My neighbor Mrs Njoroge.

The fact that I could bump into Mrs. Njoroge on my way to the shop and just exchange greetings with her proved to me that people can change and Mrs. Njoroge is one such example.

In less than one week after moving into our new neighborhood I found Mrs. njoroge and my mother chatting in our livingroom,which was so unlike my mother who did not believe in any friendship between neighbors unless it came with benefits, like Mama Evone,our next door neighbors at our former place, mum and her were basically just sharing the balcony until mum spotted her big sufurias outside her kitchen door,sufuria’s that would become handy in one of her parties, they’ve been friends ever since. Friend with benefits my mum would call them. Seeing that it had only been one week Mrs. Njoroges benefits were yet to be discovered.

 That’s why I found it unusual that in the first  week she was already in our sitting room, and she kept coming ever since, she would talk and talk and never let you put in a word.Mrs njoroge left no topic undiscussed,no homestead unturned and no person in the neighborhood unrevealed. From whose son had made whoever’s daughter pregnant to whose child had failed their K C P E exam to whose husband was sleeping with the house help, she had it all. All the information there was to know about a person.

  Over the months her character became even more clear.Mrs njoroge was known by everyone. She did not choose her audience, the time nor the place to brief you on the latest, she did not seem to be bothered by the fact that you were in a hurry, or that it was early in the morning or late at night she had the time for you and with it the latest gossip. It became a nightmare for me to bump into her as that would mean ten minutes of hearsay, five of questioning and another five of whom to say hi to back at home. I dreaded my encounters with her. She would probe me about everyone and everything happening at home. Asking what my mum was planning to build with the heap of stones she saw in our compound. Or what my brother was up to as she did not see him around anymore and whether everything was okay between mum and dad as she rarely saw my dad she did not stop at anything.

    Mrs. Njoroge as I later learnt was responsible for enough arguments in the neighborhood for she had chosen to be everyone’s watchdog, be it mother and daughter, father and son, boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife.househelp and employer she had chosen to take the very hard task of watching over those people we love when we were not around to do so ourselves. At first such information seemed quite useful to a person and one was actually quite great full to her, but with time all the constant arguments with the other party seemed to get worse thanks to Mrs. Njoroge.so in order to salvage what was left of the relationship one had to drop the less important party and that unfortunately was Mrs. Njoroge.

    Everyone hated it when the shortcut to where they were going had to pass outside her compound, it meant going the long way just to avoid her,bumpng into her meant you go back home on the note that you had forgotten something a behavior Mrs. njoroge noted and made her who she is today.

Mrs. Njoroge noticed that she did most of the visiting, was not invited to the local parties and everyone seemed to be avoiding her. I guess that’s when she realized that the only thing she need’s to exchange on bumping into a person in the neighborhood are greetings.