T 9

When I was small,there were three things I feared.An ogre,a T-9 and a Kanyutu.
In my mother tongue,a big person is called a kimundu,following the ngeli ya m-ki.A normal person is a mundu.A big p erson is also called impolitely, irimu.Irimu is an ogre. One day I watched as a child ran back to it’s mother saying-mami mami!Irimu!" In front of them a very tall man stood.
Mama told me that there were three times of marimu,those that carry baskets{irimu cia nyakondo},those that have three eyes, and Cain. I feared the first time most because if they came across you,they put you in their basket and took you to their very old grandmother who would boil you in a large pot as the ogres played a game of fire jump.Cain I was told could only be seen by children. I was not very afraid of him because he was only one and I believed if he was still making his round mwenda,he’d be somewhere as far as America,and before he returned I’d have grown up and wouldn’t see him.
When mama narrates a story he’s very dramatic, if he wasn’t so attached to his potato and cabbage plants, and his three cows,burugei, bahati and nyakairu, he would have made a career from telling stories,then his age mates would think he’s gone soft in the head,and kids would make fun of his sons at school.Though I doubt he’d get paid anything close to what he earns from one gunia of wheat for two or even 3 narrations.
So kanyutu he told me,was an animal that walked on it’s two legs, it was beige in color and could move faster than my dog chui running away from cucu if she found it in the kitchen watching me peel potatoes.
He said Kanyutu’s favourite food was cow’s udders. It would snatch the udder right out from under the unsuspecting cow and before the cow realized it was missing an important bargaining part ,fainted,then got up to moo, kanyutu would be in charity{charity was a village about 25 km from our village,up up the hills},disgorging another udder,and when the alarm was raised there,kanyutu would be in Baringo, another hilly 25 kms. Carrying the two udders like money bags from both hands, you can imagine, like a man running away and looking behind once in a while. The way he put it, kanyutu would know in advance where to go, and his route back so there was no way to keep watch to catch him.
I lived in terror of kanyutu.He said no one ever saw a kanyutu.
Last weekend,my neighbor was listening to Coro fm at his kiosk and when I went to buy a bamba twenty . I heard them mention kanyutu . I asked him what it was and he pointed to his calendar.I laughed.In my mind all this time,I had assumed mama had made up the story .Kumbe, a kanyutu is cheetah, and this time, the name was not even coined by mama.
The other cause of fear was a T9.These,everyone said were some very tiny rubies ridden dogs released from Uganda by Idd Amin.I don’t know how true that is .I never saw one but I saw it’s effects .When T9 caught up with your dog,the dog went mad immediately and started biting everything in sight.
One of cucu’s friend had only two cows, one they fondly called gathambu,and another silky one which gave them more milk. Gathambu gave about a cup and a half. When the T9 Paid their shed a visit, it bit the silky one. Now , the rule was that I such a case, one had to report immediately to the chief. Then the chief would send some askari to shoot down the animal. I remember that day, many men gathered in the field and dug a hole, like a grave then tied the cow with ropes and bang! It fell into the hole. We, the women folk were a bit far off , it felt like a funeral.
When two of my cucu’s cows were bitten, cucu was very sad. One died the following day, the other had to be killed. Now that I think about it, it must have been a very big loss. The neighbours came to comfort us.
Had it been a calf or a bull, the loss would have been minimal.
With dairy cows, there is always a connection. Which comes naturally from all those days you lean your head into their stomachs as you milk them twice even three times in a day and when you stay up with them to help them calve at 3a.m.No wonder the naming. Daisy , Rosy, Gathambu.
I have never understood how a small dog will just bite one animal and go the next, why just wound while it could bite, even eat the animal, maybe a calf and die happy instead of all the mad running around.
Ogres don’t scare me anymore, although when I meet a very huge person, I look again, just to make sure .
These fears are no longer prominent, but when I go to visit cucu and it gets dark and from the forest comes all sorts of sounds, I think-there is a kanyutu nearby,and that’s a fact.

Standard Five

Adolescence

Still in standard five,when we began to study homescience,some girls suddenly realized that indeed,their chests were undergoing a transformation.Some were happy,some started to walk with their eyes cast upon the ground,shoulder’s hunched. I still had some years to go before I faced the problem,but I was curious,me and another late bloomer. We managed to talk one of the girls whose chest was no longer like a boy’s to giving us a peek.
We could have gone behind the latrines or even in a bush on a way home but nine year olds thinks just like nine year olds.When one day we had our evening prep and no teacher was going round, crouching below the desk she gave us the peek, the mystery was dissolved, and we went on with the prep.
The following day during the morning parade,the teacher on duty had an important announcement.
-Can the following ngaos lemain mbihind-
Our three names were called out.We received a beating,and a warning,and we were told to keep away from boys.
That reminds me of the kind of mischief one will get into in school.In high school,our class prefect was very funny.
One night during prep,the class was quiet and everyone was busy reading something, even though for some it was those very popular sweet valley high teenage romance novels{SVH}.The teacher on duty came in and called out the prefect’s name,
-what do you think you are doing during prep?-
The following day,the entire school knew that Form 2 Pluto’s Cop had been caught mending her brassire in class during prep,by a male teacher.It was a big joke,to the prefect,but she was punished for it even though it left most of us who had humour genes in stitches.

The Other Side

How come, we hear the drum?
How come our hips are full of rhythm?
How come, the king of the jungle lives right here.

How come the trees blossom,
The flowers bloom,
The fruits ripen,
And the roots thicken?

How come there’s laughter,
And our stomachs don’t always rumble?

We cry at weddings,
Weep at funerals-

How come we see beautiful sunsets?
And have Nyahururu falls, The Nile,
Kilimanjaro, right here?

We dig the ground and gather gold,
We set our nets and fish come in.
Cocoa farms, coffee fields, tea estates,
Plantain, rice, sukuma-wiki, arrowroots,
Herbs, carrots, mangoes,
How come they grow?

Athletes, artists, swimmers.
Honey ,milk, muratina, the sea,
The ostrich, the weaver bird,
The bee, water, air, moon and stars?

Language, love and feelings?
Rich chocolate skins, black shiny foreheads,
Locks, white teeth, strong build.
Actually, it also rains on the other side.

Music

Now,if there was a subject I didn’t begin to understand until my last year of studying it,it was Music.I remember once.Mr.Jakubu,he was our music teacher and very practical at it.
The first lesson in class 6,he beat out a tune on his desk with a ruler and told us to write down the note.We!Life had never been harder.Even my two deskmates,Elijah and Amos could not help.We were all looking at him open mouthed,tutururiirwo.Elijah was the the funny one,but Amos was the funnier one because at such an instance,he’d have started to speak in his mother tongue despite knowing very well that would put him into further trouble.I remember after much struggle,I scribbled something like-tuu…kakaka….tttt. and then drew a crotchet along the line.Mr.Jakubu looked at me once,looked at my book,back at me again,,then hurled his famous string of insults,asking me whether I had ever gone mad,and announced how he was going to land 7 canes across all our armpits.He was fond of saying-wee kihii giki ngugwikira thanju mugwanja cia njegeke ungurane,I’ll cane you 7 strokes across in your armpits until you recognize me.He spoke in kikuyu,always,at the parade,in class…When he explained how to draw a semiquiver,it was,D nini njeke,ina matu meri.A small letter D with two ears.
After two lessons in class,he decided to make us real musicians.He asked us to bring bottles,flutes,tins,plastics,,and when we had the fortnightly music lesson,we’d perform for the teachers, or for the villagers in their shambas around the school.
During assembly, if he realized someone was not paying attention,he would wait until he was finished and he’d call out the person’s name and ask them to translate his speech, first into Kiswahili,then English,and leave out not a single word.
Mr Jakubu held a wedding,and we attended,just to see the bride.She was pregnant,people said that was bad,I was puzzled because,it was widely known they were living together and raising other children for more than a decade.
I later caught up on music,not the singing,but recognizing the notes,the latin words,and the musical instruments in Kenya which had a whole text book dedicated to them.

Salesman No.1

customers having their pick.above,Maskanyore holding an evening wear{ya kwenda ndina},below
This is maskanyore.I posted his story a few months ago{Mic Troubles}.
Everyday he's at his stall calling out to his customers to come and please buy his wares,his wears,rather.Every day,morning to evening,he's shouting,singing and
laughing-maskanyore,ma andawater,mkono moja,ya kajunior,ya kusimamia arusi,ya best maid,yote,,fefte!His table pilled high with a mix of blouses,sweaters,three quarter pants,
spaghetti tops,his customers swarm in and they have their pick.Then he'll say-leo tunasema,funga inne inne kama orbit{that's what I'm talking about,wrap them in four pieces like orbit}
He can be heard from one end of the market to the other.When school children passby,they call out-maskanyooore.
He says: hakuna haja ya kufua nguo usiku,ama kutembe na viraka,ngua ni fefte,maskanyore anawashughulika wote leo
{no need for you to wash your clothes at night,or walk around in tattered clothes,cheap clothes for everyone,maskanyore knows and caters for your problems!
I will make you shine until your neighbours start wondering,did you get a job with Kenya Airways?}
Utang'ara mpaka jirani ang'ethie,watu kwa plot watakua wakiuliza,kwani nani,,,anafanya kas na kampuni gani,ama aliandikwa na Kenya Airways?
eeee,ndiyo maana nasema,bei ni fefte!
His real name is Kiarie.He makes my day I must say.
If we all worked with half the spirit this man applies to his job,we'd all be very happy people.No longer people arriving home with more wrinkles on their faces than
when they left the house.I am sure Maskanyore must be a very happy fellow.It's like spending your day at the karaoke singing songs you like.That would
lift anyone's mood anyday.
I am sure he earns more in a day than a Mr.Ngash or Mr.Patel selling Garissa lodge skirts in River Road will earn in 3.All the best Maskanyore.

poem

Serenity

A breeze in a park bench

Birds singing,

Columns of sun rays sprinkled with tiny insects trying to climb.

Fallen leaves

Grass stains, damp grass and falling leaves

You can’t eat, you can’t cough

In case you miss a second of;

The sound of wind in leaves.

Sunset through a gap between trees

This is home

This is my home

A bench in a park

{Picture by Ciss,RiverSide}

Tunes in 5 East

When I was I primary school,I reached the height of mischief,I look back now and I wonder how I got out trouble.If you found people being beaten, I’d be among them.If some people were kneeling outside,the staff rooms,I was in among them.If someone was caught reading a novel during the maths lesson,it’d have to be Gathoni wa kina Gitonga.Gitonga was my neighbor.He was two classes ahead of me,tall and burly, he played in the volleyball team,it didn’t matter we were not related,to everyone,he was my big bro and scared off everyone that tried anything on me or his twin sister,a class ahead of me.In the morning,he whistled twice,to alert me to get ready,then once more if I hadn’t appeared,to tell me,ukaga{we are going on ahead}.

One time,in class five,I had been singing very loudly,my cousin had visited us during the holidays and had taught me some songs in the Luo language and I had been entertaining my classmates during the lunch hour.After the bell rang for classes to begin,I continued to sing for about 5 minutes,we had a music lesson but our music teacher, Mr.Jakubu, who was also the headmaster, showed up once in two weeks, when we had a morning lesson.

The prefect had gone for some shairi competition and the assistant was my deskmate; we were good buddies,he liked to draw,I liked to praise his drawings.I always wonder where he ended up.So anyhow,he wasn’t the least bothered by my singing.Suddenly everyone was turning to their seats,and pretending to read their homescience books.

-Can the musician please come to the office.-

The discipline master’s voice barked.I got a tongue lashing from all the teachers who:

-knew my gran and thought she was a respectable woman who shouldn’t be wasting her time coming to hear about my bad behavior and can I start to behave or else they might have to summon her.-

Wo! Apart from being sent out to get the wash basin at night,my number 2 fear was gran. Her stern look was enough to have me confessing even my friends’ sins.

So I was ordered to kneel outside the headmaster’s office and wait for him.I knelt,the entire 40 minutes,until the lesson was over,but as I said before, Mr.Jakubu was a no show man when the clock hit midday .

Our Kiswahili teacher rescued me, he was going in for his lesson and had the notion I was his best student, even though I couldn’t string three words before dropping a shrub so prominent no one would laugh, they just looked on with pity. ..but my written work was perfect.