of the road with its hazard lights flashing.
“Where do you need to go, guys?“ asked the old man.
“As close to the CBD as possible with this money,” said Hussein.
“Get in!”
The sedan drove off and left Donholm, while on the opposite side, someone had turned the crumpled Corolla back the right way round and the Indian had taken custody of what was left of Abdullahi Dee Faxx, waiting for the police to arrive. With the damage caused to the gas station and his criminal record, even if he survived, he wouldn't get off easily.
“What do you need to do in the CBD, guys... if I may ask?”
The old man spoke in a calm tone and smelled of lavender.
“Mom gave us some money to buy clothes... but not much. Then we'd like to take some pictures in Uhuru Park and eat nyama choma and chips,” said Hussein.
“You're too young to do these things on your own... how much will you give me if I take you there?”
Kali shook his head, but Hussein and Moko would have bet that the old man was a good person.
“Five thousand for the whole day, but you pay for the nyama choma.”
“How much money do you have in your pockets?”
“More than five thousand,” Hussein replied quickly.
“Okay, I'll do it. My name is Nyongo.”
It was past ten o'clock when the sedan turned onto Haile Selassie and turned onto Moi Avenue.
“The skyscrapers!”
The majesty of the capital's center captivated the three mini-adventurers from Wajir.
Forget Eastleigh and Pangani! Here, they saw only well-dressed people, the streets were free of potholes and lined with colorful plants and flowers, the buildings had clean and orderly signs, there were mammoth houses that would never collapse, and askari everywhere.
It was a dream come true, albeit with a little less carefree.
After all, when freedom comes, you have to seize it, not wonder how long it will last or how it will end.
“Let's park here at Sasa Mall and then go look for a good store with clothes for kids.”
“For boys, Nyongo, for boys...”
In the eyes of the patrons and the unusual customers themselves, the old man was transformed into a caring grandfather.
After all, he had never been able to meet his real grandchildren. One daughter had died under the rusty knives of a backstreet abortionist, and Isaac, his son, had emigrated to Scotland with the help of the diocese, married a Zambian girl he met at Edinburgh University, and had returned only once in ten years, without his wife and the twins she had given him.
“I want new overalls!“ ordered Moko, while Kali disappeared into the wardrobe, pulling out smelly shorts and underwear and coming out with a fantastic pair of beige bloomers.
“You can take them off, I have to iron them,” said the saleswoman.
“No... I can't... I'll buy them like this or not at all,” said Kali.
The woman looked at him as if she understood everything, then picked him up forcefully, placed him on the counter, and took the code before cutting the tag off the pants. 3,500 shillings.
Moko was so excited and amused that he hadn't yet chosen his rich kid's outfit, while Hussein had already tried on two pairs of long pants, four shirts, and a jacket with shoulders wider than those of the big bearded man he had dismissed in his dream.
Nyongo seemed the most amused of the four. He asked for 20,000 shillings, paid, and once outside the store, he returned the change.
“Keep another thousand as a deposit,” Hussein thanked him, ”and now let's go eat!”
(end of episode three - to be continued tomorrow)
Photo by Leni Frau