First Encounter

The Mourn

I know the header sounds like one of those tales of first timers in matters coital. This is a different encounter. Its been two weeks now since I lost my reliable K750.  I am on what a friend of mine called kamulika mwizi. I feel Severely deprived. Everytime I want to check some soccer result or wikipedia what I have seen or heard about, I fish it out only to realize the best I can do with this one is to mulika other than communicate! Incase I have been missing at yours, its because I heavily relied on that phone to get there. I had the phone for exactly two years. Its the longest I have ever held on to a handset. It has miraculously survived two major muggings!

The Denial?

Got mugged, and I didn’t feel much if anything. It was the third time in a space of one year! Last time a BB pearl & most important, a laptop went. I just let it go and consoled myself that I was planning to retire it anyway. I am looking for the best bargain I can get on this one. I have drooled for it for a year or so.

The encounter with the muggers didn’t scare me. I had a do as you wish feeling. Nonchalant, no fear, no tears, no nothing. I remember wearing no expression on my face. It reminded me of my first encounter (in memory) with muggers. The encounter that is this post’s tale.

A Brother’s debut to GH

My brother and I are waiting for whatever means of transport. We are a place known as Samson Corner. The place is a Y junction of sorts that has two roads that can take you to Nairobi (One via the rice fields in Mwea, the second one via Kutus/ Sagana) and a third that take you to Embu. It was about 2130hr, pitch dark. Dogs barking from afar. No sign of a village nearby. It was a dreaded place. We had however come from afar to get there. We sat on our bags and wondered why it was called Samson Corner in the first place yet there as no corner.

……..rewind rewind rewind.

Meet Shaggy

Its 0700hrs and we are seated outside a building called Mangu House in Thika. We are listening to the new Shaggy album Boombastic from a boom box of  shoe shiner cum pirated music dealer while wait for our uncle to report to his office. It got to 8am and he hadn’t showed up. Several hours after, I could sing to every word in the song Summertime and Boombastic, the first two singles on the album. We were headed to school and this fella called uncle was do shopping for us, give alittle pocket money and bus fare to Mwea where the school was.

The Economikriser(Borrowed from Asterix Comic Book)

He finally showed up at 6.30pm! Took us to a mini shop, bought for us one tiny kiwi, one small Colgate, one roll of tissue, one bar soap, one rexona(I preferred lux back then), one small bottle of ink, one 100g box omo, small tin(I don’t remember the grams on this one) of blue band, then one oval tin of Yolanda jelly(this one used to be yellow in color, you use that thing you shine like forever and attract buzzing bees). All this was one one! Not one one each. It was one each item for us to share! Yet this fella, and other related ones, never showed up for the one and the only visiting day per term! How do you share that tiny kiwi and that tiny tiny Colgate for a term!

The ‘unfantastic’ Voyage

He took us to the bus stop and put us in a Nissan Matatu (I wonder why they called (still do) them Nissan yet they are Toyota Hiace). “This one will get you to school fast.” He told us as we got in.  Those days the matatu’s were few and the route was mainly plied by buses called Sunbird, Marula, Overland, Kensilver and the infamous Riakanau. By then it was afew minutes to 7pm yet we were supposed to have reported to school by 5pm! The journey from Thika to Mwea takes about one and a half hours. He paid our fare left us a hundred shillings each (atleast we were not to share this one) and waved goodbye. This fella was not even accompanying us after delaying us for that long and doing some shitty shopping! So were supposed to go explain why we hadn’t reported to school the previous day, and again explain why we getting to school at 9!

The Truant Deviates

As we traveled, we decided not to go to school at that hour. One, the distance between the bus stage we were to be dropped at and the school was 1km walking distance. Two, the shitty shopping. Three, you had to be out of your mind to report that late. We decided to go to our grandpaz home somewhere near a place called Kutus in Kirinyaga. We had not been there in several years but it was the best option. The matatu got to Mwea and we told the conductor we had decided to go elsewhere and since they headed to Embu they drop us at Samson corner. You should have heard the mussitations from the adults on how kids had become bad (direct translation) and how truancy was on the rise! “And what classes are you in, again?” One of them asked. Me feeling like punching the fnck out of anyone of them who opened his/her mouth to talk about us. Why didnt they mind their own sh1t.

Of  Samson Corner

Finally, Samson corner. Here we were! It was there that we were waiting for whatever transport….Getting a matatu at that hour, at that perilous place back then was unheard off as we got to learn. It was so dark that you could not even see a person in a white shirt approaching. The only sounds we could hear were dogs barking from afar, crickets with their piercing wails, frog croaks, humming mosquitoes and the dreaded cry of an owl. This combined with the Shaggy songs that were on constant play in mind, as I sat on my bag, my wrists on the lower jaw, palms on my cheeks, with elbows poked to my knees, the freezing temperatures biting like it was its duty.  The orchestra was then brought to an end by voices of  approaching guys (soon to be goons). I could count there were about 5 to 6 and they sounded drunk. “Should we run or what?” Asked my brother who was in class 8 while I was in 6. I didn’t really care what was to happen. My heart rate never changed. I felt nothing. What I feared most was getting to school two days late, with uncompleted holiday assignments (sounds like Mourihno on bird flu pressure right?) The shity shopping, the books, the 280 (or so) shillings, and other effects went.

The End

That was the same feeling I had when the K750i went. What occupied my mind was waking up the following day and facing a couple of some corporate fat cats justifying why the company I work for should have the tender.

The Classifieds

Watched the play Dare Kenyans to Love by Churchill. For the first time in a long time! I should get my theater love back! An extremely satirical play. Stars, Larry Asego who plays a large large part depicting booze loving Kenyans and Jalang’o. The play is nonlinear, me felt like I was watching a Tarantino. Get a chance, catch it.

If you love cars, there is a magazine in a duka near you called AUTOZINE. Grab a copy……

China Mini Rant

…… and see how China has perfected the act of copycating even cars! Not just NOKIA to NOKlA! They now do Humvee too!! How fake can they get? Behind me overlooking the window, they are on the fourth floor of an apartment they started in January!

Playlist

Rock me – Freddie Jackson (I really need to get rocked!)

Love Zone - Billy Oc(hieng’)ean

Candy Rain – Immature

Trouble Sleeping – Corrine Bailey Rae