Plot 65: My grandmother’s holy water

Granny has always been quite religious.

On some Sundays she was that woman with a yellow head wrap and a basket of maize or beans in her basket for her 10% of first fruits from her farm, heading to mid-morning mass.

Due to her good standing in her church, it also meant we had to behave.  Once or twice I would go to her Catholic Church but generally we had an understanding, I could go into whatever Church as long as I was back by 4pm.

 If I came at 4.01, I had to be escorted home by her friend’s daughters. I only ever visited this one homestead but regardless, curfews were curfews.

On one of those special mass Sundays when I went with her, Granny was up early looking for a plastic bottle. She got a juice bottle and cleaned it and dried in the utensils’ rack. At church, it was refilled with Holy water. 

After Church we went to – makumbusho- the best hotel in Endarasha then and had tea and mandazi. Everything else was forgotten as I watched the waiter swirling my tea in a pan to cool it down. It had bubbles as it was poured into my cup. I still like bubbles in tea. Grown-ups drunk their tea from glasses.

I am not sure what the Holy water was for, whether she sprinkled it around the house, bathed in it or sipped a little everyday but truth is I forgot all about it.

One hot afternoon coming from school, the sun was hot and down the path, the hot moist air rose in wisps. The butterflies danced across my path as I kicked clods of earth in front of me, completely lost in thought dreaming of worlds I would yet discover.  When I reached the junction- Mĩteero- my grandmother’s friend’s daughters were in the farm and called out to me.

-Good girl of Nyawĩra, please run home and bring us some tea-

I was bought.

 I wanted to be a good girl.

 Usually it was:

Kĩirĩtu kĩa Nyawĩra, or ndũrĩka ya mwana in the same sentence.

Our home is about 10 minutes from this junction so I run. No one was within the homestead and I didn’t want to call about and be delayed. I changed into home clothes and of course there was tea in every kettle; tea with sugar, sugarless tea and nylon (milk, water and sugar).

I picked up the sugared tea but realized it was pouring from the spout. I needed a container that would reduce spills. A search up and down the houses found me a two litre plastic bottle. I smelled it, it didn’t contain Kerosine just water, perfect.

I emptied the water at the base of the plum tree that grew next to the granary and refilled it with tea. My mother had planted the plum tree so I favoured it. I locked the house, the gate to the farm, the gate into the compound and delivered the tea pleased with my self-sacrificing acts of kindness and generosity.

The following afternoon I skipped home from school. It was Friday and I was happy about all the things that awaited me. I could plant things, play with the cat, feed the rabbits, let the dog chase me around the farm, cook chapo in shoe polish tins behind the house…aahh nice. But the dream went poof when granny appeared from behind the water tank, looking like WW11.

-Eh, so you have become the tea supplier-?

Yes- Aunt nani asked me to bring them-

-Eh, how many cows did you have to milk?

-But there was a lot of tea-

-I’m not concerned about the tea. This! She shouted pointing to an empty plastic bottle. It was in an uchumi supermarket plastic bag-

-o, it was brought back?- I asked brightening up.

I had thought perhaps she was mad because I forgot to bring it back.

-Meekũ maaĩ?!-

 I was very confused at this point. Which water? But of course I could not ask that, grandmother’s questions were rhetorical unless you had the correct answer.

And as I stood there trying to understand why all of a sudden giving away tea was such an issue, I felt pinches start to wash all over my body.

-I’m asking where you put the water!-

-I,,,I poured it there-

-You poured my water under the plum tree?!-

I recoiled from the bottle, was there an upcoming drought?

-Me, you child you scare me. That water we got it very well from Church together. And then you come and pour it. Do you have satan? Do you have demons?

Oh no, I now remembered. Holy water , yes, I really was  a bad child.

 More pinching came

 I said- I forgot-

Woi, I should have kept quiet.

-You forgot! Do you forget to drink tea? Eh? You forgot, forgetting is as good as negligence-

 The proverbs came, more pinches, more how thankless sort of a child I was.

 I just kept quiet and hang my head low. I felt bad. If I knew where the main Mũbĩa lived I could have tried to approach him for a bottle refill.

I think that water had been a one off thing, it must have cost quite a bit too coz I never saw the likes of it ever again.

Kĩriganĩro no ta ũtũrĩka- forgetting is as good as being negligent

When you forget things, you are being negligent. I guess this applies to important things. You should try to remember those things that have an effect.

a poem

Come here you strange girl

You are not one to let go and have  some fun.

But I stared you in the face

You stared back and glared.

 I smirked and you said:

Let’s wrestle it out.

 I obliged so we wrestled.

 You had me on the ground. You did.

 But I heal quick

So I sprung back up

Spurn you down.

Maybe we can be friends, I said.

We’ll pour ourselves a drink

 We’ll drink it stiff

 We don’t even have to talk.

You are a strange girl October.

a 2010 poem but still relevant.

TFR- Insipired to think better, feel better, aim higher

How old are you?
 Sixteen
Has your boyfriend asked for sex yet?
 No, he would never. He's saved.
A man is man, try suggesting it to him, you'll see how much saved he is.
...............................................

Anyway, you need to learn self defense
 You'll teach me?
Yes, I'll teach you kick boxing and Tae Kwon do. Come here...ei, you are just fat and flab, what do they feed you in that school? We start today.
 Okay, I'll put on trousers
What do you wear for support?
 Why?
Because, you child with may questions, you need more than a bra.
 I have a boob top
Is it firm?
 Yeah,,, I guess
.............

This chic- Five curious male types you will come across as you walk about the city.

I can write about this for now. There might come a time when I won’t have an opinion or be allowed to have one, and that’s okay too.

The self Improvement man.

This a man of average height, about 5.4 with a deep voice, side burns, trimmed beard and is a man on the move.

He may not have the latest fashion, his money will be spent on brands. A watch, a jacket, a coat, several shoes, a man bag and a phone. Not an i-phone  or HTC but a solid brand like LG.

This man speaks perfect learned English, with all the correct words for things and feelings. If you are like me and have all the vocabulary from all your languages mixed up in the language jar in your mind, a conversation with him will feel like a grammar lesson. ‘thingy’ becomes the High Definition Memory Unit and that woiye feeling becomes empathy.

 This man will date a woman who has had a perm since standard seven. A woman who wears ‘natural make-up’ and has had a job in an accounting firm since she left college, with an on going side hustle at Al-Noor exhibitions, where she works all Saturday mornings without fail. This is a woman who will not cook a rice stew without meat, makes chapo stew with jagged potatoes, grilled lamb chops and will serve him toast, bacon and fresh juice with his coffee every morning.

He will pay his parents’ health insurance every month and not expect his siblings to contribute for it. For leisure he will attend Jazz festivals and plays at Phoenix Theater every month. He reads the newspaper, the Business Daily and newsfeeds on his phones on the way to work. He can converse in any topic, just get him interested enough.

The Rattler

I call them key rattlers. They might have a bunch or just two, one for the car, one to their house. Their keys are an extension of their mouth so they will rattle the keys to vocalize boredom when they’ve had enough of your tale about the enormous size of the Nyayo potatoes that grow in your village farm. 

When they are not rattling keys they are hoisting up their trousers-wear suspenders okay? So they will have two fingers hooked into the belt loops and you can guess that whatever will come out of their mouth is not the smartest thing a human being ever said so you wanna start walking away and wave your hand away to anything they say after that.

Key rattlers feel important most of the time, making announcements of upcoming promotions, the amazing features of their new phone, their self perceived skin lightness and their exercise routines when you say nothing about the recent bulge on their upper arms which are displayed in front of you for recognition.

"I got brass knuckles hanging from the chain on my neck"

Mr. Rattler on a date:

Rattler: I am on a new diet, it’s really helping my skin to clear.

Date: Huh?

Rattler: Oh yeah, my skin feels smooth, but I also think it’s because I was moved into my own office, it’s not as drafty as the common work area.

Date: Oh.

Rattler: I need to re-new my gym membership since my personal trainer has relocated to Denmark.

Date: Sorry, I need to rush to the ladies, BRB.

Boy Next door

Every girl has a bff who fits the description of the boy next door. A boy who has all the qualities of a legitimate bachelor but going out with him would be like dating a step brother. But he is a close friend, the kind of guy you will call to come check out the noise in your ceiling and it doesn’t matter that you are wearing your old sweater that has cuffs  so loose they drop to your elbows when you raise an arm. You go to the supermarket to pick up yogurt and pads and you are standing at the pads shelf telling him why you like the blue color ones and why the pink ones are overpriced.

Boy next door sorts your music, your stinking kitchen drain issues and pays your bus fare without any of your feeling the need to have a meeting ‘to define the relationship.’

He will try out his lame jokes on you and you can laugh and tell him to never tell them anywhere else.

You wear the same shoe size, no 6, he wears checked shirts and fitting sweaters. He might wear cargo pants with navy blue polo shirts. He doesn’t take himself very seriously so you can get him to sing animation soundtracks and he wont think twice about it. You meet him by chance somewhere in town and pull out half a cookie out of your pocket and give it to him, he will eat it happily.

We are so Dapper

This is a man who takes great care of his clothes and appearance. His clothes, nails, shoes, bag, hair, mobile phone. He knows; unlike a vast majority of the male species who got left behind when the male revolution SGR passed by, the kind of jacket and shoes go with what trousers. He has a collection of paraphernalia too-cufflinks, shirt squares, tie pins.

A clean man who doesn’t wear black jeans twice and prioritizes washing clothes to other activities like, cooking a meal. He discards his shoes when they show the slightest sign of tear, can afford original cologne and pull off woven scarfs without looking like his mother dressed him. He carries a clean handkerchief and a nail cutter.

 His clothes are ironed and pressed without a sign of lint. Touch anything but his clothes.

One great aspect about this fellow is, like his clothes and lifestyle, he is well bred so he knows how to maintain relationships with even the most difficult people.

Chali wa Mtaa.

Me, the country grown woman and my Nairobi grown friend have had this argument going on for years. He has his opinions about village bred 30somethings. I have my opinions about Nairobi bred 30somethings.

But we shall yet write a report about it when we have studied at least 100 30somethings from each side.

But for this, I feature a general bird’s view of the above man. A man because he is over 23 years old, but a chali because his favourite movie is still Baby’s Day Out, he loves genge and any music that has shouting in it singing along to songs like ‘I’m so high I’m so high to the roof…’

He can be quite entertaining, when he tells you recycled stories about that time he had a gig at Safari Sevens, making burgers. How exciting it was. In fact, there has never been another quite exciting moment in his life. But if he only had money, if only he had the dough, ahh the things he would do-he would move to South C and have a recording studio. 

He doesn’t have a girlfriend yet, he likes this girl, but ‘… she will obviously go for someone with money. That is the problem with hawa madame wa Nairobi. They don’t think about true love. I might love her but as long as I don’t have a car…’

Chali wa Mtaa can either be a mamma’s boy, or someone who will not give money for nothing. Why should he marry someone without a job? He believes in equality, but he also believes a woman’s place in the kitchen.

25 years later, tulishawasili sisi.

He doesn’t have a regular job. He is not yet up to it. He will work in one place for a month then decide it’s creeping in on his time with the boys. So he quits and gets another gig where he works for three weeks, quits and starts to sell third rate women high heels at the bus stop, and it seems all his profit goes into soft drinks and veve.

All pictures courtesy of pinterest and google images.