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In 1957, my mother first visited Eldoret, taken there by her elder sister because she had developed stomach pains and in Eldoret, there was an Indian doctor known by as Africans as Patel Mwendazimu who could attend to her. Before that, she had only lived around Sergoit.
My grandmother was not for the idea. Rumor had it that white and Indian doctors would draw lots of blood from Africans under the guise of treating them and share it with members of their races. But her elder daughter insisted and she gave in.
On Uganda Road, my mother only saw white people, walking up and down, in a rush. The men looked mean but the women had the thinnest waists she had ever seen and were dressed in yellow, orange, red; colors she could never imagine being on garments.
What she did, was stand by the road and in fascination, look at each woman passing till they disappeared. That day she saw her first set of twins that were not Black, sausages (which her sister described to be pig intestines) and high heels.
At the turn of the road was Patel's clinic, on a street that was decidedly Indian. He prescribed my mother some pills which she had to take each morning after tea, and this is where the dilemma arose. Only one person in Sergoit was known to take tea in the morning.
His name was Kipsilgich and he owned a lorry. My grandmother summoned her courage and asked Kipsilgich if her daughter could come each morning with a cup because she had been prescribed medication which she had to take each morning "after drinking tea."
And for three days, she walked to Kipsilgich's house, a yellow pill in her fist and a tin on the other hand, in order to be given a little tea.
