I just lost my baby tortoise

More than a decade ago, while taking a walk on the clear green edge if our school compound I came a cross a beautiful baby tortoise. This was my first time to see the beautiful reptile so close. My intuition told me that this is the fortune I was waiting for, I gonna make money either by billing schoolmates to have a glance of it, or selling it to the Meru national museum. I carried the reptile to class and the cooks always supplied me with green vegetables to feed my new presumed cash cow. My teachers were amused to see it but never bothered asking why I had turned the classroom into an orphanage. Two days in sequence the class received boys coming to see the turtle's relative but no one gave a dime...

I felt a bit frustrated that I wasn't to make a penny. My second intuition took lead and I asked my friend Ken Matiri (Gasigi) to accompany me to Meru Museum to sell the reptile to the museum minders. Matiri never failed me, in a span of time I was bargaining with the museum staff on the cost of the tortoise. I had warned Matiri to stay a bit far with the baby tortoise and watch me carefully for a signal on whether we had a deal...the first question that landed on me was "..why do you want to sell to us our animal..even when in the bush it is still ours.." That bombshell hit my like thunder and sent a drip of cold water down my spine...I signalled Matiri that all was not rosy and the next minute we were on a matatu with our baby tortoise in a paper bag on our way back to school..that's how I lost my first attempt in business..had it succeeded I would now be selling rhino horns..maybe just maybe..we took our tortoise back to the classroom, fed it for two days then it was stolen. I hope the museum guys came for it or another nerd cleverer than yours truly is minting money somewhere...

Chronicles of my childhood fights

Chronicles of my childhood fights..our kids eat Noddles to grow up, in our time we fought!
When I joined a new school in class eight at age 13, I told my new friends that I had transfered from Duluma primary school. It was known for physical education and acrobatics. They believed me since i could do few forward and backward somersaults and also was a trained scout. Now in my new school boys went through an illegal peer ritual to make you join the big boys club..this was mean...t to change my name from "Kaiji to Mwiji", irritating designation I should say. It would also give me the right to fight back once provoked. The norm was that Mwiji should never be found playing with Kaiji, and if you think it wasn't serious just know that my best friend Martin went through the ritual and wouldn't answer my greetings henceforth. The rite involved thorough beating by the older boys and chewing raw banana flower (nkorombe). And so I persevered the horrendous torture to change my name from "Ka...to Mwi"... As i said its a bad tag so i can't mention the title twice. For sure my title changed after the rite but due to my tiny physique the girls in my class didn't take note. They were never part of the practice. One day Fridah called me "Kaiji" during a casual argument, and what followed was rain of heavy blows on her face, like those of the rebels of Tamir tigers who were fighting in SriLanka them days.

When my class teacher got wind of this despite being the best performing boy in our stream, Fridah and I were asked to till the 50x100 (4K club) plot with a Jembe. This took us two full days but i never regretted it cos it was the price that came with change of a title and gaining reverence from the big boys..I finished my part and helped Fridah finish her's and the third day we resumed classes. My second fight was with a huge boy three times my size, we called him "Ngacha"..for a couple if weeks Ngacha was assuming my presence and I thought we need a fight to build our respect for each other...so we organised with the boys and after the classes we went to the School's coffee plantation. Close to 30 boys made a wall around us to make a temporary fighting ring. I was the first to make Ngancha bleed through the nose, but after the fight I had lost more blood than him. The fight took approximately 20 Minutes leaving the former weedy coffee plantation looking like a playground. We had bruised even the coffee trees. My journey home was painful from body aches. I feigned sickness and missed classes for three days to heal. The same happened with Ngacha am told. We met in church on Sunday and sat in the same bench. Few months prior we had started partaking the Holy communion but that day we whispered to each other to skip the ordinance. We had just had a fight and we feared that we may choke for showing mockery to God by taking Holy Communion...I don't know where Fridah and Ngacha are nowadays...

My script to my daughters lest i forget

My script to my daughters lest I forget……Since when I was young I loved Nairobi because it was the epitome of good life. From Nairobi fellows brought big loaves of bread during Christmas. They visited their ancestral land once a year. From Nairobi came young girls whose face colour had changed after they got a small job in the capital. We were told Nairobi water makes ladies skin colour lighter (I am yet to disapprove this theory). It’s this Nairobi where village boys had gone to university for studies and everyone from the village including old men greeted them with supported hands when they came for long holidays. It’s in Nairobi where Leonard Mambo Mbotela, Jack Oyoo Sylvester and Omuga Kabisae sitting in a small office could transmit news across the country from the Voice of Kenya. Who would not have wished to belong to this “Nairobi”. Despite the successes of the enthroned capital, mothers whispered in low tone voices that the daughter or the son of so and so went to Nairobi and acquired “bad behavior”. To me stories of Nairobi remained just that “stories” like that of Kabaka Mutesa, Omukama Kabalega and Kijeketille Ngware. “How I wished to one day visit and have first-hand experience of the city under the sun” I would say.

When I made my debut visit to Nairobi the place I landed to was Kibera slums. I somewhat got confused on whether the ramshackle shelters were the definition of the city under the sun. This was before I got lost in the CBD and had to go round KICC 6 times to locate Railways roundabout to board No 8 Matatus plying the Kibera Ayani route. Nevertheless the street lights made nights glow. You know where I come from walking at night was a “taboo” before the “discovery” of the spotlight. And the spotlight shared the batteries with the radio – both of them could not be on at the same time. Now back to Kibera, I may not have seen or used the flying toilets or be hit by one during its transit but I remember I jumped over human excreta on my way to and from our small abode.

It is at Kibera Methodist Church we found solace after trips to town either to meet a friend or count skyscrapers. We used to move in a group of 3-5. Patrick Mutwiri a.k.a. Bob never missed in the team. He was the tallest and as you know tall men can be commanding and demeaning but Bob had a different demeanor and we all liked him a big chunk. Isaiah Mwirigi who had refused to answer the Macedonian call, tried everything else and failed (including working in a barber shop). Had he known all he needed to do is say “Yes Lord” am here send me he would not have wallowed in indecision….It is after saying “Yes Lord” that he has visited almost half of the states in America preaching the good news. Lewis Mutwiri was the meticulous intellectual in the team and he led us in reading newspaper cover pages displayed by vendors early in the morning near bus-stops. We feigned that we would buy the paper after sampling the most juicy cover page but I can’t remember a day that we bought a newspaper. One day Lewis took us to an automotive yard, we went round all the cars on display enquiring on cost, we bargained knowing very well that on our way home we will tell the matatu conductor “Sare mmoja” because we were four but could afford to pay bus fare for three. Pennies were a scarce as hen’s teeth.
Despite my expectations for Nairobi life hitting an abysmal dismal level the reality of the challenges in Kibera slums and later Eastleigh (Both times hosted by one Patrick Mutwiri Bob) turned around when I became a resident of the 10th most dynamic city in the world..... to be continued…...