The group chat that planned nothing

It started on a Monday, the way these things always start: “Guys, tuende somewhere Saturday.” Eleven people reacted with a thumbs up. That, historically, is where the plan died.

By Wednesday the group had produced:

• Four suggestions for a place, all of them “anywhere is fine”.
• One poll with seven options, which nobody voted in except the person who made it.
• A voice note from Pato that was two minutes long and contained no information.
• “Tutaona.” (We will see.) Three separate times.

On Thursday Shaz did something radical. She stopped asking. She went to the picnic spot at the arboretum, the one with the big shade, and dropped something there for all eleven of them. Then she typed one line: “Iko kitu imeachwa pale arboretum. Ina-open tu mkiwa wote. Saturday, saa nane.”

There is something left at the arboretum. It only opens when you’re all there. Saturday, 2pm.

Saturday, 2:47pm

Nine of eleven had arrived. The Drop sat on everyone’s map, waiting, saying “9 of 11 here”. Nobody had ever seen this group move so fast. Brian took a boda. Jess left a wedding early and would like that noted.

At 3:20 the last one walked in, holding a soda like he had been invited to something completely different. The Drop opened: a photo from their first year of campus, all eleven of them squeezed onto one bench, all looking about twelve years old.

Mbona mlikuwa mnatuma polls? Si mngeanza na hii?

They stayed until it got dark. The group chat has since been renamed “Shaz Decides”, which Shaz says is not the lesson, and everyone else says is exactly the lesson.