There is a nondescript restaurant called G&R along Muindi Mbingu Street in Nairobi, right opposite the City Market. If you look to your right as you enter the restaurant, you will see the arched opening to Cianda House along Koinange Street. At night, you would see the pink and blue neon advertising the Dolce discotheque that is located on the ground floor of that building flashing invitingly.

I do not know what G&R stands for. I doubt many people even bother to wonder since there is nothing ‘cool’ about the place. G&R is a restaurant for old people; the kind that is graced by teenagers only when a parent drags one along while on the way to school, usually under protest. Youngsters would rather hang out in crowded arcade inns where they can eat French fries and other greasy foods while listening to loud music accompanied by video on strategically placed plasma screens. On that account, G&R is way off since it specializes in serving foods such as arrow roots, sweet potatoes, mukimo, githeri and other such food that would appeal to the City Market traders that often frequent it. I doubt there has ever been any music at G&R.

What G&R does have is a fish aquarium. If you take a seat facing the street, you will have a good view of the swimming gold fish. Unfortunately, that is not always the case since the hawk eyed waiters at G&R usually strategically place themselves right in front of the aquarium so that they can have a clear view of all the tables. Watching a man and a woman standing next to each other with the backdrop of tiny fish swimming across the gap between them at groin level can really impregnate the imagination.

If you look carefully at the G&R fish aquarium, you will notice that apart from the beautiful gold fish, there is an ominous looking black fish. Unlike the goldfish that swims in open water, the black fish clings to the bottom and the sides of the aquarium. The fish is what is called a ‘bottom feeder’, and whose job is to clean up the mess that the other fish leave behind. The bottom feeder scavenges the bottom on the aquarium for discarded pieces of food and other waste, and generally plays the important role that the garbage man plays in our lives.

Have you ever felt like you are playing the role of a bottom feeder, cleaning up the mess that others have left behind? It sometimes feels like that when people are careless simply because they know that you will mop up after them. And yet, there are people who choose the role of serving others in life. When I think of service to others, nurses in hospitals come to mind. A nurse will clean up a messy person who walks into the emergency room with a fresh wound, clean up the person if he or she is too weak to even make use of the bathroom, and clean up the mess left behind by the doctors. Apart from that, nurses have to show a lot of constraint when being lambasted by the relatives, the doctors and even the patients under their charge. The reason is because the nature of their work puts them right at the end of the firing range and anyone can take a shot at them. And yet, despite working long and odd hours, they do not take home much in terms of money.

People who are in service to others out of choice often do that as an answer to a calling. They never get any meaningful compensation for their hard work, and often take a lot of unnecessary grief from others. And yet despite all this, they are certain that they are who they are supposed to be, are where they are supposed to be, doing what they are supposed to do. All they ever ask is to be treated with a little consideration. But even in the absence of that they keep a peace about them that makes them handle most situations with admirable grace.

Many people idly think about being of service to others. Many other people seriously think about it. Are you one of them? Are you able to give up your position as a gold fish to take the place of a bottom feeder? Are you able to lose the colorful glamour of swimming in open water, to the ominous dark gloom of scouring the bottom for remains others leave behind?

Last week, a group of school children laughed and pointed at a soot coated chokora (scavenger). He stopped at a distance from them and lifted up a huge gunny bag crammed with cardboards and said, “See! You are not the only ones who carry bags stuffed with pieces of paper!” He then walked away to do his scavenging as if nothing had happened. I suppose that is the kind of patience that every bottom feeder needs to have.

Perhaps people’s lives are like the aquarium at G&R. On the surface, everyone wants to be a gold fish – enjoying the colorful life while floating beautifully in the open water with not a care in the world. However, at the bottom, everyone yearns to be a bottom feeder – being of service to others and helping to make the world a better place.

The biggest challenge in life is heeding that calling that comes from deep down. True service is never glamorous, for not many – even of Mother Teresa stature – ever had their pictures splashed on the covers of even a local newspaper. That is why we need to ask God to help us leave behind vanity – thinking of our status in society – and give us the courage – not being afraid of what others will think – to be what we need to be.