OF BOYS AND MEN

I miss those days as a boy when holiday was holiday. I mean, if you made your own jerrycan pickup/lorry, built a house on a tree, played cha mama cha baba in the bushes, fished tadpoles and of course went swimming in the river when you had been told not to, then you know what am speaking about. Oh by the way, did you trap birds using basins? That is what am speaking about. Those days.

Today, such things don’t exist, at least from where I come from. All I see is young boys sitting infront of a tv screen, spending a lot of time on the social media and well, being sent to holiday tuition joints even though Matiang’i is against it. I see boys who are not boys, but are somewhere in the middle.

Growing up as a village boy, I knew there were some things boys did and could not do. Since I come from a true African family, by this I mean a large one, we used to look forward to family meetings where as boys we would be taught how to slaughter a goat or any other animal and spend evenings with our grandfather as he enlightened us on manliness.

Turning from a boy to a man was something mystical. There were so many stories as a boy you heard of that made one really want to be a man. To cross over and see what it’s like. Those who crossed to the other side stopped associating with you and changed completely. What made them change? There was something manly about them that no one could dispute.

Being a father was also something else. You became an elder and you had to change your behaviors. Did you ever hear of something like soda ya wazee? They had their own cups, plates and spoons, not to mention chairs. They also carried themselves with what is called Nyathi or honor. Never did I see my fathers and by fathers I mean anyone old enough to be called a father go to the honorable room. This was a top secret mission.

Well, those were the days. Today……

‘Parasite Renting’ in Nairobi

Whatever Ruto calls hustling and what I know as hustling I guess are two things like Uhuru and Joho. When my mother decided to visit his ‘city son’ last year to stay for a week, my blood-pressure was at an all time high.  If she had said two months earlier, I would have gladly welcomed her, but that is not how she works. Two weeks are enough to panga yourself and I couldn’t refuse. I mean, what do you tell your mother who believes you are the best son, a hard-working boy who ‘runs’ Nairobi since you send her a few coins when the good lord blesses your month? The guy who dresses like those ‘Afrosinema’ Ogas‘ she watches whenever the sun is too hot to go to that small shamba of hers?

I have been living in Nairobi through parasite renting. Now, if you don’t know what parasite renting is, here is how it operates. You see, as a shagz guy wanting to live in Nairobi, you don’t just come and settle. You are first introduced to your uncle who came to Nairobi and is ‘living well’. After 3-4 months you start ‘growing horns’ and your uncle decides you part ways before the clan is called to solve your dispute. This is where you look for that cousin of yours who is a hustler. He accommodates you and teaches you some in’s and outs of Nairobi. The only problem is after ‘working’ together, you realise he is taking the bigger share and you are doing the donkey’s work.

If you are smart enough, by now you know a few people and you stay with them for a month or two in the name looking for a job. By the time this stops working, you have a ‘place of your own’ paying a whooping ksh. 4000 in a place you cant take someone else apart from yourself. Since you are doing all sorts of jobs to make it, you need a small place to act as an office to see clients. To rent an office, in Nairobi is no easy job. If you need to see a serious client who is ready to pay your rent for the next three months, you need to meet them somewhere in uptown where you can be able to give them all the lies you know to convince them.

This is where you call that classmate of yours who is doing well, or knows that you can’t let them down if they introduce you to someone else. You borrow the office for one hour and you have to tell your clients to keep time since you have a very tight schedule. If the client is not as official, then you contact someone in down-town, let them know you have a client and you want to see. Good thing is, if these guys are your guys, they know you need to survive in Nairobi and they will gladly let you use their space, occasionally adding some business terms here and there to let your client know you are a ‘big guy’ in the industry.

So when the first lady of the county where I am the the third in command decided to pay me a visit, it took the intervention of friends and partners to be able to pull off. I ‘rented’ a friends house in Ruaka for a week, and kept mysef very busy that she never actually visited ‘my office.’ The ‘damage’ she left me will take some months to recover but I feel I did what every good son would do.

 

 

Day Of The Jackal

As I neared the makeshift gate that no one actually used, I knew was in for a good one. Every homestead had several ‘Panya routes’ that villagers used while going about their business, and our was no special. Though I was carrying firewood and a water jerry can, I was pretty sure they would not save me. Looking at the sinking sun, I knew I had committed two cardinal sins from my mother’s 5 commandments.

My mother, a teacher at the village primary school was a strict disciplinarian and a lady per excellence. She was feared and loved like no other. Her blue belt meant she could stand up against any bully in the village. Once she had slapped a girl till the girl fainted for disrespecting her. The next day the girl’s father stormed the staffroom with a panga looking for my mother. Before he had known it, he was down begging for help and saying that indeed his girl needed to be disciplined. An arts teacher, great story teller and a lover of sports, she was loved by her students like none.

Back in the day, teachers were highly regarded in the society. As a pupil, you were supposed to keep quite and stand up as a show of respect if a teacher passed near you. It didn’t matter whether it was in school or at the shopping center. These were some of the unwritten rules that had to be followed failure to which the powerful Scouts Association would deal with you ‘perpendicularly’ once in school.
The two cardinal sins I had committed were going to swim in the river without permission and being out past curfew time. Yes, before Muigai wa Mashati introduced his curfew time, I had been through that. As her child, you were not allowed to be out if her chicken were already in the coop.

The week had been a good one. It was during holidays and she had been representing the church in several leaders meetings. I would leave home immediately she left and return early. Not today though! I could lie but I would be breaking another commandment, probably the 2nd greatest of all. That would be a death sentence if she found out.
“So you have made this your home?”, said a voice as soon as I got to the door. Before I could answer, I was only ground looking at the sky wondering where my help would come from.
“One week of you behaving like any other kid in the village.”
“But mum…”
“OOh so now you want to talk back to me? You are now a man and think that your mother cannot tell you anything?”

To cut the story short, I think I’m ready to serve my country in the military because I lived to see another day.

I WAS 8…

“Jackie, where did you get this boy from? I thought I told you no visitors in the house and what have you done to my table room?”, she asked as she let her eyes wonder around probably looking for something she could grab.

Never had I been so frightened in my life, well, apart from the time my friends had left me on a mango tree when the owner of the farm we used to steal mangoes from had appeared without notice.

Jackie stared me with the, ‘I hope you are saying your last prayer’ look.

I was 8 Years old.

This had been my first time in Nairobi. I had landed a one week to Nairobi courtesy of my uncle and though my parents seemed a bit hesitant at first, they gave an okay. Back then, going to Nairobi was the epitome of success and whoever got a chance to visit the big city even for a day was the real O.G.

Seeing that I come from a small village, by the end of the day news had spread fast that I would be going to the big city the following day. As it was, the boys gathered in the evening to wish me well while at the same time send me with a list of items they wanted. The women gathered as well to give me advice since I would be representing the village in the city.

Mama Denno who had been privileged to visit Nairobi more times than the rest had this to say.  “You are our son and we don’t want you behaving as if you come from a bush. We might not be sophisticated as the city people but they must know we are not cockroaches (Nyenje). You must know that in Nairobi,

1. People don’t eat a lot. You have to train your stomach to hate food and love water.
2. People stay in their houses. Don’t go entering every house or kitchen you see.
3. People eat with forks and knives. See what they are doing and follow it. Don’t be the first to eat. Wait.
4. Don’t talk to people you don’t know. They will know you are not from Nairobi and you might be stolen.
5. Lastly their houses are not like ours. Its best if you just sit and watch. Don’t go touching things you don’t know.
6. What I want from the city is one thing, the big bread.

With that, I was ready for the city.

I had met Jackie on my 2nd day and seeing that I didn’t want to fail my boys back home who had asked me to come back with a girlfriend from the city I had hit the ground running immediately. She had been beautiful and sounded very intelligent. Her command of English was nowhere close to that of my teacher; she would beat him any day. I had introduced myself as Jack and had promised her how a powerful ‘couple’ we would be as the Jacks.

Now as I sat on that chair, which by the way was her dad’s, I knew my stay was done. I had broken several ‘cardinal’ sins and to make things worse I would be beaten in front of the most beautiful girl I knew.

“Jackie, I asked you a question.”

“He is a friend from school. We were just playing,” she partly lied.

“What a sharp girl”, I thought.

“Can you get out of my house before…”

I did not wait for her to complete the sentence. Angel Michael had just been sent to protect the poor boy and there was no way the devil would stop that.

OF THE MAIZE AND MANGO SCHOOL CALENDAR

Boring as school might have been back in the day, there were two things that always spiced-up the calendar:The Maize and Mango seasons. Forget the school bananas we used to cut and hide until they were ripe or the avocados that were supposed to be for the’Class Shop’ that always wen’t missing when they were almost ready to be feasted.

Coming from the bottom of Mt. Kenya, we always had two of these seasons where we had maize and mangoes. Unlike the Maize seasons, there mango season characterised by rain and there was what was known as the ‘Sun Mangoes’ in other words, maembe ya jua. These were found at a certain time in September when the sun’s heat made you run to school after a ‘mangoful’ lunch not because you loved school but the sand was too hot for your bare feet.

Apart from stealing the school maize and roasting the behind the toilets, what made the season out was harvesting time. I mean, who didn’t love a whole day harvesting maize. Maize was not just maize; it was a powerful tool/thing that could get you a girl. While most would would carry boiled maize to school, it was he who knew the right time when everybody had eaten theirs and produced his that carried the day. There was nothing as great as eating your maize one by one from your pocket or desk during a Maths or GHC lesson.

Mangoes were something else. They were breakfast, lunch and even supper for many. Every school bag would carry half books and half mangoes but even so, we never got enough mangoes. Remember that story in the textbook where a boy ate so many mangoes? The season could not pass without searching for a mango king.

We use to take chance and creep out of class during ‘free lesson’ and go to a nearby shamba since the school never had a mango tree. The farm owner had always complained to the school headteacher that there we’re ‘mango thieves’ who stole ate and left only the seeds as evidence they were there, but had never caught or seen anyone. As usual, two would climb while three would wait to catch the falling mangoes so that no sound was made.

PAUSE!! REMEMBER PEN LOVE?

A few days ago I met my class 2 girlfriend….Yes at class 2 I had already fallen in love or thought that I had. C’mon, we are all culprits here don’t pretend to be a saint. I mean, there was that girl or boy you thought was the coolest in class and wanted to be close to. The said girl was a daughter of a teacher and for those who come from the village like me, know that in the village teaching is a very respected profession.

The nice houses belong to teachers, they were the first people to buy vehicles, they belong to most village committees, are church elders and deacons and above all, they are the first to receive those invitation letters that everybody does every now and then asking for support. I don’t hate these letter but some people will find the smallest excuse of calling for a gathering like even his goat having twins. That’a story for another day. So where were we? Ah! So those days you couldn’t just approach a teacher or their family. In fact, whenever a teacher passed close and you were seated you had to stand up even if it was in the market.

So this girl was something and when I say something I know you don’t need any explanation. The cleanest, the smartest, the ‘richest’ and of course she had to be the most beautiful. I mean, there is a way that money makes something beautiful. Well, so she was admitted to our school at the beginning of class two, coming from a private school. Her mother had just been transferred to our school and she brought her along.

This was the beginning of all my primary school troubles. I was not the best in class that I could brag about and I was also not the most handsome. What I knew was I had to find a way of her noticing me. I mean, who wouldn’t? The easiest way was usually to raise my hand up even when I didn’t know the answer. One time I remember, the teacher asked the opposite of the Kiswahili word ‘Nje’ and seeing that this was a perfect chance, the devil crept into me, I raised my hand and when the teacher chose me, I answered loudly ‘Jeshi’. Where that came from I still wonder up to today.

Since I used to stay just behind her, a friend of mine in class 4 advised me to start throwing my pen at her, not directly though. I was to do it such that it hits her softly and falls just in front of her. She would pick and while she was giving me, be clammy and the pen falls. This I was to do just once a day and by the end of the week, our heads had bumped into each other and we were laughing. By the time we were in class seven, it was almost an accepted rule to throw a pen to the girl you ‘loved’ and they would immediately knew from whom it came from and smiled while picking it.

Since when they went home you couldn’t throw a pen, the acceptable rule was to throw two small stones following each other at the roofs or if you thought the father was at home, the most feared being, you had to whistle but in a way that only the two of you knew the meaning. Catching up at the river was common so was meeting at the coffee factory.

If you know the pen love, when love started with a pen throw, SHARE this!!!!

This is where we start

Alarm rings at 5 O’clock..Arrgh! Its another morning another day…. Its those days you wish you didnt have anything to do but bills are there and have to be paid.Just yesterday my landlord slipped a note into my ‘house’

“Gharama ya maisha imepanda. Starting next month you will have to add 1,000 to the usual amount. I am sorry for the sudden change but there was nothing I could do”

Yours Faithfully

Landlord

Yeah… such a short notice and there was nothing he could do…He must have been at a gun point typing this.

I open one eye and switch off the alarm…..I have to give myself some other minutes to ‘listen to myself’ like my old man would say.

This is where we start….Thosedayz.wordpress.com

Bookmark this blog and lets have fun

Our lives are full of twists….from the past to the present…This blog is just about giving you the funny side of your everyday life….bringing you past to your present.