Let me tell you a story.
Some time ago on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon, I was sitting on a concrete block in Nairobi between Quickmart and the Bomb Blast Memorial on Moi Avenue admiring the trees on that wall and watching the people getting their photos beaten there.
Sitting on the same block as I was an old man in his fifties and a woman slightly younger than him and a young man. The young man was facing Moi Avenue while the rest of us looked towards Co-Operative Bank Building. On the edge of the parking space adjoining this walk where we were seated were young men standing hawking blazers and jackets among other items.
Suddenly, a chokoraa all grown up, tall, dirty and carrying a surprisingly clean sack laden with who knows what came walking and stopped at the hawkers', facing towards the roundabout. This man prayed in a loud voice, "Baba katika jina la Yesu, niko na njaa. Ninataka unipatie mtu mmoja aninunulie chai na maandazi mbili."
"Very concise prayer," I thought, "Exactly what he wants. I want to buy him the tea and more maandazis than two but I will not be seen dragging him around town looking for tea and maandazis. Let me wait and see what happens."
As I was thinking that, the lady next to me took out a two hundred shilling note and asked me and the old man if either of us had change so she could give the guy fifty bob. Maybe she was also subtly asking if we could pool. We didn't. Both of us only had money in our Mpesas. The young man had already left.
"Besides," I said, "I do not give money to beggars."
"Why not?" the lady asked.
"Because they might go use it on drugs or something. I prefer to give them exactly what they are asking for."
While we were debating this, in the anticipatory silence that fills the Kenyan air after you have done or asked for something that has brought some attention to you, the man walked away towards the railway station just across from the roundabout.
I briefly considered following him and dropped the thought when I remembered his loud prayer and my aversion to publicity.
While we sat there thinking our various thoughts, barely two minutes later, guess what! A man comes bearing a huge thermos of tea and a clear fifteen litre bucket full of maandazis for sale from the direction of the Co-Operative Bank building and passed by the cameramen on the sidewalk walking, it seemed, towards Moi Avenue.
I said, "If the guy had only waited two minutes, he would have gotten his tea and two maandazis, even more than that."
"Yeah."
Strangely enough, the maandazi guy walked in the same direction the chokoraa had walked in. "Maybe his prayer will be answered by somebody else's action on the other side. Will they meet at Railways? Shall I follow them? Shall I give the maandazi guy money and tell him to track down the chokoraa and give him tea? You know this is Nairobi, right?"
There are so many maybes here, but one thing is clear: God answered this man's prayer. He did not wait to see it, and maybe he got what he asked for in front there or as he went along, who knows? But his prayer was answered.