IN MY YOUNGER DAYS-- CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

IN MY YOUNGER DAYS

My story could not have happened elsewhere but Nunguni. Nunguni, that small rural town perched at the top of Kilungu hills in Makueni County still remains deeply etched in my memory. Yes, deep at the heart of the semi-arid Makueni sits a very cold place called Nunguni.

I have memories of the eucalyptus trees, the cold weather, the hills, streams and the manual work. I remember my grandmother, those many years ago holding my tiny hand as we walked to the shopping centre. She was very strong then before age started crawling upon her. I always admired her as she ascended the hills, a heavy load of napier grass on her back. As we walked to the shopping centre I was very excited for a new dawn was breaking in my life. She had told me the previous day that the time had come for me to join nursery school. I was elated for that marked the beginning of a new journey. That day, when we got to the small market called Nunguni, I got my first pair of green shorts, white shirt and a green sweater. It was full school uniform to match my pair of ‘Bata bullet’ canvas shoes. To quote Dolly Parton as she expressed in her song, coat of many colours, clothes that I was proud of. Years later, I reminisce of that day in nostalgia. I remember the evenings she would keep pushing me to learn my numbers or the alphabet. My cousins would be in a different house studying or doing their homework. We used to call it ‘nyumba ila nene’  (main house. It was just a simple mud walled; cement plastered three room affair with dark green iron sheets for a roof that served as our lodgings.) In the evening, my grandmother would scoop ash from the fire place, level it nicely and create a perfect slate for me to write on using a small stick that she would sharpen to create a perfect stylus. Leading by example, she would proceed to write, 1, and 2 and then encourage me to proceed. It was only years later that I learnt that she was illiterate and could not write beyond those two numbers.She had a favourite saying that she used without fail when irked , “ noou ndaasoma. Keka ninasomie nguisya ou ngona maa maku.” (lucky you I am illiterate. Had I gone to school I would be able to see through your skin)

My grandmother’s generation belonged to a different era. Her’s, was generation born in the 1930’s when Kenya was sweltering and labouring under the yoke of ukoloni (colonial Kenya.) When not busy perfecting my numbers and alphabet skills, she would dazzle me with her stories. Her stories  would pick me up and fly me to the fascinating imaginary world she fashioned with her tales. That was Akamba folklore at its best. She could tell the same story many times but every time she retold it, she breathed fresh life into the story adding a new twist every turn. My grandmother’s stories left a lasting mark on me. One particular story I would never forget is the story of  mutui na yiimu (the blacksmith and the ogre. (I retold the story in my own words, in a foreign language a year ago. (see the link … http://stankyenze.blogspot.co.ke/2016/07/the-blacksmith-and-ogre-kamba-narrative.html    )  She would add a new song, new proverbs or sayings, create  new characters etc. If not telling those wonderful stories, she would break into a captivating mwali ( chanting.)

My grandmother was a master story teller. She was not the daughter of chief Maithya for nothing. I would sit at the edge of my chair spellbound as she narrated how the Akamba perfected and used the art of witch craft. In the same breath she would elevate me to a lofty place as she narrated how she underwent her catechism. Yuliana (Juliana- for that was her baptismal name) was a fervent catholic. She was devoted, truly devoted to the extent that, we had to attend a catholic primary school which was about one hours walk from our village yet there was an AIC sponsored primary school nearby.

My grandmother, widowed at a very young age, was very close to her siblings. However, she was very particularly attached to one elder brother- Kiendi. I cherish memories of how my cousins and I would be dispatched to Kauti (her maternal home) on a Saturday or Sunday Monday morning to visit him.  We would spend the day with him as he awed us with Kamba narratives and chanting. Occasionally, she would pack a bottle or two of beer to be delivered to the old man. She knew that the alcohol would bring out the artist in her brother. Now, as I look back, I realize that I did not learn my writing entirely in class or from the numerous novels I read. I had two artists who initiated me into the Kamba oral literature genre!

As I grew older, the boy in me started developing. My childhood stories are the stuff that only those who grew up upcountry would really understand. The games we played were innovative and exciting. They would range from playing football using a ball fashioned out of nylon papers strung together with sisal strings, to playing hide and seek in the evening. One particular game I cannot forget was sliding. Basically, the game involved a plastic container and the mercy of Kilungu hills. Nunguni is a hilly place. We would go to a nearby forest, a forest whose bed was lined with slippery, dry eucalyptus tree leaves and God knows what else. Tree stumps were the highway signage. Once at the crest of the hill, we would sit on our containers and insanely cruise down the hills masterfully navigating the route avoiding the trees, tree stumps and whatever other weapon the devil had devised against our butts. As I reflect on this crazy game,  I really thank the powers that be that, in all the generations that have played this game, for it was handed down from one generation to another, nobody has ever lost his member to a tree stump. I confidently vouch for this game as one of the safest risky sports available to a country boy/girl. So the population will keep growing.

Diving in the river was the ultimate excitement. Whenever we could escape our parents’ watchful eyes, we dashed to the river. We always brought water containers with us for it had to appear that we were attending to our water fetching chores. The rivers varied in size and challenge. The nearby stream was like a baby pool for the beginners. As we grew older and bolder, just like the generations of river swimmers ahead of us, for this was a sport handed down from one generation to the next, mutundu river and Ivoloto rivers welcomed us to their realm.  Mutundu was bigger than the nearby stream but ivoloto was the real test. It was a river that attracted boys from different villages as well separating ‘men’ from boys. The events at ivoloto river were not impromptu or random. It took meticulous planning among the boys of the different villages. A day would be set for the sporting gala.

As a matter of fact, like all rural bred boys, we had chores to attend to. However, collecting firewood was the most time consuming task. To deal with this challenge, we would ensure that we collected firewood the day before the ivoloto river challenge. We would hide the same in the nearby napier grass farms happy that the following day would be an ivoloto swimming day. The firewood had to be hidden carefully, for there were (they are always there in every group of youngsters) some lazy bones who would pilfer your firewood without a second thought. On the big day, the band of bandits would troop to ivoloto river. Excitement would be in the very air we breathed. Anxiety and excitement would  colour the afternoon so thickly that you could mine a slice of it off the air, fashion a knife out of it and use it to cut your sugar cane into smaller pieces. Yes of course, sugar cane that we would steal from Mzee Salim Manga’s farm. Make no mistake, Salim was not of coastal descent. It is only that he had lived in Mombasa some years earlier and when he came back to Nunguni (for almost everyone goes back) he preferred to be called Salim. He was the mzee next door who spoke impeccable Swahili and crooned beautiful Swahili music. One of his favourite tunes was Kolola by the Kenyan band them mushrooms.

Remember the song?

Mzee manga’s love for the coast was so unwavering to the extent that he gave some of his extensive progeny names you would not usually come across at Nunguni or within the Kikamba language. The fruit of his nightly haunts and hard labour with his wife produced a family register that read something like, Abdalla,  Abdulla, Ishmael,  Zainabu, Rashid etc. though there was a Ngina named after Mama Ngina Kenyatta (mama wa taifa),  Kenya’s first lady at the dawn of  Kenya’s independence in 1963 or so I tend to think. The naming of Ngina could as well have been inspired the Mama Ngina drive in Mombasa. There was also in that register, William, who I strongly believe was named not after the famous American Musician Don Williams but by Fadhilli William Mdawida, the musician. He who is reputed to have recorded the song ‘Malaika’ Mzee manga had captivating tales of his exploits as a young hot blooded Mkamba holed up at the coast. Once he imbibed his tipple, which basically was kaluvu that he made from his bedroom distillery. Kaluvu ,a brew that had ngonyoo (sugarcane juice) honey and water as its core ingredients. Muatine (gotten from African sausage tree) was used to hasten the fermentation process. A potent nutritious brew it was. No wonder in local parlance when you are invited for a drink and you opt not to partake of the ‘holy communion’ that day (drink), you simply say, ninanikite miatine. (today I am not drinking).

Manga would relate to a wide eyed audience his misadventures as a jail bird at Manyani maximum security prison. He however never revealed the crime he had committed. He would speak of the paltry rations and how emaciated he becamewhile locked up at Manyani. So skinny that his protruding coccyx broke the cement floor of his favourite prison cell spot at Manyani maximum security prison and sunk a hole. He would say in his impeccable Swahili, “Mwanagu maisha gerezani sio mchezo.(my child, prison life is challenging) before breaking into Kikamba, “Yii, Namosete Ngaumya Kyathu!”(I was very skinny to an extend that my coccyx was protruding) On other days, in his jovial inebriated condition, he would, with a distant look, his eyes glazed with kaluvu relate of the time after his incarceration. A time he felt that he was ready for adventure in distant lands, a time when he stole his way into a ship. Unfortunately, Salim Manga (as he had christened himself and preferred to be called), the stow away was discovered before the ship set sail.

It was from this Mzee Manga’s farm that we stole sugarcane as we marched to Ivoloto river. By the way, the name Ivoloto, meaning drop, came about because it had miniature waterfall. The fall was high by all scientific, religious, traditional or wizardry standards. The tale of a man who had committed suicide (for suicide was rare, a taboo frowned upon in the community) at ivoloto still warmed many a fear mongers lips. Over and above his chosen name, we, the boys, further nicknamed  Salim Manga ,Mtangazaji (news anchor). The choice of nickname was a no brainer. It was a name  inspired by a famous journalist, a football commentator and a maestro who worked for KBC (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation) for many years; Ali salim Manga. Munching away with wild abandon the stolen sugarcane, the glucose fuelling our bodies, we would match to Ivoloto River.

The sight of Ivoloto falls was always breathtaking no matter how many times one had visited the river.  Beautifully moulded imposing rocks and torrents of water gushing from betwixt their spread legs, the long drop of the silvery shiny water from the top of the fall and the thunderous crash as it landed on the rocks below. Gigantic trees lined its banks forming a perfect wall of a natural security fence. The reeds swayed, twisted and danced to the musical rhythm of the wind. We regaled as water sprayed on our young faces.  One after the other, from the surrounding villages, the boys would troop in, excited and their adventure hormones coursing through them. To take part in this affair one had to belong to a certain age group or having had undergone the all-important rite of passage. This I highlight with no intension whatsoever to prejudice anyone against any particular community for I very well understand the diversity of mankind. The rite of passage that earned one a spot in the team of bandits who swam at Ivoloto was circumcision. The idea of exposing a  ‘willie’, tiny or big, with its dark wrinkled  uncut fore skin among the bandits of ivoloto river was pedestalled on the realms of taboo.

Once all the bandits of Ivoloto river arrived, it was time to change to the official uniform. The uniform changing process was a simple affair that involved stripping down to beauty of Adam and Eve’s garden of Eden. The only acceptable sportswear was a birthday suit. The excitement was sparked by the idea of the grand slide. The slide was God’s gift to the boys. Years of water coursing over the Ivoloto river rocks had borne a perfect slippery surface of green moss. We would gingerly walk to the top of the slide, sit our bare butts in all the glory of their blackness and let go. The slide was smooth on the butt, bumpy on the body and a drug to our blood. It would be the push, shhhh, slide, bump one (this were basin like depressions on the rocks).As we manourved the bumps, we would literary be hoisted in the air then propelled to the next stage of the course, shhhhhh, slide, bump two. Adrenaline coursing through our bodies, wild, excited screaming reeling off our young lungs we would go through the course until with a big splash, we landed in the pond designed by nature. Ivoloto river challenge was the ball. To spice up the excitement, a wild bandit- long before we were born- had designed the ivoloto river pond rush. This entailed a group of at least five boys converging at the start of the slide course then one after the other, swiftly going through the ‘obstacle course’ with the excitement being landing on top of each other in the pond situated at the bottom of the course. Oh,my  ivoloto river days.

As I reminisce of my days at Nunguni, there is one event that shook me to the marrow. From that day, up to date, I have never taken part in the Ivoloto river challenge. On that day, one of the bandits threw caution to the wind or accidentally missed a step. I am not certain what exactly happened. He was a strong built lad, apparently quite big for his age. As he ascended to the top of the slide, he made a mistake or misstep- whatever case may be- and stepped on the slippery rocks. The boy lost his balance and landed face first on the rocks. It was part of our socialization that, once you faced such a scenario or any other embarrassing incident, you should stand up, dust yourself and laugh it off. The boy stood up very fast and started laughing. We joined him but immediately froze. Two of his front teeth were missing. He had lost his teeth on the slippery rocks of ivoloto river. The games were cancelled pronto. To summarize the whole event, the whipping I received today still makes me cringe. That evening, my grandmother unleashed the tiger in her. It was terrible, it was painful. I was a terrible loving whipping I got that day…….

TO BE CONTINUED…

·         Imili is a traditional Kamba machine used to crash sugarcane to extract its juice. Got its name from the process that is involved in crashing sugarcane. Twisting the sugarcane to extract the juice)

·         inanikite miatine.  The expression comes from the process of brewing Kaluvu. Once the brew is ready, The,  miatine used to ferment it are dried before the next cycle of brewing.

·         Kaluvu – traditional Kamba brew