CAPTION: A shot of Quiver Lounge & Grill located along Thika Road A Kenyan living abroad has narrated how a brief December holiday expedition to his motherland met a calamitous twist when he decided to visit a popular local entertainment joint in Nairobi, only to fall into the trap of hungry human vultures.
Through a lengthy Facebook post, the deadlocked "Summer Bunny" gave a detailed account of the unfortunate events on that regrettable night that not only cost him his self dignity but also a whooping Sh400,000 that was transferred out of his mobile banking accounts. "East! West! Home is the best. Okay? But why are you so vile to us prodigal sons and daughters oh 254? Deciding to finish my 3-week vacay in this social joint turned out to be a Kshs 400K mistake. I was reminded again social setting in Kenya is a misnomer," he begins his monologue. Like many others before him, the unsuspecting chap fell victim to the dreaded Mchele Terrorists of Quiver; a once stylish and exquisite lounge that slowly degraded to a dingy hotspot for criminals and courtesans ready to spike your drink at the slightest opportunity.
As he gobbled up his ice-cold bottles of WhiteCap that night, all he saw before him was four ordinary city girls looking to have a good time, with the prospect of a happy ending.
But little did he know that by the next morning, he would wake up to his apartment swept clean of all his valuable belongings, including expensive electronic gadgets he had ferried from the United States. "The night was great and to be honest, I will return to Quiver. Lakini it turned out the chicks I met and "socialized" with for over 4 hours were anesthesiologists. They put me in a nice slumber and helped themselves to my iPhones, M-Pesa and Sendwave accounts to the limit allowed within 24 hours," he painfully laments. Not even his beloved shower cap or dog tags were spared.
They took everything. "My dog tags! Meaningless to you but priceless to me; given at my 2000 Marine boot camp graduation and worn daily since. Shower cap!? Bruh! Actually shower cap pained me the most. Robbed and wet dreads! Pure evil," he cries out on the post. As all this was happening, the gentleman was quietly snoring his life away in slumberland like a fully fed infant. The science of "Mchele" While he was lucky to find himself in his apartment, some victims of “mchele” find themselves in very unfamiliar quarters, some even sexually abused.
The popular drug called Rohypnol and also referred to as flunitrazepam is ideally meant for treating severe insomnia for a short duration (since it is addictive).
Higher doses of the drug can result in excessive sedation and finally a coma.
Adverse effects include confusion, speech impairment and loss of balance.
Victims do not recall much of what happens when drugged and that is why it is popular in cases of sexual assault and robbery.
Rohypnol alias “mchele” comes in pill form and can be crushed into powder. People who use the drug on unsuspecting victims often place either the pill or powder into a drink because it dissolves quickly and has no smell or taste.
Many people who observe a person who has ingested Rohypnol will assume that the person is simply drunk as a result of consuming excess alcohol.
The more developed and urbanized a town is, the higher the risk of coming across these little devils in your drink.
At Quiver, drugging happens so stealthily and covertly that the average reveller might not even notice they’re being drugged until hours later.
It takes less than a minute for a criminal to spike your drink and watch you lose consciousness minute by minute.
You could be dancing, chatting, browsing through your phone or maybe excusing yourself to the washroom, and they’ll sneak up on you, position themselves close to your drink, hover their fingers over the drink and, in the blink of an eye, spill some chemical dust - or tiny pill - off their nails or fingers into the drink.