OF SECOND SHARE AND A BEATING.

The year is 2005, I am 12 and hungry. The sun is up and I have just licked of the plate clean, no evidence of my illegal second share. Yet my stomach won't just shut up. I look at the queue leading to the dining hall, its reasonably long. I get creative. Maybe the cook has not registered my face. But its dangerous given that I had already gone for a second share. The fact that I had been arrested thrice the previous week just made it even riskier to go for a third share. To add on that, the same cook who was serving had caught me pants down stealing remains of food from the staffroom earlier on that term. All odds were playing against me. My stomach growled again as if telling me "Be a man!"

I was in Nzoia Sugar Co. Primary School, an institution buried at the heart of a vast sugarcane plantation. Hunger pangs tend to be sharper at such remote places. Our class, STD 7W was popularly known for being masters of disguise while going for second shares. The boys would go at all lengths including soiling our faces to avoid recognition. The boarding master who also doubled up as the canteen man even tried to de-worm us to rid us of this gluttonous behavior. Wandera was his name. On the day that we were to be de-wormed, we ran away from school and spent the better part of the day in the sugarcane plantation. Our reason for escaping this medical procedure was because of Ojago whose dad was apparently a doctor. Ojago had narrated to us in gory detail how worms would crawl out every opening in our malnourished bodies once we took the deworming pill. Who wouldn't trust a medical opinion? So two of my cousins and I took to the Greenwich meridian, for that is how we referred to the plantation.

It was therefore not a surprise that I wanted to risk my life and go for a third share. We had survived solely on sugar-canes the previous day... The grumbling in my stomach made me wish i had rather had worms crawling out of my ears! I could not take this.

Hunger can make one creative. I went back in Starehe House and took out my checked green shirt. This was a clad we were to wear only on weekends. Feeling like a chameleon on a wall, i confidently marched back to the queue with my licked plate shining in the sun. My heart was racing faster as we approached the counter. Maybe this was a bad Idea. "Maybe not.." said the voice in my belly.

My turn came. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. The cook, Musa, was looking directly into my scared eyes as he dug the serving plate into the cake of rice. Just as he was about to put it on my clean-licked plate, he stopped. I was about to run for it when the other cook, Eliud, got hold of my hand.

"Marango!" he screamed for the third cook who was chopping cabbages with an axe, to come into the arresting party. My panic went wild when Marango approached still holding the axe in his hand! I had to defend my self...

"Wait!" I shouted. I had not yet broken my voice.

"Hii ni seki!" Musa said reaching for a pipe. My bladder gave way. This is why you should visit the loo before embarking on such a dangerous mission!

"I am not the one!" my soprano rang the air, "the one who was here had a sky blue shirt, I am wearing a checked green shirt!"

They stopped, thinking through my explanation.
"How did you know the 'other one' had a sky blue shirt?" Marango asked. What followed was the worst beating I have ever received in a kitchen... well, the only beating I have ever received in a kitchen.... True story.

BUNGOMA NDOGO

There is a stuffy bar in Eldoret called Bungoma Ndogo Bar and Restaurant. I cannot locate it even if my life depended on it. This is because on the night that our friend Cherotich took us there, the Kenya Power Company had decided to bless us with one of their surprise black outs. Since it was her birthday, Cherotich would not let anything stand in the way to blow her twenty second candle in style. The reason why she chose Bungoma Ndogo was because black out or not, the operations of this den usually goes on. This is because nothing down here uses electricity. Bungoma Ndogo is lit with seven smoky koroboi's (I counted) and there is the famous Namatete Band for entertainment, well they are famous back in my village.

Having been a weekly customer in Bungoma Ndogo for the past three years, Cherotich could find the place with her eyes closed; something she confirmed given the black out. All the six of us formed a queue behind her as she groped her way through the poorly drained city of Eldoret. After a whole hour of bumping into random objects and people, we finally saw the flickering shadows of the patrons at the venue where Cherotich was to mark her twenty second birthday. the un-synchronized voices of Namatete band were being drowned by their drum-mist who seemed to have more energy than Kenya Power... it only made matters worse that the members were demanding for the singers to move along to the chorus since they were not familiar with the lyrics of the jam.

"That gentlemen is Bungoma Ndogo!" Cherotich announced much to the delight of my Luhya friends. Our entry was welcomed ceremoniously by half of the bar. the other half were shaking their drunk heads in disapproval.

"Watoto wa campus (campus kids!)" said one old ancestor who despite all the years of drinking, the booze had refused to kill him!

"You look like the son of Zebedayo!" The old geezer added poking me on the stomach with his home-made walking stick. Let me put it out there that I have no relative, not even on all my in-law's side going by the name Zebedayo!

"You drink alcohol?" the man who should be dead and a half years asked annoyingly poking me again, "Zebedayo owes me money you know!"

I was about to punch him right on his ribcage. If the cheap alcohol was not ready to kill him then, I was! but Cherotich intervened

"Kenny! its my birthday do not spoil it for me!" and she immediately and squarely dislocated the ancestor's nose. We cheered and soon everybody else joined us in the happy birthday chorus apart from the old people who lead the old dislocated nose out of the bar. The Namatete Band did a Bukusu rendition of 'Happy birthtay tuyu, Happy birthtay tiya Cherodich"

Then came the time to order drinks, we had to come to the hard decision on who should get drunk and who should not. Two were not to drink. Since it was Cherotich's birthday, it was unanimously agreed that she was to drown in whatever Bungoma Ndogo would throw at us. It was then that I noticed all my friends staring at me in a manner suggesting i should sacrifice for the team.

"No! No NO NOOOO!" I cried out in defense.
"Remember last time man..." They were referring to the first time the devil tempted me to drinking Black Ice. we do not talk of that dramatic day. I was out of the alcohol budget. Then Nakitare, my friend from the University of Nairobi, who is now writing blogs about me (nakitarenakitare.blogspot.com), backed out. We nodded understandably, he had found Christ.

Bungoma Ndogo does not serve anything else apart from Keg, cocacola and makhalange. Makhalange is basically something between Ugali and busaa (a local brew). As Nakitare and I ate our makhalange and cocacola, Cherotich and the rest of the birthday party danced themselves to drunken stupor. Despite being drunk, the birthday girl still managed to guide our way back to campus in the dark. I have been trying to find this base since January first. God bless Bungoma Ndogo



this article is also featured in Kenyawriting.com

IF YOU MEET THIS GIRL, CALL ME!

I have never called for a manhunt to hunt down a lady. But this one is called for. Before I state my very good reasons, it is in order to describe her:
she has a banana skin, the kind that almost glows in the dark. Her teeth are very white. She must be brushing them after every meal the way toothpaste commercials tell us to. Her height? Well, her forehead touches my nose (i will explain in a few).
She is easy on the laughter. She laughed at everything I said. I met her outside Sizzlers Restaurant in Eldoret (good matumbos there). Her forehead ran into my nose (her height :D ). She was not seeing where she was going as she was texting while walking. I checked my nose for blood while apologizing. There was none. Ironically its her forehead which had a bump the size of my nose. We laughed a bit... I liked her.
Therefore, if you spot a light-skinned beautiful girl with a bump on her forehead, call me. I suspect she stole my wallet :P

21 CANDLES

No single human being knows how to react when a gang of his tone deaf friends are singing "happy birthday to you" in broken off key voices. it is easier when all of you are drunk. otherwise you just stand there, awkwardly smiling, threatning to blush, not knowing what exactly to do with your hands... its confusing. then the birthday tune turns into a circumcision song "mulongo" and life suddenly makes sense. you dance the dust out of the carpet. It is my twenty first birthday dear fans.

Do you know i can legally marry at this age? All I need is a willing subject with good looks. Hope my future wife is not reading this. If she is, let me explain, I am a comedian (perfect excuse to do and say crazy stuff).

I can also go anywhere that 21 is the age limit. this is crazy. does this mean that I have grown up? I suspect so.

Its also the perfect birthday present that this blog hits 3,500 page views as per yesterday. Thanks people, it is good to know that you feed your minds with the confusing marriage of words inside my head. Writing is not as easy as I thought it would be when I ditched Textile Engineering to do Media Science. Its the readers that give me a reason to write. Yeah... i admitted it, you are important!

This is an appeal to my friends in the college of health science, Moi university, I know you are planning evil for me. I have spotted buckets of dirty water somewhere. please boil it first, I have a condition and Eldoret is freaking cold. Plus we are now 21, can't we grow up? guys?

today I blow 21 candles, I will painfully miss the legendary Chapati's from my mum, God rest her soul. She laughed at all my jokes even the ones I knew were not funny. I will make you proud mama. Hey guys planning to celebrate my birthday by splashing water on me, am emotional, can't you see? hahaha! hope you buy that.

happy birthday to me!!!

GET OUT OF OUR KINYOZI, WOMAN!!!

May God punish the human who suggested that kinyozi’s and salons should be in one room! There are things that go on in a barber shop that should never be exposed to the outside world (by that I mean women). I would never want a future wife of mine to see me being harassed by another man. It is just immoral. In the barber shop, when that guy tells you turn your big head 360 degrees around, then good Lord turn your big head 360 degrees around; this is the man responsible for your handsomeness or otherwise. Being ordered around like that is not good for the ego, especially with women around!

One thing that the long haired woman fails to understand is that shaving is a delicate surgical procedure (notice the methylated spirit and the antiseptics afterwards?). Therefore I will not smile back at you through the mirror when am getting the cut, no muscle is allowed to move… people get AIDS like that you know. Smile at a pretty woman having her hair done and the machine cuts you. How many perverts do you think that machine has cut? Please take salons out of the kinyozis! (That’s right, it’s the salons that came into the once peaceful kinyozis!)

When I go to shave, there are places on my head that I don’t allow the machine to reach, I will explain later. Before the barber starts shaving, I am the boss. I dictate to the guy how I hope my head to look. I issue him with specific instructions not to put a cut on the back of my head. That place is ticklish, and who knows, I might be forced to smile back at some long haired maid across. True to the ways of the people from my village, I am well versed with only three types of haircuts:

1.       JORDAN- named after a famous basket baller in the USA I guess. This style is what you city people call “vup”. It is actually not shaving but the absolute removal of hair. It leaves your head smoother than your face. If the shape of your head is irregular. Then by Jove do not use this hair style!

2.       “YA SHULE”- directly translated it means “of school”. It is where the hair is trimmed very close to the scalp. I do not go for this hair style because of my height and body size. Many might confuse me for a form one….

3.       BOX- It is what city people will call punk. Simply put, it is reverse baldness. The barber leaves hair at the region where there will be none if you happen to go bald. This is my hairstyle J

Once you have given instructions to the barber, the tables are changed. The man sent by God to take away your hair becomes the boss. He turns your head in all the possible angles and whenever you resist, he rudely tells you “wacha kukaza!”. He does not help by throwing comments about dandruffs on your head. This is why the Kinyozi is a private room ladies! Also why I do not allow barbers to shave the top of my head. There it is, that is why most of us go for “box” or the cursed “mohawk”!

 After travelling through your head with the cutting machine, he soaks a towel in boiling water and covers your head with it! Pain. Bad pain. This is the point where that pretty girl having her weaves done smiles at you. I am just from surgery lady, I want to smile back but I can’t!

THE VILLAGE CHOIR; PART ONE

I come from a place where music forgot. The people from my village are good composers of music, no doubt… but ask us to sing and suddenly all of us break our voices. Save, of course for a few extra ordinary talents like David Sishia, Gloria Muliro and Ruth Matete, the rest of us swallowed frogs. The frogs we swallowed come alive when we sing. The village choir is big. But we all got time, let us talk about each one of them.

OMWAMI MATTHEW WAKOLI

VOICE: TENOR TWO/ALTO

Remember when a bill board almost assassinated the Bungoma senator outside the Nairobi City mortuary? If not, google it. Or simply ask Mtthew Wakoli, Omwami. He claims to be closer to Honourable Wetangula Masika than the nose is to the mouth! He has been walking around my village narrating on how he escaped death by a whisker. According to him, he was supposed to be riding at the back with the senator on the night of the assassination attempt. Were it not for the deputy head teacher of Friends School Kamusinga to put him on duty that week…thanks be to the Almighty.  He might not be lying though, on his self-contained single room in Lutonyi a newspaper picture is framed. On it you can spot Omwami Matthew Wakoli laughing with our senator! To rub in on how important he is as far as the village politics is, he posts photos of him with former politicians like Bifwoli Wakoli and the little known Pascal Wanjala.

Omwami Matthew Wakoli recently bought a camera. The people from my village call it “kitega uchumi”. But both he and I know that this is a trick to go to weddings and graduation parties uninvited. Honestly, you do not lock out the guy with the camera.

Apart from singing for the village choir, Omwami is a hockey coach. Classy it may look on the surface it is as clumsy as Aden Duale on heels! He posseses a carton box full of memos from the principal urging him to be attending training sessions.

LUDWIN CHRISTINA MKHA WATITWA

VOICE: SOPRANO ONE

One can easily tell that Ludwin Christina Mkha Watitwa went to school. She assumes the all too famous academic angle while walking. For those unaware of the academic angle; it involves the person leaning extravagantly to one side due to the effect of carrying books. The whole village attended Ludwin’s graduation ceremony (which my grandmother calls “kompromasyo”) and the village choir composed a set-piece in her honour. Small girls in the village have been instructed by their mothers to be like Ludwin Christina Mkha Watitwa. If you are new in my village, you might think that all the girls are crippled. You have never been so wrong; they all try to walk like this educated lady.

The people from my village say that she is the one who brought the “toilet seat” phenomenon in the village. Let me break down the phenomenon for you. First, imagine an ordinary village toilet, small with a hole at the center of the floor. Now raise that hole up to about a foot. That’s it. Invented and patented by this Albert Einstein that is Ludwin Christina.

Much to my peoples disappointment, Christina refuses to run for political office, no matter how much she is discussed in Busaa dens. Maybe when she declares her candidature, Elijah Wanameme’s ball that he kicked long time ago will eventually return to God’s green earth and holy presto… we will have the first Luhya president! That is just wishful thinking folks; the wife of Watitwa likes her life simple, unlike the women from my village!

SHIROYA VERONICA MKHANA WA MUMIAS

VOICE: SOMETHING BETWEEN TENOR TWO AND BASE ONE.

Nothing says ‘go go Manchester united’ like Shiroya Veronica in a tight “AON” jersey. She is the lady all the village models want to be and the sweaty village men want to be with. Her eyebrows are up there. She smiles like a one day old baby girl biting into a seedless watermelon. Needless to say, her clothes have accepted her. When she wears a long dress, she looks like a mermaid clad in a waterfall. What do you expect; she went to India and came back. Of course I am exaggerating!

Shiroya is beautiful. But of course God cannot give you beauty and brains; she is the worst dancer in east and central Bungoma County. To save herself from embarrassment, Veronica has invented a dance routine that she uses in all parties. Ironically, this rehearsed dance routine does the opposite of what it is intended to achieve. It embarrasses her! I will strive not to exaggerate this. First and fore most she waves her hands wildly in the air. From a far, one might think she is being attacked by bees. All this while, she is bobbing her head like an Indian high on coffee spirit. While still doing these weird movements in her upper torso, she gulley creeps while twerking simultaneously. The climax of the routine is when she decides to lie down flat on her back and have a seizure. For this very good reason, the village choir restrains as much as possible not to include dancing in their set pieces.

SAMMY NAKITARE

VOICE: NOT SURE

Nakitare has an annoying voice. It doesn’t help that he doubles up as the drummer. Given the economic situation of the people from my village, we have to make do with a yellow, twenty litre jerican. Originally cylindrical, the ‘drum’ has lost its shape. This is because the short man Nakitare transfers all his trouble at home to this musical instrument. One can easily tell whether the man was harassed by his wife the previous night by how hard he hits the drums.

For those of us who know Nakitare from high school, we know that he was not this timid. I remember one afternoon just after performing a narrative at the provincial level; I noticed a certain lady from Maeni Girls’ secondary school looking at Nakitare. I quickly poked him on his ribs and showed him the lady. This girl had all the fundamental body parts that attract a man to a woman… or I this case, a teenage boy to a teenage girl. But we had an issue with her hind quarters. They looked unnatural. I even came up with the hypothesis that she might have tied a towel inside there! But Sammy Nakitare of Webuye is not the man to give up easily.

“let me confirm,” said the boy as he courageously marched towards the girl. She had no idea what was going to hit her. Literally. A spank and a scream later confirmed it. All was natural.

I look at the man now and wonder, what happened to his ill-mannered courage? Rumour has it that he found Christ.

The village choir, part one.

2014 IN THE VILLAGE TOILET!

I am not proud of the fact that I spent part of 2013 and 2014 inside a village toilet! on that note let me wish you a happy new year!

 

My prayer has always been never to get pressed in the village. My fear of the village toilet supersedes that of snakes! And god knows I fear snakes.

The village toilet is one that leaves you with so many options on how to use it, none of the numerous options is comfortable.  First and foremost, the village toilet is cold. Were it not for the hygiene factor, one can preserve milk inside there. The main reason for these unfriendly low temperatures is the worn out sack that serves as the door. The problem with this kind of door is that it only covers the face of the user and not the fundamental parts that make the toilet a private room…

You certainly do not want to visit the village toilet on a windy day. This is because the sack that covers the little privacy you could afford will be flapping about furiously! To save yourself from the embarrassment that could ensue, you have to hold the sack with both your hands. Woe unto you if the small hole is far away from the ‘door’ or worse, if your hands are short!

Tissue paper does not come easy in the village… people have to be creative. If you are lucky enough to visit a rich man’s toilet, you will have to make do with old pieces of newspapers. Now, I got no issues with this form of paper, but won’t you find it weird to ”serve” yourself with an obituary page? If I was a ghost, I would haunt you for life if you used the page am on in this manner!

If you visit a poor man’s toilet in the village, please do not question the plantation that has grown inside this all important structure, the green leafs are means for you. If I owned a village toilet, I would plant a poisonous plant next to it just for fun when a visitor uses its leaves as tissue paper… yeah. Am a sadist!

I was surprised when I spotted a jembe in one of the village toilet. Upon inquiry, Wakukha, my cousin to whom the toilet belonged explained graphically that it was for “the mess afterwards just in case” Judging from the size, the temperature and the type of door the village toilet has, a mess is bound to happen!