Chief of Stuff

You would be well advised to stand clear off the Chief. If his stout figure and swaying nightstick won’t scare you, his sputtering mouth will most certainly drench you into submission. He was at his shop when I finally caught up with him… “Chief Sir, our college was closed after disturbances and I was asked to report to you once a week sir.”… “You know where to report to me, don’t you?” “Yes sir, your office, tomorrow morning… eeh sir, I’ve learnt some typing. I was thinking I could assist you in setting up the typewriter in your office then sir? “That’s very good, report in the morning.”

It’s a former classroom converted into an office. On the front wall is the blackboard and on it, sketches of the previous day’s plans to raid illegal brew joints and muggers hideouts. In front of a hard back chair is his desk. It is cluttered, you would expect, with paperwork, accolades and maybe a telephone... that’s where you begin to go wrong. His desk hosts an assortment of crude weapons, dried up plants, land beacons and jerry cans. Last night’s raids were quite successful. There are no visitor’s chairs. He likes dealing with matters at hand transparently. Instead, the rest of the space is occupied by five long benches, giving you the impression of a small courtroom. It is indeed a courtroom of sorts and the benches are this morning, as in all weekday mornings, occupied by fellow villagers, various issues on their minds.

In the space of two hours, I watched him efficiently arbitrate on two warring families, get mad at a farmer who blocked a river tributary to irrigate his land and ordered a shopkeeper to compensate another farmer for selling her fake pesticide… all this while quietly moving up the benches…normally, when not sorting out public issues in… public, he tours the village and then hangs around his grocery shop and even then, more villagers flock to see him on these discreet settings… “Yes, kijana”… “Chief Sir, I’m reporting…." "Oh! These rioting students... Corporal!" a policeman appears at the door. “Show him what to do!”

Three hours later, I’m done slashing grass. Doing some community work was a prerequisite to signing an attendance register. I wasn’t too keen on finishing the job, I might return next week and the prospect of digging trenches, like some fellow students were, wasn’t too appealing. I left enough grass to cover a probable two weeks and over a soda, informed the Corporal as much. Nevertheless, I wasn’t too pleased with the chief for having trashed my little plan. It was not lost to me that he could use a secretary and I had hoped to gradually turn it into a holiday job and request for some form of payment. Now, here I was, my fingers all rigid and sore from the blunt slasher.

I was barely out of the camp when the Corporal came running after me “Chief says you wait!” …and wait, I did until he saw out the last villager an hour later. “Now, my friend, you said you can use this thing?” He pulled out the dusty typewriter from a closet. It had been donated to him sometimes back but he hadn’t figured out how it worked. I shook my head; it wasn’t an exiting idea anymore and to subject my fingers to more torment on a museum piece... “Not exactly this type sir.”…I’m used to the more elec…“Type this!”… He handed me an exercise book and some plain papers and walked out.

I spent the afternoon and a better part of the next day typing a letter to his brother who lived somewhere in the States, briefing him on developments in the village. Eleven typed pages of brief.

“We” Woes

My father would occasionally buy one of those rubber balls; fancy balls that would bounce around for a day or two. They weren’t made for the thorny field that made our playground, not to underrate our sturdy feet. All hope lay on stuffed paper bags, ringed in by neat rows of nylon rope.

Soccer was the only sport I could think of, in fact, it is the only sport most kids in rural Kenya play today, the urban kids having graduated, by a large extent, to video games. In the morning, my friends and I would wake up to play, between classes; we would rush out to play. In the evenings, we would play until darkness reigned us in. Whenever a big match was on radio, we would crowd around, stuffed ball in hand; and cheer on as the fast talking commentator relayed the match. I knew the local teams and players by heart. I had a collection of our national team players from Coca-Cola bottle top liners neatly placed in their rightful positions on a makeshift field and as they played, I pushed them along. I grew up knowing that one day, I’ll be in that stadium, playing, commentating or if things didn’t turn out well, on the stands, cheering.

Fast track two decades and a couple of days to… last Evening. I’m scratching my head seriously trying to think up teams in the Kenya premier league. I got to eight; quite a good a count, if not better than most of my friends seated around a pub. No one got to the halfway count of ten. Yet, we are on a big soccer night out. Manchester United is playing Arsenal and all pubs with the business sense of installing Satellite TV are full. Only moments ago, we had dazzled a group of tourists with our knowledge of the English premier league. Not only did we name all the teams, but topped it with their home stadiums to a good measure. To save face, one of them stopped us from delving into the nationwide league as well. … “and the local? tell us about the teams in your league.”

To save face! Whose face? Frankly, our premier league has gradually driven us into discontentment. It is permanently muddled in squabbles that take the lion’s share of the sports pages; but even so, can we rightly pack pubs in the tens of thousands to watch a foreign league while in our backyard, our teams are playing to hundreds? can we, colleagues and friends, dutifully split alongside our English club preference and taunt each other on who “we” are fielding, the damage “we” will inflict on “your” side while drinking way funds our former classmates and neighbours, the real “we” could use?... isn’t it ironic to display those bumper stickers with the clarion call “I’m proud to be Kenyan” as we dash past a local encounter to a nearby bar?

Things didn’t quite turn out well for me; I’m not even on the stands mate.

Dead Men Tell No Tales

Caution; you may find this post disturbing.

We were a dozen or so, former high school classmates piled into a van. Fond memories had kept us reeling with laughter all the way and soon after dawn broke, we rounded off a final bend; a sudden, sullen reality dawning on us. We were on our way to burry our departed classmate. Before us was a network of buildings that make the Nairobi City Mortuary. There were two salon cars at the parking, one with the familiar plates we had been given. We parked next to it. There was a guy in the back seat of the second car but he had dozed off so we decided to make our enquiries further on. “Funny.” I laughed… “What?” “That guy, the suit and the baseball cap, my sister once found me dressed like that and she pulled it off. I never saw it again.”

Behind the reception desk, an attendant sat pointing out areas to fill on a form to an elderly man who momentarily looked up to greet us. He was Joseph, the deceased’s father we had been in touch with. Four other men were seated on a long bench; they were introduced as the deceased’s two brothers, cousin and a family friend. I didn’t feel like crowding in so I stayed at the door. Joseph handed out some money to the attendant who thanked us and wished us well. We trooped out of the morgue, back to the cars. “The hearse has left already?” someone asked… “No.” “Where is it then? Joseph tapped at the boot of the second car. “right here”… “what! you are going to … you have already… stuffed him in there?" …this didn’t look right… “No,” the family friend interjected. “How can we? He is an honourable gentleman on his last journey.” “So?”... “So there he is... back left.”

Whenever adrenalin kicks in a little too fast, my quiet little organs turn to thundering drums, as if, in protest to a ghastly site presented to one of their own. I stood there, mortified, throbbing in my own techno. Through the rolled down slightly tinted window, I stared again. It was him, sitting there, limp; frozen, as though, in deep thought. The baseball cap had been jammed low into his head, the bill covering his eyes. The cotton wool up his nostrils and mouth had been dyed black. The same colour he had turned after a week in the freezer… it wasn’t much of a freezer anyway, I had already began picking up traces of a stench. The safety belt firmly secured him to the seat covered with foil… “Let’s go”…

We sandwiched the “hearse” for the entire two and a half hour ride to his home in Nakuru. The father and sons led the way. We were pretty much part of the early morning traffic. Only once did we stop at a road block but the police were only interested in licences and cargo in the boot. The cousin and another relative had joined us for the ride and they were lost for words as we begged for answers “You know, a hearse would have cost us up to 17,000 KES, and a pick up truck is not cheaper by much. A cheap coffin is 10,000. We cannot afford that.” He went on. “We managed to raise 15,000. The family friend, he’s really a taxi driver who specializes in this business. He charges 7,000 and another guy you will see will charge us 1,000. We have made the coffin ourselves… the rest will go to assist his wife and child. She doesn’t work you know.”… “So any of you guys attended a basic hygiene class?”… “If you feel so strongly against this, why don’t we go back, you get a hearse and … “Okay guys, call it off.” This wasn’t getting anywhere “oh, and by the way, friend, we are supposed to drive into the compound like this and scatter everyone?” “No.”

About fifteen minutes to his home, we stopped in a thicket, an old pick up truck was waiting and in it, a coffin. The body was transferred into the coffin and the taxi driver drove off to have his car cleaned. Red ribbons were fitted to all cars and we now sandwiched the pickup as we drove into his home through rows of dirge singing women, a final farewell to a departed son.

Weird Tag...

Just over a week ago, mama junkyard's tagged me to name six weird traits I have. The rules are…

Post six weird facts/habits about yourself. These cannot be used against you
later on.

At the bottom name the six people you will tag next.
Leave them a comment to let them know they’ve been tagged and to read
your blog.


CN….
I am habitually late to work because I wake up to watch Cartoon Network. Nothing gets me off to a good days start than Mojo Jojo causing mayhem in Townsville.

Speedy Gonzales
Frankly, I don’t understand why most people take twenty minutes to finish a meal. Five minutes, no more. I’ve tried synchronizing with friends but subconsciously, I increase the payload on my fork.

Ambidextrous
I can write with any of my hands. Nothing strange about that but some people think I have a double…

Anti-Climax
I sit for a whole hour waiting for a program (refer to 1) only to dash off to
some kitchen errands when it starts.

Reddy Kilowatt
Every time I touch metal, I send sparks flying all over.


Night Vision
I can comfortably find my way in pitch darkness.


I cannot even begin to think where to start picking a fight. But please do have a go if you may.

Junk'd!

I was already in MY farm, sitting outside MY house sipping some porridge that had been handed to me by MY wife while watching MY kids run around the yard… “are you listening?... do we have an understanding?” dad was pensive. “umm aah yes.” Quickly, I’m back to earth. “I promise, I will.”

I spend most of my spare time hanging around the shopping centre, and this has incensed him. I could pick up some habits there, habits that would not be conducive to my continued living in his house. He called me in one evening for a chat bent on hammering some responsibility into me. “There is that disused piece of land behind the house; I want you to spend your free time there, tilling it.” He went on. “Plant what you want and if you do a good job, I may give you a whole acre at the far end of the farm.”

I was up at first light the next day surveying the site, as if, for the first time. Only it wasn’t. It was possibly the busiest and most visited on our farm. It was our garbage dump. Years of use had gradually filled a large hole and now, a complete collection is who’s who in the non biodegradable world lay strewn all over the yard. Polythene bags, batteries, bottles and a good old Sandak shoe sticking out of the soil like a tailfin. With future thoughts nudging me on, I plunged into the task and in five minutes, I had the first of numerous breaks to clean up a bloody mess left in my foot by a rusty nail that pierced through my gum boot. It suddenly dawned on me how much junk we churn.

A week further on and I was still hard at task. I had vision. My shopping centre hangout club mounted a rescue mission by sending a decoy but she bore no resemblance to MY dream porridge maker. I made some neat looking seed beds, and then invited my mum for a grand tour, taking the opportunity to borrow 100 shillings to buy some seeds. I after much thought, and in consultation with the juju cum weather man, I planted some carrots, potatoes and cabbage and to add a bit of colour to my dad’s eyes, I ringed the whole yard with jasmine flowers.

A month went by; the crops had sprouted in neat rows. I spent most days inspecting my labour and gradually, conducting tours to impressed villagers. This was not to last. Midway through the second month, the crops turned pale and dried up. None of the early morning watering would spring life back into them. The Agricultural Officer inspected the crops and concluded that years of garbage had altered the chemical composition of the soil and the roots chocked up on some still deeply embedded plastics. My dream withered and dried up.

All this comes back to mind as I watched a remarkable documentary on Eco-Journal (KTN) last week. It showed the recycling process in Germany where nothing goes to waste. Quite to the contrary, our recycling is largely an individual effort. The government plays no active role. If we go by statistics, one person generates a ton of garbage a year… though I can gladly point out some neighbours who beat that in a month... if Nairobi has three million souls, one ton each and for arguments sake, say five years? You can only begin to appreciate the mountain of trash. Let’s do something about it.