Lunchtime

It's a few minutes past One, and I'm seated on a plank of wood suspended between two other wooden stumps embedded to the ground inside a long tin-walled shack. The location is along Lunga Lunga road in Industrial area, and judging by the frantic pace at which the waiters are rushing, these people are hungry

"Teargas!" The waiter who has just taken my order suddenly shouts, and I have to physically restrain myself from racing for the door and clearing the place as fast as I can. This is, after all, one of the seedier parts of town where riots are not altogether uncommon.

But I need not worry for my safety. The purpose of the waiter's blood-curdling yell, it turns out, is not to warn the assembly of eaters in the food kiosk of the presence of riot-busting fumes. Rather, he simply wishes to inform the harried-looking waitress behind the small kitchen window to include some pepper in the Karanga I have just ordered.

Welcome to the world of low-end dining.