On September 4th, 1989, I landed at LaGuardia Airport in Queens New York at around 4.35 pm.
My first flight in my 20 years had taken me almost a whole day to fly from Nairobi, through Frankfurt, Germany, then New York and finally to the Southern city of Memphis, TN as the final destination. From Memphis, two students picked me up and we drove for about 2 hours to a small white rural town of McKenzie. The only thing of consequence in the old town was Bethel College. Bethel college would be my first address away from home for a long period of 4 months hence. It was my inauguration to homelessness of both taste and soul.
How a village lad found himself in a rural college town that looked like a monastery is a story for another day.
More important was how I showed up, what I saw and what I did.
I am getting ahead of myself.
The two young fellows who picked me up from the airport were like characters in a play. One was quite gigantic and the other quite thin and tall. The tall lanky youth took the first turn driving the huge white Cadillac. It was around 9 am when we left the airport headed to campus.
As a welcome to America, they pulled into the first gas station we saw and asked me if wanted a coke and a hot dog. I passed on the hot dog but yielded on the coke. What I got was beyond shocking. The short chubby guy walked inside the store and came back with two hot dogs and three huge cups that would have been enough to be used as hard hats on a construction site.
I took sip hoping to get the usual coke buzz from the Kenyan version of the evil drink. I was confused. Did I just get a serving of mouthwash? Well, I am practicing some kind of imaginary etiquette here. In my village that I had just left slightly over a day before, i am not that dull in creativity but the content in my mouth tasted like the pee of the village donkey. Not that I had tasted it while in the village , but I had smelled it many a times as it strained to carry the heavy load to and from the nearby market. I was now even more confused for a split of a second. i knew white folks had done a lot of things but inventing the taste of my village donkey’s pee was giving them a bit too much credit. But even if they could do that, you know you can never tell for sure with an empire, how could one serve it with such a straight face? I swished the coke in my mouth in the version of a mouth and without knowing I opened the door and spewed out the content from my mouth.
For one flitting second, I received 9 different messages to the auditory part of my brain. The voice of the evil taste was somewhat discernible. So my first sense was that those guys were racist. I had ordered a coke and they brought me tobacco juice or mouth wash.
Before I could even process that idea, another idea suggested that the guys were honest, they were postulating before my taste buds". That seemed to make sense. Who eats a dog, hot or cold anyhow? How odd would it be to eat a hot dog with a cold coke? I wondered.
The other seven sounds were too intense for my insular cortex. I would later find it odd that Americans love dogs more than coke and pies. How someone could have gotten away with food that even insinuated that one was eating a dog is beyond me. But again, in the age of Taste, food conquers all.
Not to be outdone, the voice of Taste prevailed. It clouded the other voices slightly. I could hear Reason and Taste nudging me. They exulted themselves above my doubt and fears. I could clearly sense the inferior path I was now sliding towards. I was judging others without evidence. It's called prejudice. I preemptively decided not to strike the first blow. That wasn't what had brought me to America. So I obliged. No judging their souls for the awful taste was truly refreshing.
The driver had taken a few minutes to gobble down the , so we were still in the parking lot. I could tell that the pair wasn't amused. I couldn't tell for sure if it had to do with my spewing the disgusting content on the parking space or my wasteful and ungrateful behavior. But the son of the soil wasn't having it.
I politely asked if the drink was flat. They both had not had a chance to try theirs as they were eating. They each tested their own drink in unison and then gazed at each other. They shuddered. It was clear that they found nothing wrong with the drink.
I explained that the test was rather strange and that I wouldn't drink it.
The act sparked a conversation about the culinary traditions of the two countries represented. Unlike the usual questions about Africans running from lions in their lightly clad thin bodies, my first debate was about food and my own running away from a fake taste. I had reversed the bigoted narrative.
The rest of the evening was just as eventful. It is as though I was getting a preview of what laid ahead in the diaspora.
In any case, as I look back to where my journey in the new world started, I can say that my love of food in all its vicissitudes has been the one consistent thing. If I had a choice of one place to be today, I would choose New York. I would walk over to where Lady Liberty majestically seats and whisper in her ear. " not all who show up on this shores are swine door or huddled masses yearning to be free, some are rich in taste bugs that liberated appetites that are not easily conquered.
In the spirit of Fella Kuti, Dhambozi Marechera, Thomas Payne and Voltire, I wittingly label this is the age of Taste. No more things falling apart or house of hunger.
Our taste buds are fast becoming our new shackles. I choose to make my taste buds my "Grand African Collossus."
In the end, may be, just maybe this "emanciated" kenyan might free the taste buds of a few souls living under the gaze of the empire. If all else fails, I will save my own.