A TALE OF TWO RAILWAY LINES. PART 2: THE LOST SAFE

THE LOST SAFE

 The morning after the abortive tryst between Pita and the citizen, he woke up with an entire congregation of the Akorino sect members drumming and jumping up and down vigorously as they were wont to, in his head. The pounding in his head sounded like a mix of Allan Aaron’s ni kiriro and Daddy Owen’s System ya Kapungala. As he struggled to sit up on his bed, his head felt heavier than the cannon balls the Portuguese used in fort Jesus during the siege by the  Imam of Oman, Saif I bin Sultan.  The trip to the watering well to down some glasses of alcohol always produced the same results. A very nice feeling of being high and then the next morning, the mother of all regrets rests in your head chanting, I told you so, I told you so in a tone reminiscent of an evil mother-in-law taunting her daughter-in-law. It is crime and punishment.

He rose lethargically and started dressing. Personal hygiene was not one of Pita’s strong points and sometimes he could pull off a three day stretch without visiting the bathroom. The effect of this was that, he had a permanent characteristic odour hovering around him wherever he went. Apparently, he was a perfect embodiment of a childhood nickname that he had earned in class two- Lwenge (The skunk) He had earned this title because he had the uncanny ability of sending the class teacher out class whenever he felt like it. The process involved raising one cheek of his bum slightly and passing wind.

If you were unlucky to be within 100 metres radius from where Pita the lwenge  released  his secret weapon, then you would undergo an unforgettable chemistry lesson on diffusion. From his inner chambers, Pita would spew a stinking gas that could easily hospitalize a fully grown elephant, maim several rhinos and most likely put the entire population of the wildebeest in the Maasai Mara on the endangered species list. The stink would permeate the overcrowded classroom that normally would be composed of about seventy mucous sucking dirty imps listening to one old overworked teacher.

As soon as the stink attacked the teacher’s nose, she would shoot off her chair as though her humongous behind had been pricked with a pair of compasses. Her matronly figure would scurry out of the room with her dress, that could easily serve as a priests cassock due to its sheer size struggling to keep up with the retreating wearer. For such feats, pita was nicknamed Lwenge (skunk). Now a young man enjoying the vitality of youth, he had managed to add another feather to his gas releasing achievement’s cap. The stale odour of sweat.

Pita salvaged a t-shirt from a heap composed both dirty and clean clothes stacked next to his bed. He had for ages believed that, mixing dirty clothes with clean ones, reduced the dirt on the former hence reducing the number of times he would undertake the boring task of laundry. It was at this moment that he realized that he was not wearing his beloved pair of shorts. His heart literary stopped, he stood transfixed on the spot stupefied with his hand frozen midair, his mouth wide open and eyes literary dangling from their sockets. He stood mannequin challenge style for several minutes trying to reboot his memory. He was basically trying to reload the last known good configuration in his brain. 

Memory lapse or gaps were part of the myriad effects of the inebriating liquid he had taken the previous day. Pita rarely took off his prized pair of shorts. Now it was a catastrophe great enough to be declared a national disaster. His short, his safe, contained twenty nine thousand shillings wherever it was. One fact was certainly evident at this point, the short was not in his hut. His knees felt weak, his stomach churned and he started trembling with telltale signs of sweat registering on his door knob like nose. It was a scandal equivalent to losing 791 million ksh NYS money, it was Goldenberg, Anglo leasing and euro bond combined. It was a matter of national security. Losing the safe was like handing over nuclear codes to you know who, it was a matter that called for the UN security council to have an emergency session. A session that for once would witness China, Russia and the USA reading from the same script.

The realization of the missing pair of shorts hit him like a gush of cold water on his face. His brain though hit hard by the previous night’s drinking, went on overdrive and the events of the previous night registered in his memory in colour. All of a sudden it felt as if he was watching the events unfurl from a distance. It was surreal and he had to lean against the mud wall of his hut in order not to keel over. He remembered the watering joint where he had gone to drink, he remembered the sudden awakening of the president, and then he could see himself speak to the citizen and presenting his manifesto to her, paying the bill and walking out of the beer den hand in hand with the citizen.

As soon as the darkness swallowed them, they started groping each other lighting an inferno within their bodies. He saw the fateful moment he decided to use a green lodge to quench his fire. He remembered stripping to his Adam’s uniform and the fateful laugh of the hyena that saw him flee from the bush.

This last memory brought him up to speed. At least he remembered where he left his prized short and pair of shoes. He put on a pair of trousers and ran out the house like a mad man. Stones and thorns pricking the soles of his caked feet were ignored. However, the thorns ended up broken before they could pierce the soles of his hard feet. Sweating and panting, he negotiated the last bend and came to the bush he had rented from the gods of lust the previous night. His heart palpitating , he came to a halt and peered into the bush. On the grass, in the bush, lay his prized pair of shorts and worn out shoes. With unsteady hands, he picked up the pair of shorts, holding his breath and closing his eyes at the same time, he carefully searched the pockets. The safe was okay. The money was there. He exhaled.

LIVING IN A BEDSITTER IS A CURSE

LIVING IN A BEDSITTER IS A CURSE

Living in a bedsitter is a curse, it is an abomination. It is nature’s way of punishing the human race.

In a bed sitter, the kitchen is right within your bedroom. You are busy cooking, while your crush is sitting on your bed, you have that habit of tasting your soup using the cooking spoon. You go right ahead and taste it, only to turn around and meet her eyes dangling from their sockets in shock.  Now you have unwittingly committed a crime of blinding your crash!

The day might turn out better than expected and crazy things happen. You pant, you sweat and then come back to planet earth. Believe me; every bedsitter tenant worth his stripes knows that there is an evil spirit that conjures up all manner of ways to torture him/her. After a hot afternoon romp, you start looking for her clothes. You will look for that tiny handkerchief sized piece of garment for hours until when you are on the brink of giving up, you find it soaking in the multicolored soup you had cooked. It will be dyed in all colours from the green sukuma wiki, yellowish potatoes, omena  and any other ingredient that you had added into the lethal concoction you had cooked for lunch

Now, Now, now, the water closet is part of the kitchen, sitting room and bedroom. Your stomach decides it is the right time to offload some of its contents. You walked into that small cubicle and press the initiate button. Now, today, of all days, when your crush is sitting on your bed, the delivery process comes accompanied with sound effects. To make it worse, the toilet acts as an amplifier and the sound can only me measured on Richter scale. 

After an agonizing process you walk out of the cubicle with a smile on your face. Now this is where things go truly wrong. You find your crush with a handkerchief tightly pressed on a nose. The fumes from your gas attack rank on the same scale with Adolf Hitler’s gas chambers. Actually, you are on the brink of being charged with committing war crimes by unleashing lethal gas on non-combatants.  To quell the disaster you grab the air freshener and spray generously in the air. Now this is an atrocity, have you ever tried to use roll on or perfume to mask the fact that you have not had a shower the past three days? This is the time you realize that you should have invested in gas masks.

                                    

A TALE OF TWO RAILWAY LINES

A TALE OF TWO RAILWAY LINES

The lunatic line:

More than a century ago, some fellows contrived the idea of what would later be christened the lunatic line. The idea of constructing a railway line from the port of Mombasa to Lake Victoria and subsequently modern day Kampala seemed like sheer lunacy at its best. However, work began in 1896 but by 1898, the tale of the first railway line begins. The characters who fanned the events in this tale were actually two man eating lions. When the railway builders came to Tsavo river bridge section, (my online sources tell me that the name TSAVO means slaughter) they were faced by two man eating lions that kept attacking the camps and killing men in wild abandon.

The marauding lions named the Ghost and the Darkness persisted in their attacks to an extent that at some point,  the workers, locals and coolies alike, ran away and the work almost stalled. The tale is captured the book ‘The man eaters of Tsavo’ by Colonel John Henry Patterson (1907). A very highly exaggerated and largely inaccurate version is the 1996 film “the ghost and the darkness” starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer. Hence the first tale is the historical events surrounding the man eaters of TSAVO. However, that is not our story today Our story is the SGR tale!

The SGR tale.

The construction of the standard gauge railway line from the port of Mombasa to Nairobi was both a blessing a curse. It brought with it a flash flood of money and a tornado of evil. Small towns/ markets situated along the SGR route flourished with existing businesses thriving with the abundance of money. People who had never held 10,000 ksh in their hands found themselves handling a fortune vast enough to feed three generations of their progeny. Yes, 30,000ksh per month among the locals is a fortune worth writing a will over, marrying the girl of your dreams as well as settling scores with the old man who beat you to the girl of your dreams because at that time you were broke.

As it happens,  before the coming of mchaina (Chinese) and the SGR, quite a number of young men, had found themselves on the losing end when it came to the  tug of war of hearts. Smitten and endowed with love enough to revive the Mwene Mutapa empire a young man might be, but empty coffers do not run empires. In such a case, the scales of love would most likely be tipped in favour of the local butcher whose wallet unlike the broke young man’s,  holds more than  the national id card, a voter’s card  and a pack of expired  government issue condoms to be found in young men’s wallets. A pack of condoms that the young man would have put in the wallet when he was fifteen and now  he would be crowning   twenty one. When it comes to a love contest between the local butcher- the local butcher who wears a crimson read overcoat that was once white, the local butcher whose tools of trade range from sharp objects like knives, axes, power saws, burdizzo  and the guillotine machine, he who has a permanent fixture in the name of a tooth pick jutting from his mouth- and a young man who has nothing but a shy moustache and the telltale signs of a beard, then the odds would very definitely be stacked against the latter.

The coming of the standard gauge railway was a god sent event to right all wrongs. Wrongs committed against young men and by older, wealthier men. It had come to right historical injustices that reeked to high heavens of the callous nature of mankind. Wrongs committed on young budding love, wrongs that like an abominable curse would run from generation to generation. It would hurt, it would cut deep, torment and embarrass.  However, God perched somewhere in his celestial abode felt the ache in young men’s hearts and send his only Chinese to come and build the railway line so that whoever works for them will not be broke but will get money enough to enter the kingdom of love. With the thirty thousand shillings in your pocket, a pair of second hand reebok shoes, a faded pair of red jeans, a green shirt and a twenty shillings ‘gold chain’ around your neck, the gods of love, cupid,eros and Aphrodite combined are bound to be with you in spite of  your mouth stinking like a can of halitosis and fermented excrement  since it lastly saw a tooth brush during the Russian revolution.        

Pita (Peter) was one of the beneficiaries the great SGR revolution. He was a young man of about twenty five or thereby for no one cared to record the day, month or year he was born. Recording some unnecessary details like the date of birth is not one of the priorities for a woman who gives birth on her way from the river for such were the circumstances under which Pita was born. Those many years ago, his mother had gone to fetch water from the river when on her way back, labour pains struck.  The contractions came with the ferocity of the devil. This was her eighth pregnancy hence there was nothing new for her to learn. She simply laid down the water pot, undid her kanga and laid it on the grass and went on with the process of labour. Luckily, her neighbour was not far behind. Once she caught up with Pita’s mother, they went on with the process and after a while, a squirming baby boy was born.

Pita had always held loft dreams about the future. He had been conceived, born und brought up under the watchful eye of poverty. Poverty, like a faithful guardian angel always escorted him and his kin wherever they went. However, Pita was a dreamer; he dreamt of a day when he would have three meals in a day, he dreamt of a day he would eat without worrying about what the next day held for him. His mind would wander to far off  places, thinking about times he would eat chapati whenever he felt like it. Chapati was a meal for the wealthy and beyond his family’s wildest dreams. From a young age he associated chapati with holiness, salvation and the route to heaven for the only time his mother prepared chapati was Christmas time to celebrate the birth of Jesus. To call what his mother prepared chapati, would be not only a misnomer of grand proportions but also an insult to all generations of cooks traced right from Eve in Eden. It would be not only an insult but also a curse to all self-respecting chapati cooks. A curse that would call for fasting, cleansing and libation poured generously to invoke the intervention of ancestral cooks.

What Pita’s mother prepared in the name of chapati was nothing more than flattened dough with a generous sprinkling of stomach upsetting demons sandwiched in between. She remained true to her annual accomplishments of preparing diarrhoea inducing chapati without fail year in year out. The rhythm would always be the same, ingesting that rare delicacy, then the whole family would break in a house × latrine relay akin to a 4×4 Olympics relay race. The single family latrine could not efficiently serve the entire clan of 11 children so some would be dispatched off in a half marathon race to the neighbours’ pit latrines while the rest undertook a cross country race to the nearby forest. The last group of cross country athletes would be most spectacular for they would be trailed by  a horde of chicken and dogs waiting to partake of their share of Christmas spoils. What would follow would be a putrid excretion that would scorch the very soil it landed on  forming a hard pan that would require a nuclear bomb, heat seeking missiles and the fresh blood of a seventy year old virgin to break.

Now, on this particular day, Pita was awarded his life changing fortune in the name of a wage. As he held the 30,000 ksh in his hands he felt like he controlled the economy of the US, China and Russia combined. He was richer than King Mansa Musa of Timbuktu, he was, at least in his mind wealthier than John D. Rockefeller.  Such  wealth calls for careful handling least one lost it. Pita was not the kind of guy who believed in wallets- mark you this is not the only thing he did not believe in. He walked to a nearby washroom, undid his zipper to reveal his  ‘safe’.  His ‘safe,’ was an old pair of denim shorts that had lastly seen water during Noah’s deluge. It was a short fashioned out of a worn pair of jeans trousers that must have been originally worn by vasco da Gama. To say it was an ancient pair of shorts,  would be an understatement.

Pita loved his ancient pair of shorts for a myriad of reasons. First, it had a reliable set of pockets such that, he was always certain that whenever he put anything in the pockets, it would be safe. Second, he  had an unequaled aversion for boxer shorts or any form of constricting underwear. He belonged to the school that believed such garments were designed by colonizers to smother the growth in both girth and length of vital tools of trade. The third major reason was that, his pair of shorts would without fail always conceal the presence of the president whenever he declared his stature and strength at the wrong time or place.

After locking part of the fortune in his ‘safe’, with a noticeable spring in his stride – here I picture Okonkwo in Achebe’s Things fall apart-  he left the paymasters office and headed straight to the nearest watering hole. It was that time of the month when the young and old  alike indulged in a ritual of kuchoma maini in the name of kuambia mwili pole . (loosely translates to binge drinking after a month of hard work)

 The waitress was a woman whose age we cannot place. For certain we would have to rely on carbon dating to estimate her age for he looked like an extraction from eons earlier.  Her face had numerous scars that made her look like a survivor of the Hellenic wars, or perhaps due to the pigment of her skin, we can risk a guess she was a veteran of shaka Zulu’s army. That would be the most educated and innocent guess of those who do not possess  a twisted soul and  a broken personality like Pita, you and I.

All imbibers of the poison she sold in the name of alcohol knew that every mark on her face represented a serious brawl or a cat fight. Very prominent on her brow was the chief of all scars. The story goes, the waitress, some centuries earlier, had gone to claim her dues from one of her  clients. You know, before she had been promoted to the higher office of a waitress, she was in the business of peddling pleasure. She had a stream of customers and some of them would partake of the carnal pleasures on credit. The bills would be settled at the end of the month. One day, she had woken very early to claim her dues from a client who had enjoyed on credit. Hardly had the door opened when the client’s wife broke a bottle of white cap on her forehead. Anyway that is a story for another day.

Pita settled on a low table and proceeded to down a glass after another of alcohol. Five glasses down, Mr. president rose to address the nation in a state of nation address. Remember the office of the president is a very powerful office and more often than not, the president gets what he desires. Pita spotted a member of the citizenry and invited her to his table. The alcohol in him opened the orator in him and he proceeded to lay out his manifesto. She was a busy citizen and in not so many words, she informed him they should go to her house and  sign a memorandum of understanding. To this Pita agreed without the slightest hesitation. He quickly settled his bill and the two gaily walked into the darkness giggling. Along the way, Pita felt that her house was too far and suggested they make do with a nearby green lodge. They quickly identified  a thicket and stripped to the bare essentials.He was about to pull her into his arms when a nearby laugh of a hyena shook him to his core. He grabbed his clothes and broke in a Usain Bolt like sprint. In his rush, he forgot his safe!

 photos sourced   A TALE OF TWO RAILWAY LINES

The lunatic line:

More than a century ago, some fellows contrived the idea of what would later be christened the lunatic line. The idea of constructing a railway line from the port of Mombasa to Lake Victoria and subsequently modern day Kampala seemed like sheer lunacy at its best. However, work began in 1896 but by 1898, the tale of the first railway line begins. The characters who fanned the events in this tale were actually two man eating lions. When the railway builders came to Tsavo river bridge section, (my online sources tell me that the name TSAVO means slaughter) they were faced by two man eating lions that kept attacking the camps and killing men in wild abandon.

The marauding lions named the Ghost and the Darkness persisted in their attacks to an extent that at some point,  the workers, locals and coolies alike, ran away and the work almost stalled. The tale is captured the book ‘The man eaters of Tsavo’ by Colonel John Henry Patterson (1907). A very highly exaggerated and largely inaccurate version is the 1996 film “the ghost and the darkness” starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer. Hence the first tale is the historical events surrounding the man eaters of TSAVO. However, that is not our story today Our story is the SGR tale!

The SGR tale.

The construction of the standard gauge railway line from the port of Mombasa to Nairobi was both a blessing a curse. It brought with it a flash flood of money and a tornado of evil. Small towns/ markets situated along the SGR route flourished with existing businesses thriving with the abundance of money. People who had never held 10,000 ksh in their hands found themselves handling a fortune vast enough to feed three generations of their progeny. Yes, 30,000ksh per month among the locals is a fortune worth writing a will over, marrying the girl of your dreams as well as settling scores with the old man who beat you to the girl of your dreams because at that time you were broke.

As it happens,  before the coming of mchaina (Chinese) and the SGR, quite a number of young men, had found themselves on the losing end when it came to the  tug of war of hearts. Smitten and endowed with love enough to revive the Mwene Mutapa empire a young man might be, but empty coffers do not run empires. In such a case, the scales of love would most likely be tipped in favour of the local butcher whose wallet unlike the broke young man’s,  holds more than  the national id card, a voter’s card  and a pack of expired  government issue condoms to be found in young men’s wallets. A pack of condoms that the young man would have put in the wallet when he was fifteen and now  he would be crowning   twenty one. When it comes to a love contest between the local butcher- the local butcher who wears a crimson read overcoat that was once white, the local butcher whose tools of trade range from sharp objects like knives, axes, power saws, burdizzo  and the guillotine machine, he who has a permanent fixture in the name of a tooth pick jutting from his mouth- and a young man who has nothing but a shy moustache and the telltale signs of a beard, then the odds would very definitely be stacked against the latter.

The coming of the standard gauge railway was a god sent event to right all wrongs. Wrongs committed against young men and by older, wealthier men. It had come to right historical injustices that reeked to high heavens of the callous nature of mankind. Wrongs committed on young budding love, wrongs that like an abominable curse would run from generation to generation. It would hurt, it would cut deep, torment and embarrass.  However, God perched somewhere in his celestial abode felt the ache in young men’s hearts and send his only Chinese to come and build the railway line so that whoever works for them will not be broke but will get money enough to enter the kingdom of love. With the thirty thousand shillings in your pocket, a pair of second hand reebok shoes, a faded pair of red jeans, a green shirt and a twenty shillings ‘gold chain’ around your neck, the gods of love, cupid,eros and Aphrodite combined are bound to be with you in spite of  your mouth stinking like a can of halitosis and fermented excrement  since it lastly saw a tooth brush during the Russian revolution.        

Pita (Peter) was one of the beneficiaries the great SGR revolution. He was a young man of about twenty five or thereby for no one cared to record the day, month or year he was born. Recording some unnecessary details like the date of birth is not one of the priorities for a woman who gives birth on her way from the river for such were the circumstances under which Pita was born. Those many years ago, his mother had gone to fetch water from the river when on her way back, labour pains struck.  The contractions came with the ferocity of the devil. This was her eighth pregnancy hence there was nothing new for her to learn. She simply laid down the water pot, undid her kanga and laid it on the grass and went on with the process of labour. Luckily, her neighbour was not far behind. Once she caught up with Pita’s mother, they went on with the process and after a while, a squirming baby boy was born.

Pita had always held loft dreams about the future. He had been conceived, born und brought up under the watchful eye of poverty. Poverty, like a faithful guardian angel always escorted him and his kin wherever they went. However, Pita was a dreamer; he dreamt of a day when he would have three meals in a day, he dreamt of a day he would eat without worrying about what the next day held for him. His mind would wander to far off  places, thinking about times he would eat chapati whenever he felt like it. Chapati was a meal for the wealthy and beyond his family’s wildest dreams. From a young age he associated chapati with holiness, salvation and the route to heaven for the only time his mother prepared chapati was Christmas time to celebrate the birth of Jesus. To call what his mother prepared chapati, would be not only a misnomer of grand proportions but also an insult to all generations of cooks traced right from Eve in Eden. It would be not only an insult but also a curse to all self-respecting chapati cooks. A curse that would call for fasting, cleansing and libation poured generously to invoke the intervention of ancestral cooks.

What Pita’s mother prepared in the name of chapati was nothing more than flattened dough with a generous sprinkling of stomach upsetting demons sandwiched in between. She remained true to her annual accomplishments of preparing diarrhoea inducing chapati without fail year in year out. The rhythm would always be the same, ingesting that rare delicacy, then the whole family would break in a house × latrine relay akin to a 4×4 Olympics relay race. The single family latrine could not efficiently serve the entire clan of 11 children so some would be dispatched off in a half marathon race to the neighbours’ pit latrines while the rest undertook a cross country race to the nearby forest. The last group of cross country athletes would be most spectacular for they would be trailed by  a horde of chicken and dogs waiting to partake of their share of Christmas spoils. What would follow would be a putrid excretion that would scorch the very soil it landed on  forming a hard pan that would require a nuclear bomb, heat seeking missiles and the fresh blood of a seventy year old virgin to break.

Now, on this particular day, Pita was awarded his life changing fortune in the name of a wage. As he held the 30,000 ksh in his hands he felt like he controlled the economy of the US, China and Russia combined. He was richer than King Mansa Musa of Timbuktu, he was, at least in his mind wealthier than John D. Rockefeller.  Such  wealth calls for careful handling least one lost it. Pita was not the kind of guy who believed in wallets- mark you this is not the only thing he did not believe in. He walked to a nearby washroom, undid his zipper to reveal his  ‘safe’.  His ‘safe,’ was an old pair of denim shorts that had lastly seen water during Noah’s deluge. It was a short fashioned out of a worn pair of jeans trousers that must have been originally worn by vasco da Gama. To say it was an ancient pair of shorts,  would be an understatement.

Pita loved his ancient pair of shorts for a myriad of reasons. First, it had a reliable set of pockets such that, he was always certain that whenever he put anything in the pockets, it would be safe. Second, he  had an unequaled aversion for boxer shorts or any form of constricting underwear. He belonged to the school that believed such garments were designed by colonizers to smother the growth in both girth and length of vital tools of trade. The third major reason was that, his pair of shorts would without fail always conceal the presence of the president whenever he declared his stature and strength at the wrong time or place.

After locking part of the fortune in his ‘safe’, with a noticeable spring in his stride – here I picture Okonkwo in Achebe’s Things fall apart-  he left the paymasters office and headed straight to the nearest watering hole. It was that time of the month when the young and old  alike indulged in a ritual of kuchoma maini in the name of kuambia mwili pole . (loosely translates to binge drinking after a month of hard work)

 The waitress was a woman whose age we cannot place. For certain we would have to rely on carbon dating to estimate her age for he looked like an extraction from eons earlier.  Her face had numerous scars that made her look like a survivor of the Hellenic wars, or perhaps due to the pigment of her skin, we can risk a guess she was a veteran of shaka Zulu’s army. That would be the most educated and innocent guess of those who do not possess  a twisted soul and  a broken personality like Pita, you and I.

All imbibers of the poison she sold in the name of alcohol knew that every mark on her face represented a serious brawl or a cat fight. Very prominent on her brow was the chief of all scars. The story goes, the waitress, some centuries earlier, had gone to claim her dues from one of her  clients. You know, before she had been promoted to the higher office of a waitress, she was in the business of peddling pleasure. She had a stream of customers and some of them would partake of the carnal pleasures on credit. The bills would be settled at the end of the month. One day, she had woken very early to claim her dues from a client who had enjoyed on credit. Hardly had the door opened when the client’s wife broke a bottle of white cap on her forehead. Anyway that is a story for another day.

Pita settled on a low table and proceeded to down a glass after another of alcohol. Five glasses down, Mr. president rose to address the nation in a state of nation address. Remember the office of the president is a very powerful office and more often than not, the president gets what he desires. Pita spotted a member of the citizenry and invited her to his table. The alcohol in him opened the orator in him and he proceeded to lay out his manifesto. She was a busy citizen and in not so many words, she informed him they should go to her house and  sign a memorandum of understanding. To this Pita agreed without the slightest hesitation. He quickly settled his bill and the two gaily walked into the darkness giggling. Along the way, Pita felt that her house was too far and suggested they make do with a nearby green lodge. They quickly identified  a thicket and stripped to the bare essentials.He was about to pull her into his arms when a nearby laugh of a hyena shook him to his core. He grabbed his clothes and broke in a Usain Bolt like sprint. In his rush, he forgot his safe!

Photos sourced from   https://www.google.com/search?q=tsavo+river+bridge&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjbiJn5-6_QAhWCL8AKHQF2AwkQ7AkIMg&biw=1024&bih=620#imgrc=K3iDDS6zO4K8RM%3A

STOLEN GLANCES

STOLEN GLANCES

She looked at her wedding ring and hated it. Over the years she had gained weight and she could not slip it off her finger and pocket the disaster of marriage she was trying to keep going.

The young man sitted next to her in the crowded matatu reminded her of her youth. She dreamt of and yearned to revisit the hour and time she was young and carefree. What she had retained over the years, as time took toll, was the inferno that her husband could not quench. She had a blazing craving for the forbidden, that only she understood.

***

Dorned in a pair of tight Denims, she deliberately moved her legs to touch his  each moment the matatu hit a road bump. The scrawny fellow who was the object of her fantasy kept reading his copy of the days newspaper. His face a blank mask, save for the moments he read the irking political stories and editorials.  The embers were stoked and the flames burnt the spot that we can surely say was every man’s weakness. Ironically, as the flames fanned by emotion razed on, water dripped from the holy of holies. She could feel the flash flood breaking the river banks.

In a public service vehicle (matatu) one can’t do much. She clung to her fantasies and closed her eyes. You and I might have thought that she had surrendered to the whims of exhaustion and sleep. How wrong we would have been had we taken that position!

She created a new world. Eyes closed and the fire burning. She looked back at the events of her fifteen year marital live.  Save for the children, she was bitter. She had covered the pain of a dysfunctional marriage under the hood of the love she had for her children. She had endured and tried as much as she could to hold the arrangement that passed for a marriage together. That day was a turning point.

As the matatu driver fiddled with the stereo, playing banal songs that excited him ignoring the passengers, she fell into a wave of desire and longing. Her arm momentarily rested on the young man’s thighs. She was scared of how he would react. Only if, only if she had known! she had poked a hornets nest.

All along, As he perused the pages of the cheap newspaper he had bought earlier in the day, he had kept stealing glances at her. The fake gold ring on her finger crushed every wave and tide of emotion that formed within him. As much as he wanted to cross over to the forbidden land, he had qualms. He was scared for she was a married woman. As much as he ingested this truth of life, he could not, no matter how much he tried, bring himself to admit the bare knuckle facts of life that whatever has been marked and surrendered to the solemn marital vows bears a caveat emptor sign in the name of a ring. It was difficult to make the pulse of his heart rhyme with  his desire.  Dicky’s adventures kept resurfacing in his mind  http://stankyenze.blogspot.co.ke/2016/11/dickie-dick-dicky-was-always-horny-boy_3.html . However, the fool hardy dare devil enchambered within him prodded on an produced a caricature or a semblance of a lop sided smile. In his pea sized brain, floated waves of fantasies , butterflies, flowers, moans, rain and thunder….

***

She noticed that they did not have much time. By 7 pm, African time, so to say,  they had reached their destination. She softly held his hand, ignoring the matatu driver sitting next to them, she looked at him, straight in the yes and flashed jezebel’s smile.  He saw the raging fire of desire, longing and want floating in her eyes. He dared not breath, he dared not spoil the moment.

She said , “ Here is my number. I wish you would call me.” To him, it was the manifestation of the powers that be. He felt like Mary felt that day when she had a one with  angel Gabriel(her fiancée busy making coffins, stools, chairs and crosses not withstanding).  He was sure that he wanted to break the rules. She craved for a new experience.

……….

I love kenya... my take on politics

I am  not mentioning names lakini YK92 existed . The agitation for multi-party democracy hurt people and their families. Remember the seven bearded sisters. On this front, I equate Timothy Njoya to Desmond Tutu. Where did we go wrong as a country? We have lost our conscience and sacrificed this nation at the altar of greed. When a single person embezzles public funds, he/she retreats to the ethnic cocoon ya 'mtu wetu anaonewa' . I wish we had leaders who can boast of the least bit of conscience. Please, may God help our leaders stop looting public funds. Let us have a common dream of a prosperous Kenya. Is this too much to ask of you?

The ethnic alignments we are witnessing portend awry times. Why are the influential people, and I will name them, Uhuru Kenyatta Raila odinga,William Samoei Ruto, Musalia Mudavadi, et al ignoring the obvious. They are driving the country into a pit of dis-unity. Our leaders( and Kenyans as well ) should embrace Kenya and strive to overcome  negative ethnicity. Kenya is not about the Kenyatta's against the Oginga's trying to settle scores. It is not about Daniel Toroitich arap Moi or any other person. I wish, (I don't pray, Mark my words that I am not religious) that we start working on unity. I wish that in this state called Kenya, we would start working towards unity. As we are, our political leaders have broken this nation and we are held together by our communal hope.  As it is, it is like waiting for Godot; trying to explain the absurdity of life. I wish our leaders would start addressing the issue of negative ethnicity now. I dream of a time Kenya will be at a point where, we as a people talk matters politics without saying that, it is us against them, a time we will vote without saying it is our man and so it is our time to eat. I love Kenya, and I need my Kenya to be peaceful. I quote this song by  Roger Whittaker :My Land Is Kenya

“My Land Is Kenya”
You only got one mama
You only got one pa
You only got one life to live
No matter who you are
You can go the whole world over
Every city has its dawn
But everybody liveth has one place where he was born

And mine is Kenya, so warm and wild and free
You'll always stay with me here in my heart
My land is Kenya, right from your highlands to the sea
You'll always stay with me here in my heart, here in my heart.

You only got one childhood
And the memories that spring
When you see your house, the tree you climbed
And all those precious things
The faces of the friends I had
The images that flow
When I close my eyes in the land I love
The land I was born..



My land is Kenya, so warm and wild and free
You'll always stay with me here in my heart
My land is Kenya, right from your highlands to the sea
You'll always stay with me here in my heart, here in my heart

DISCLAIMER:  I apologize that I can't cite the source of the lyrics to the tune quoted above, As expected, my network provider is still screwing my internet connection. However the fault may as well be mine, maybe the phone I am using as a modem could be the fault. Ama ni hii ancient HP desktop? I miss reading articles za Wahome  Mutahi  (Son of the soil)...what happened to Appep aka thatcher, na whis junior?  na the project ako wapi?

PLEASE STOP KILLING KENYA

I have not mentioning names lakini YK92 existed . The agitation for multi-party democracy hurt people and their families. Remember the seven bearded sisters. On this front, I equate Timothy Njoya to Desmond Tutu. Where did we go wrong as a country? We have lost our conscience and sacrificed this nation at the altar of greed. When a single person embezzles public funds, he/she retreats to the ethnic cocoon ya 'mtu wetu anaonewa' . I wish we had leaders who boast of the least bit of conscience. Please,may God help our leaders stop looting funds. Let us have a common dream of a prosperous Kenya. Is this too much to ask of you?

The ethnic alignments we are witnessing portend awry times. Why are the influential people, and I will name them, Uhuru Kenyatta Raila odinga,William Samoei Ruto, Musalia Mudavadi, et al ignoring the obvious. They are driving the country into a pit of dis-unity. Please as leaders should embrace Kenya beyond negative ethnicity. Kenya is not about the Kenyatta's against the Oginga's trying to settle scores. It is not about Daniel Toroitich arap Moi or any other person. I wish, (I don't pray, Mark my words that I am not religious) that we start working on unity. I wish that in this state called Kenya, we would start working towards unity. As we are, our political leaders have broken this nation and we are held together by our communal hope.  Just waiting as powers that be make decisions. They waited for Godot, trying to explain the absurdity of life. I wish our leaders would start addressing the issue of negative ethnicity now. I dream of a time Kenya will be at a point where, we as a people talk matters politics without saying that, it is us against them, a time we will vote without saying it is our man and so it is our time to eat. I love Kenya, and I need my Kenya to be peaceful. I quote this song by  Roger Whittaker :My Land Is Kenya

Send “My Land Is Kenya”
You only got one mama
You only got one pa
You only got one life to live
No matter who you are
You can go the whole world over
Every city has its dawn
But everybody liveth has one place where he was born

And mine is Kenya, so warm and wild and free
You'll always stay with me here in my heart
My land is Kenya, right from your highlands to the sea
You'll always stay with me here in my heart, here in my heart.

You only got one childhood
And the memories that spring
When you see your house, the tree you climbed
And all those precious things
The faces of the friends I had
The images that flow
When I close my eyes in the land I love
The land I was born..



My land is Kenya, so warm and wild and free
You'll always stay with me here in my heart
My land is Kenya, right from your highlands to the sea
You'll always stay with me here in my heart, here in my heart

AMY'S DAY PART 2. POSTED TODAY

AMY’S DAY PART 2

The days that followed Amy’s burial passed in a daze. I was numb; I was empty and totally lifeless. In the days preceding her demise and subsequent burial, I had (and so was she) a vivacious ball of energy.  We had enjoyed the days to the fullest in the wild abandon of campus insanity. I was Amy and she was Sally. We were a unit bound together by passion and the fascination of self-discovery.

After the burial ceremony, my college mates supported me back to the shuttle we had hired. I have little memories left of the events of the  sombre afternoon that we buried Amy. Tears still well in my eyes and I lose my senses whenever I remember the horrific sound of the clods of soil landing on Amy’s coffin. Each scoop and a thud of soil tugged at and tore a chunk of my heart from my very bosom as they covered the love of my life in that grave

Rediscovering life after your love departs from the core of your heart is not easy. Even the least of things spark memories of what you have lost. It may range from a distant whiff of perfume or a far of echo of laughter. The departed is always there to remind you unconsciously and incessantly of a time that was. I would be mechanically walking from the lecture hall and then, ahead, far much ahead I would spot Amy’s wonderful bum.  As I had I had gotten used to, I would quickly fish my phone from my folder and speed to speed dialing to dial as we had always done. I would be at the brink of dialing when the contact photo of Amy saved in my contacts list electrocuted me back to my senses. The photo would remind me that she was gone and my unbelieving mind was still playing tricks on me. Loosing Amy to the grim reaper goes beyond any words that I can conceptualize

**

Drowning in incomprehensible sorrow, I was ready for anything that fate would place along my way as I stumbled along in life. The gnawing emptiness in my heart was wrenching every bit of life from my very soul. To say that I was a disaster is an understatement. I was very certain that, my heart lay under the very mould of earth that Amy’s body lay.  It is in this state of mental and emotional emptiness that I broke into the disaster I was.

In that state which I very much despise, I tried to dress the wounds of my ache in new adventures. Remember that I am ample sally. I was and I still am blessed in places that both men and women like.  In desperation to cover the hurt of losing Amy, I let go. Every day would be a party day. I would land in a pub wearing a fake smile, my ample body and the hurt of losing Amy hugging me tightly around my neck. The men folk who constituted the core number of revelers in the clubs would stare in awe. I would visit the same haunts that Amy and I had painted red in better days, get drunk and still go home with a load of self-loathing bound on by drunk back.

The intoxicated men fell over themselves as they competed to lay their grimy figures on the jewel they had dreamt of for eons. Now that Amy was not present, my bar table would flood in a flashflood of toxic drinks each encapsulating every individual buyer’s craving and state in life. The raw sexuality my body radiated held them captive and broke their senses. From a distance my body ignited flames that I could not quench. If only they could read the distant look I bore in my eyes. The look of a broken lover who had lost the best thing that had ever happened to her. The empty look of Sally. Sally of the ample bosom and hips, Sally who missed Amy; her friend, her love. That empty gaze!

Once in a while, a hot girl would pass by my table. The fire I me would ignite but in a fleeting second fizzle out like a candle little in the wind. My eyes would still wander seeking for the shapely girls but as soon as my heart warmed a little bit, Amy would blow out the flame. I missed Amy.

To be continued

Amy's day... posted 2013 http://stankyenze.blogspot.co.ke/2013/11/amys-day-short-story.html

http://stankyenze.blogspot.co.ke/2013/11/amys-day-short-story.html

Dicky is on a revenge mission (Dicky part 2)

Dicky is on a revenge mission 

The thought of Dicky whiling away time on a hospital bed was inconceivable. I could not really bring myself to believe that a single act of an irate man, whose garden had been visited in his absence and the apple grafted with another plant of uncertain species, would render the alpha male he was, immobile for some days.  Dicky was a born leader and a man of action too. From a tender age, he had always led the timid herd of his age mates as they explored their world. Growing up and experiencing a new space beyond a mother’s womb and her lap is, and has always been fascinating to the young. Dicky made it his business to lead the village boys in all forms of wild adventure. He was not your normal idea of a handsome baby or cuddly angel. Dicky was born with unspeakable evil and meanness as a lifelong tenant in his heart. It goes without saying that, you and I, or any other being that possesses even the most mundane of an appendage above his shoulders, and rightly so to conclude, that the brute was born without that vital organ normally situated at the left side of a man’s chest. (heart)

Dicky was born with a rare condition of a cold heart. He was perpetually stuck in a state of permanent freeze when it came to matters love. Had he known the meaning of love, the lasses around him would have sworn permanent, unquenchable love to him. In spite of his breath taking ugliness, he had a knack for attracting women. An heartless philanderer who ran on a constant diet of a desire to conquer, devour and move on to the next land.

Prostrated on the tiny hospital bed was Dicky, beaten but not broken. Mistakes of his youth rode heavily on his shoulders with the bells of his previously missed opportunities chiming clearly in the silent afternoon air. As I approached his bed, the biggest eyes ever placed on a visage whose ugliness was only equaled by mortal sin opened. When he saw me approaching in carefully ironed pair of green trousers, bright yellow shirt and a maroon tie to match, he smiled either in admiration of my ‘sharp’ appearance or because at least I had found time to visit him.

Next to his bed stood a straight backed, wooden chair.  It had the appearance of a piece of furniture that had seen better days. Numerous notches were clearly visible and the numerous nails that had been used to repair it over the years it made the chair look like a collection of nails rather than a chair. Who knows,  it could have as well have served bravely in the local bar, witnessed and taken part in numerous bar brawls as it was sent flying through the air breaking a rowdy ‘mlevi’s’ jaw or knocking  a random prostitute off her ‘sina taabu’ stool before it was donated- albeit after a few repairs – to the hospital.

Dicky extended his hand in greeting as I carefully sat my skinny bum on the rickety piece of wood. “ Nayu  isele? ( How are you my friend.) He said in greeting as he extended his hand towards me in greeting. I took his firm hand into mine and responded jokingly, “Ndunatwaa ndii mwakoni mwanoo?”(haven’t you died yet young man). This kind of joking always served well to ease the tension in the air. To my light hearted response, Dicky chuckled and responded, “ ai uu? Mwana usu undu unambikie ndisa ukw’a ndaivithitye uteme uu.” (I can’t die before I avenge the panga cuts/violence meted upon me) . At his point I got really worried. I knew how wild Dicky could get. In my mind I developed the unsettling image of Dicky walking out the hospital, picking a panga and going straight away to hack the offending man to death. The shock must have registered on my face for Dicky laughed loudly and proceeded, “ Nauma vaa, akiau ndilea kwikia kiveti kya mwanosu ivu. Ndimueka mana.”(I swear that as soon as I leave this hospital bed I must impregnate his wife in revenge!) Dicky said this not in discernible bitterness but with resolve and determination lacing his voice. His eyes had something like defiance in them. He was suddenly a phoenix, ready from the ashes to rise and exert revenge on the offending party!

 He immediately changed the topic and started talking of merrier times in the past. Excitement could be felt in his voice as he spoke of his previous escapades. From the tone of his voice one could very clearly foretell that Dicky would not be ashamed of the panga cuts on his bum  but that he would proudly wear them as a badge of honour. A reminder of his conquests!  Dicky must have been the guy Don Williams sang of in the first two stanzas of his song : Shot Full Of Love

"Shot Full Of Love" – Don williams

Once I had a heart cold as ice,
Love for me was only for fun.
I'd make a mark for each broken heart
Like notches on the butt of a gun.

Once I had a trick up my sleeve
And a reputation all over town.
I was heartless and cold wherever I'd go,
I shot down every young girl, I found.

 From : http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/donwilliams/shotfulloflove.html

Some of Dicky’s tales were the stuff of a Young man who loved courting danger and savoured great thrill and satisfaction from each event. He bound me in a spell of tales the entire afternoon. I had hoped to visit an ailing acquaintance and console him for the deep panga cuts lining his buttocks but I ended up laughing the entire afternoon. I did not notice darkness creep in. By the time I stood up to leave it was almost 7 pm.  It was dark outside and dark clouds had started gathering in the sky. This was the rainy season and the clouds were clearly heavy with rain.

***

As I hurried home, one particular episode that Dicky had narrated kept ringing in my mind. I was a young man who had his set of raging hormones alright, but there was no way whether under the influence of a blue pill or not, ever be at per with Dicky. I was a timid lad. Sometimes I sang in the local church choir. My participation in the choir was not really inspired by a desire to join the terrestrial orchestra once I departed from this planet.

My main inspiration was Tina (short form for Christine.) I had started noticing her as she started walking with her shoulders hunched. This was in class seven. As the years passed what she had tried to conceal was all there to be seen by all, a gift adorned in spleandour. It was beautiful.  From that moment, I joined the church choir for she was an active member. However as much as I tried to draw her attention, she was so busy singing to her lord to notice me. However, I noticed how she laughed easily with the choir master.  Her eyes would shine bright and she would even pat his shoulder or back as she reeled off in peals of merry laughter. Knots of jealousy would constrict my lungs as tears of anger and betrayal dripped down my wounded heart.

I remember how the day before I visited Dicky at the hospital it had rained heavily. I had spent the day at the local market selling cabbages.  I had not carried an umbrella but with me I had the nylon sack in which I had ported the cabbages that morning. It had been a good day and I had made double the profit I had expected to make. As the rain started pounding,  I covered myself with nylon sack and trode home . All of a sudden, I heard a voice calling my name. It was unmistakably Tina’s voice. She was trying without much success to seek cover from the rain under a eucalyptus tree.

I crossed over to her side of the foot path and the knight in me, wearing a shining armour, rescued the damsel in distress. She grunted a single word of appreciation but that was enough for me. That single word had atoned all the sins imaginary and real that she had committed against me. She drew closer while at the same time taking the lion’s share of the sack. I did not mind about getting  drenched provided, Tina, the Tina of my dreams was comfortable. I guided her gently, at one point lucky enough for my hand to brush against hers as I adjusted to give her more room under our sack. We proceeded in that fashion until we got to her home. We stood silently by the gate with my tongue stuck  against the roof my mouth. At this point, she thanked be in a few words and quickly dashed into the compound. I was happy. I was excited. I was elated, Imagine sharing a sack roof with Tina. I could not believe it. That night I barely slept.

****

I was still sitting on that old chair at the hospital next to  Dicky’s bed listening to his tales when one story tore me apart. The damsel I had saved the previous  day, the damsel I would easily kill for. Tina, was after all part of his numerous conquests.

***

He had met her some weeks earlier as she came from the river. He had helped her ferry the water home. Once they got to her home he noticed that, her parents were away. Being the gentleman he was, he proceeded to ask for an axe and proceeded to split firewood for her. Dicky was a work machine and by the time he was through, a sizable amount of split firewood lay next to her feet.

His work had spoken for him and one thing led to another. Dicky looked at the admiration in her eyes and the demon that resided in him moved for the kill. They quickly got into the house and locked the door behind them. From somewhere between the expansive trunks he had for legs dangled and enormity of dumb bells. Tools of procreation bound in a bag of hormones and sheer desire.

He looked at the maiden and felt his heartbeat falter. She was the kind of lass deigned for gods and kings. She opened her mouth to speak and heaven smeared with pure honey dripped from her lips. His ears savoured the juice in her words, with relish and longing. The mellow voice was a  pillowy velvet to his arched ears.

He was a lost man shackled in a wave of wild desire. The craving he had smothered erupted. It was a fiery volcano.

***

Dicky, lying prostrate on his hospital bed like a priest taking his ordination vows broke my heart.

As I walked home, I could feel the wound in my heart hurt bleeding. Bleeding for Tina