MCHUNGAJI

 

MCHUNGAJI

She captured the red rooster,

A huge king bird,

Slit its throat

Eviscerated it and made stew,

A befitting meal for a man of ‘God’,

A meal for mchungaji,

Coming for ‘prayers’ that night.

 

Saturday afternoon,

She sent her teenage daughter

To clean mchungaji’s house,

Perhaps do his laundry too.

Mmchungaji, the man of God

Lives in a two-bed room house,

Erected in hallowed ground,

The church compound.

 

Her husband,

Arrives home Saturday afternoon,

‘Hungry’ after  a  fortnight in Nairobi.

She serves him githeri and manage,

Solid food for a mjengo man.

Then hurries off to church

For choir practice.

 

 Left home alone,

Burning in the flames of solitude,

Smouldering in the bottled-up desire,

He hurries off to the nearest bar,

Entering to amidst the drunken din,

Echoes of chairman, darling, governor…

He drinks himself silly,

Drowning the pain of loneliness.

 

‘Heavy with mmchungaji’s  prayers’

A few months down the line,

Head bowed,

She walks the village paths.

Her daughter, lumbers off to the well,

She walks unsteadily akin to a drunken crab.

Mchungaji the shepherd

‘Ate’ the ewe and its lamb.

 

©S.K. KYENZE

18/10/2021