Memories of an African Childhood: I smoke Bhang!

Eight to nine years is the cultural limit for a boy to spend nights under the same roof with his mom. Aged about the same, I bade goodbye to nights in ‘our house in the middle of a maize farm’ with both nostalgia and excitement.  A kilometer or more away from our home, deep in the bushes, stood an old shack of mud and reed thatch. This shed was to be my next night lodgings for some years to come. It was such a hastily build house with little regard to comfort, aesthetics or security. It had gaping holes in the walls and under normal circumstances; it was not fit for human habitation. But we were boys, and boys are supposed to be tough.

This shack was a temporary shelter for some workers who were making bricks in our farm some years back. It was devout of any luxury, including doors and windows. Without improving its situation, we embraced it with gusto, for it gave us some freedom from our mothers, albeit at night only. It also gave us a sense of manhood.

Together with our cousins, who were older than me by a couple of years, the ten of us and sometimes other village boys made up the proud if not devilish occupants of that house. Not that it was much of a house in the modern sense of the word. It was a space surrounded by four walls and a roof.  The logs of wood that made up the fireplace and the heaps of sugar cane peelings and general dirt interrupted the emptiness. There was a rope along one wall that hoisted our clothes. Dust was prominent on the floor and if you stood long enough in one spot, a hundred fleas could climb your feet in a minute. I used to imagine they were climbing to my heart and used to hop from one spot to the next to prevent them from climbing all the way. I have never seen any bigger fleas than those in my life again.

A normal child would have contracted colds in the prevailing conditions of that shack but not us, we were just so adapted. Looking back, I am sometimes nonplussed.

Our beddings were bare cow skins that we spread round the fireplace which was in the middle of the house. Occasionally, a boy could roll in sleep and get burned by the naked flames given we just slept on the empty floor without beds.  In the morning, making our ‘beds’ was a very easy affair, you just pick the thread-bare blankets, shake the dust a bit and hang them on the wall. That done, you fold the cow skin and depart for wherever you were going. When you enter that house, you could hear startled fleas jumping on the skins. That house was rather eerie in the dark silence but the sound of jumping fleas occasionally interrupted it.

Subsequently, jiggers were not infrequent in our feet and we therefore made it a habit of dipping our legs in the cattle dip wash when we took our cattle there on Saturdays.

Our other companions were the giant rats that ran all over the roof making some quirky sounds as they did so. They were brown with long tails. We christened them ‘Geoffrey’ after a certain old man who made a living trapping moles in people’s farms and surviving entirely by eating them. He never ate anything else and kept all his money in a hole in his house. Without his knowledge, a rat bore her young ones in his little piggy bank and ate all the money. One day, he wanted to count his money and put his hand to pull out his bounty but instead pulled out baby rats and shreds of all his savings. He went to the local shops, bought rat poison and committed suicide. Could it be that whoever liveth by rats died by them? Anyway that was Geoffrey and the ‘geoffreys’ in our god forsaken hut.

Since that hovel was without doors or windows to keep away the cold, and neither did we have adequate beddings for warmth, we made up with lighting a big fire every evening. Wood was abundant for we literally lived in the woods. When maize was green in the farms, we would go stealing to roast in the evenings. In spite of all the discomforts in that house, which apparently I did not notice at the time, we had fun.  We competed in all sorts of stuff. Some funny, some dangerous. One regular competition was the amount of extra food one could steal from the neighboring farms. We went stealing sugarcanes, bananas, sweet potatoes, pineapples and any edibles from the neighboring tribe of Kissii most nights. It was dangerous but then boys should not be scared.

We ate all these in that shack. I remember a boy could eat more than ten roasted cobs of maize and live to tell the story, albeit with farts and nasty belches. Whenever we went hunting or fishing, we would cook the food in our little house in the bushes. We called that house ‘ikulu’, Swahili for ‘State House’. It was a State House indeed.

My mom hated the smell of fish, which meant we had neither place nor pans to cook our fish whenever we caught them. So we would steal her pans at night, since they were kept outside her house, cook with them in our shack, thoroughly clean them of any telling smell and stealthily return them at night. You should have seen us tip-toeing back home in the dead of night with pans in hand!

The only consequence of eating fish in our shack was attracting red ants at night. Whenever we cooked fish, they visited us the following night. They were such a menace. What do you do in case ants visit you at night in bed? Simple. You just sleep still. No turning, zero movement. They will crawl all over your warm body thinking you are just another dead log of wood. That is what we used to do and they would not bite us.

In those days, there was nothing as homework or assignments. We spent our evenings getting spoiled and warped by our older brats. When we were home with mom, we used to make some cigars by rolling ash in old exercise books or newspaper and smoking them. Ouch! The ash in the cigars could choke badly. When we graduated to State House, we also graduated to real cigars. Not Havana cigars, no. There were some tobacco growing wild in a part of our farm and we would pick the leaves, dry them and make our own cigars (in our culture, it is a taboo to steal tobacco, yeast or honey. You simply die if you dare). We smoked these cigars in the evenings as we chatted by the fire just like any English gentleman would. Whenever we had some little money, we would buy real cigarettes and smoke, but this was reserved for days when we went out dancing with girls. (A story for another day)

Drinking traditional hooch was not much restricted for kids. Whenever there was a function, food and drink was the order of the day. Every other gathering of more than three individuals was an excuse for a pot of beer, otherwise called busaa in that side of the world. Even in fundraisings, however rare, busaa was served in tins that earlier packed cooking fats. Us kids drank ourselves silly, cried and soothed ourselves to sleep. Nobody had time for us, everybody was tipsy. Whenever there was too much hooch and likely to get expired, the treat was extended to cows, donkeys and goats. We would pour gallons upon gallons of hooch in the manger and they would drink. You haven’t ever seen a drunken cow! They moo, run, jump, fight, sleep, break fences, roll on the ground… drunk cows are such a crazy sight! As if not enough, milk would smell of hooch for a whole week.

We also made our own busaa in State House whenever we itched for a little party. We would drink and dance the whole night by beating improvised drums. We would also learn some new dance moves to be shown off at the next village jamboree.

There were lumberjacks in our small forest some years back. Those guys smoked bhang for lunch, supper and breakfast. They fell trees and lumbered them with such speed I was surprised where they drew their herculean energies from. Holy weed! I learned later. When they were done with the trees, they were magnanimous enough to grow some hemp where they had smoked them. My older cousins knew this for they were recruited to the pot smoking business by the crazy lumberjacks and hence tended the evil crop long after they left.

I remember this well. It was a hot Saturday evening when I decided to pay a visit to our State House. There, I found two of my older cousins and a neighbor dragging on some cigar which was bigger than usual. It was loosely rolled too. They smoked it as they muttered some incomprehensible words. They were quiet and sat in a circle smoking the curious contraption in turns. I was so enthralled by the new breed of cigar I immediately requested to have a puff.

Sitting down, I held the fat cigar with trembling fingers. My cousin told me to inhale it deep as I tap my forehead saying, “animal, be gentle on me’’. I did as instructed. Instantly, I felt my eyes pop out and my head got hot. I touched my head but my hair was stiff and hard and produced some sounds. I rose to stand but I was so dizzy. The world was moving round in circles. I went inside State House and lay down covering myself but the blanket was heavy and I could see some sparks when I touched it. I bolted out and made for home. I could hear the sound I made with my feet loud in my head and the path I was following stood in front of me and blocked my way. My heart was throbbing wild and I fell down. Where I lay I could see some cow dung and I dragged myself to it and started feasting on it. The whole lot. I was going nuts.

My cousin came for me and brought me water in a 5 liter jerry can. I drank it all. I wasn’t getting better. He gave me a piggy back ride to State House and left for home. He came with milk in a kettle. I drank it all. I must have passed out for I woke the following day, still in a daze.  

That was my encounter with hemp. Touted to give energy, courage and happiness but it made a cabbage of me.

My mom visited our State House one day to collect the skins that doubled as our mattresses to dry maize. She was shocked of our living conditions but that was not all. Unknown to us, we had slept on a young snake dead. She saw it beneath one of the skins I used to sleep on. On closer scrutiny, it was found out to be a young mamba.  The most poisonous snake in the whole of Africa was a biting distance of our naked bodies in our sleep.  And its mom and dad could be sharing house with us! I was shocked.

That was the last I saw of State House before petrol was sprayed all round and a match lit. In less than ten minutes, our dear house that almost proved our dead bed was a smoldering heap of ashes!

No love in me

Aint not a drop of love, not an ounce

I see a chick; I see a piece of meat

To be devoured, like game in the wilds

As a lion to a gazelle, however graceful

It sees but flesh, to be eaten fresh

I see a chick; I feel it in ma canines

Not my heart, no, quiet as a hill

Never my blood, nope, cold as dew

Ma soul sleeps still as dead, a dodo

Ma heart’s too hard for Cupid’s arrow!

Boobs make me drool for a bite

Yet some lips whet ma licks

Her eyes fire ma naked desires

Yet some ass distracts ma gaze

Any passing shape pales preceding passions

Yet new appetites are born,

with every new food

I mourn this rut of shifting lusts

This mirage quest of absolute beauty

This chimera of insatiable infatuation

 Illusionary fool chasing the rainbow

Rowing my boat to ‘unconquered lands’

A bee hovering over all, leaving loving none

 Phantom of a love

Hearsay, never felt or seen

It is such distant fairy lands

Undiscovered yet dreamt of

Oh Love,

I am tired

Come anchor my boat in yo island

Make my hands tend her flowers

Gimme wine in a shade of her vineyard

Wean my wenching tempts of other meadows

Hold me down by a stream with a quenching kiss

And lay bare our virgin love

Memories of an African Childhood: African Beliefs and Superstitions

There is a large dam that borders our farm and next to the forest. This dam was revered for it was said to have mystical powers. We were cautioned not to go near since it was rumored to be infested by crocodiles. Popular believe had it that the dam once swallowed some white man’s cows. My grandma told me it is true and she claims it to be so to date.

We often went to watch ducks swim. There was a brown little duck that used to dive and come out. We would tell it to dive, and it dived. We used to shout ‘’miss diver, please dive!’’ I am not sure whether it was heeding our call or it was just diving for fish. On hindsight, the latter case is more probable.

There came a day when the government allocated some money for clearing lilies and other floating plants from that dam. The local leaders decided to employ us young boys to do the job. We were such good swimmers having learned to swim in secret. Excited at the prospect of having to make some little money at the same time enjoy a swim at the sacred dam, we gathered on the bank at the appointed day. That dam was deep with clear menacing waters. It was infested with black ugly leeches and shiny snakes but for money and fun, who would balk?

Stripping naked and bare, the hundred or so boys jumped into the cold water and grappled with the task. Cutting lilies and swimming as you haul them to the bank was what the job entailed. The party was gay except for occasional screams here when bitten by a leech or a startled cry there when one spotted a snake.

At noon, we decided to have some fun swimming before breaking for lunch. It never was. One notorious boy called Mbich dived and never resurfaced. I saw him do so for I was swimming close to him. I dived trying to retrieve him but in vain. We decided not to scream for help as we searched for him. He was never to be found. We alerted our elderly supervisors and they came to our help but Mbich was nowhere.

The commotion we made attracted some women who were fetching water nearby. They broke into wails upon receiving the news. Soon, the whole village was gathered in the dam. The best swimmers in the village were working tirelessly to retrieve Mbich but in vain. I was guiding the swimmers to where Mbich had dived. Darkness fell, no Mbich. His mother was distraught with grief. The search team broke to resume the following day. Elders from Mbich’s clan made a fire by the dam to keep vigil. In our culture, you don’t leave a dead person unaccompanied.

The second and third day, Mbich was not found and neither did he resurface. The whole village was sad. The turn of events however did not surprise many. Mbich was an incorrigible chicken and goats’ thief. You could hear villagers whispering about Mbich having been cursed for his thieving habits. In fact, he used to hide the proceeds from his crime by the dam where he now lay dead and hidden. That was according to one of his friends Bu. The elders were fully aware why he had drowned and would not resurface.

On the fourth day, the elders performed a ritual. One elder called Natit, picked Sodom’s apple, threw it in the water where Mbich had dived and told Mbich ‘come, let’s go home!’He then ordered everybody to assemble at some shade nearby. We sat talking. After a while he went back to check on Mbich. He came for Mbich’s relatives and announced that Mbich was found. More wails and cries from women.

On examining him, his palms were devoured by fish almost bare of meat. His eyes and mouth were intact. When somebody dies in water, fish and frogs normally eat his/her lips, tongue and eyes but for his case, it was only his hands. Elders explained that it was to show that he was dying for his itchy fingers. You see, in our village, there are no thieves. No padlocks as a result. If one becomes a thief, he just dies of his sins sooner or later.

Mbich was buried that same day by the dam. If someone drowns in a water body, he or she is buried by the bank of that particular river, dam or lake. It is claimed that water bodies have a lot of evil spirits and once they claim someone, they should be left to have him or else one member of that family will drown in water again soon. How true this is, I don’t know, for nobody has ever contravened this tradition.

It was by this dam again that young girls used to hunt some flying insects that looked like wasps and make them bite their young tits. It was believed that a bite from this wasps make tits grow big. How true this is, only girls can attest to it. Could be true as there is hardly any idle belief in that part of the world! So if your tits are too small for your comfort, forget boobs augmentation. I know some flies in my village that could do a better job of it for free.

Not that boys were left out in beliefs. Every boy in that village hunted for swallows. Because they were swift, we believed that if we lacerate the skin by the knees and apply its blood, it would make us swift and fast like them. If you have seen swallows, you know how swift they are in the skies and how hard it is to kill them. But we made sure we killed one for this sole purpose. I never became fast though I did all this, with marks on my knees to show for it.

As if that could not hurt enough, we believed that if you make tattoos on your wrist and thighs, a hyena will never attack you. The tattooing procedure was one of the most painful of them all. We would get a ball of soot, place it on the wrist or thigh, collect some burning coals, set it on the soot till it burn a round wound on your wrist or thigh. One could make several tattoos that looked and shined like coins once they healed. Apart from keeping hyenas at bay, the tattoos served as hallmarks of courage.

Another belief was again to shock me when Taxi our donkey died. A donkey is such a respected animal in our culture, almost like humans. If you kill a donkey, you never live to see the next day. I tell you. One of my classmates called Tiromba once hurt a donkey with a machete; he is nuts to this date. A donkey is such a special animal. No wonder it never gives birth during the day like other animals. It is also said a donkey collapses and dies if a load of tobacco is placed on its back! Holy animal- donkey.

So, when Taxi died, we dug a hole near the bush and threw it in with a coin by its side. All donkeys in that village are buried with coins. Maybe to compensate it for all the thankless labor it had given man in its lifetime! Even Christians silently observe this.

Talking of respect for animals, it is a taboo to kill any animal that has sought refuge in your house. The penalties for contravening this law are dire. If an antelope or hare or any other animal is being chased and enters your house, then that is that. Its life is spared and won’t be killed again.

One day we were chasing baboons from of our maize farm. All the village boys had decided to round up all the baboons and kill them or drive them away from the village. I think we were more than two hundred boys. With bows, arrows, slings, machetes and any weapon imaginable we carried out a massacre of baboons. We attacked them from all sides without any ceasefire. Some ran to the hills, others got killed.

We cornered one hapless baboon near our neighbor’s house. Having no options, it entered his house and hid there. We left since we knew one cannot kill it no more. The owner of that house instead of observing the rule hacked the baboon to dead. The village was startled and advised him to appease the baboons with a certain rule but he declined. His wife was pregnant then, wait till she gave birth, she gave birth to a baboon like creature. It is true. The baby baboon survived for a whole week till it died of hunger. The killer of the baboon became mad to date!

Another sacred bird is a crown bird. They used to be so many in our place but nobody ever killed them for whatever reason. Not after what happened to some girl. There is a swamp that originates from our farm and drains to the distant Borabu plains. One girl collected a young crown bird from that swamp and took it home. The crown birds searched for the young one the whole day. They sung a sorrowful song I had never heard them sing before. So many crown birds gathered in the swamp, more than we have ever seen before. The cruel girl went ahead and killed the little crown bird.

Wait till night fall. Crown birds numbering more than 500 stormed the girl’s home and cleared the thatch of their roof. The girl’s parents tried scaring them away but without success. They cleared the house of thatch and flew away. No crown bird has ever been spotted in our village again after that incident. Not even one. The girl slept that day and passed on in her sleep. The village was in shock.

If you think that improbable then you should hear this. In our village, there are few wizards. There is one whom we used to run away when we saw her passing by. The hag was so ugly you could just know she was a witch. She was very much feared all over our village.

Come one December festivities, his son fought with another man called Omwai while on a drinking spree. The witch was around. Omwai just collapsed sweating and asking for water. When he was taken to Kaplong Mission Hospital, taking water all the time, he was operated. Do you know what was removed from his intestines? A toad. A live toad that jumped when it was placed on the table! It is true. Omwai is hale and hearty to date.

The witch’s daughter, who was my classmate, once bewitched our classmate. You see, they were playing games but the witch’s girl was defeated. The witch’s daughter stared the girl and the she collapsed and lay motionless. The other girls screamed. When the whole school gathered around them, the witch’s elder sister told the younger witch to remove whatever she had put on the girl. She touched the now motionless girl and she came to. I saw this happen with my own eyes!

I feared witches from that day. They also fear lightning too. Heard that when it rains, witches never get close to the hearth or else they are struck by lightning. It once happened not far from home. A witch and her daughter were sharing witchcraft when it rained suddenly. The lightning struck the witch’s daughter dead and burnt their house. One interesting thing, the young kids who were inside the house were thrown out to the garden by the same lightning, unhurt! I saw that woman lying dead! The villagers were not surprised at all. Lightning is a form of instant justice in that part of the world.

Talking of rain, when it rains too much or there is a storm or hailstones, do you know what we do in the village? You throw a coin on the rain and it subsides. Our dad used to tell us to do it every time there was hail and our goats were in the field. Just a single coin and the rain behaves! There is also a certain clan that speaks the same language with rain, it’s called Kibaek. Every time they have a function or one of their children is getting circumcised, it must rain. And it does. Even swimming in the river with one of that clan’s son it would rain.

There was a friend of ours from that clan who was our playmate. He was called Josi. If Josi swam with us, it would rain, so we used to refuse him to swim or else our fun will be cut short by rains.

In times of drought, a severe drought that not a single green thing could be seen, the last resort was a ritual called Sosimo. Sosimo is performed by women by a river bank or dam. I have never witnessed it for it is a purely women affair. I hear they strip naked and sing. There is a catch though. It is strictly restricted to women of high integrity and fidelity. If you have been unfaithful to your husband, then woe unto you, for you will die if you partake of Sosimo. So the women folk gather in the river but only those who are faithful to their husbands strip before the gods. The other women thus know who is faithful and who is not after this ceremony. But they keep the secrets to themselves.

Another one. In the event that your goats are lost in the forest and it is dark, you just leave them and go home for the night. If you want no harm to befall them, say thieves or wild animals, your dad simply place his arrows, bows, quiver and machete outside overnight. In the morning, you will find your goats safe. We did this several times and it worked. For real!

What if a goat denies her young to suckle and kicks it away? There are people who reunite them. If you are a single child, you can attend both women and men circumcision ceremonies. You are then called Cheptorus .If you are a Cheptarus, you are sought to reunite goat s and their kids. You simply sing ‘uro uro wee uro uro…’ and tell the goat to love her young one. The next minute, the goat will be seen suckling its young!

The traditions, myths and superstitions are just too many over there. Some I have seen them work, some are just that, myths. When we used to hunt, if you get some hare’s droppings, you put them in your pocket and you will find that hare and kill it!

Tip: if you are hunting for a job, husband or promotion, cut that particular ad and put it in your pocket and who knows, it may work. A hunt is a hunt!

Memories of an African Childhood: Donkey Milk and Gecko Soup for Coughs!

Next time you are in an African village with a nasty cough, think again before you ask for any concoction to soothe your cough. Unless you live by the mantra that the end justify the means I would not advise. Forget about herbals, some African cures are so grotesque you can’t help doubting the sanity of the witchdoctor who came up with them in the first place. I have my own childhood experiences to vouch for this.

I hardly played truant in my schooldays, unless maybe I was sick or was up to some mischief that provided more fun than school would. Sickness of course troubled me in my early life and thus was a genuine cause of absence most of the time. The cures to some of my ailments were so bizarre it can render voodoo mere child play.

I contracted whooping cough in my childhood (it is christened ‘chebokitkit’ in my Kipsigis language meaning tickles from hell.) People, that cough was tough, I tell you. You coughed till you sweat, hold anything strong around you (my mom) for support and subsequently pass out coughing.( First Aid for fainting is rubbing onions on one’s nose and getting engulfed in smoke from burning grass and bingo you come to).

My mom blamed my ailment on the smoke from the tin lamp we used at home at the time. She raised the issue with my uncle and on his next visit home; he came clutching a hurricane lamp (encrypted Dietz 500. It is there to date. Maybe it is the reason why no one else contracted whooping cough again).

Though henceforth we used a smokeless lamp, my whooping cough could not be appeased and therefore needed a traditional cure (for the white man’s medicine had failed too). My grandma came in handy at that juncture (I don’t know why old people are the ones prescribing traditional medicines).

Early one morning, after witnessing one of my devastating coughing fits (every bout punctuated with a loud fart) she told my mom to milk our lactating donkey, Kuchur (meaning missing one ear) and send us boys hunting for a gecko in the hill nearby. There were many varieties of geckos in that hill but she told us to go for the green type. There was one green gecko that used to chase us from a certain tree that bore some sweet wild fruits. That gecko was fierce and dangerous but we decided it was its day.

Armed with bows, arrows and rocks, we made for the hill, the one that served as our Sunday School. We knew where the green gecko lived; always basking in the morning sun perched on a stone next to its hole. We feared it for it use to chase us whenever we get close by. We devised a strategy, the fastest boy to approach it (a lanky boy called Tilang), get chased by the gecko away from its lair and for the bravest boy, (me) to run and gag the entrance to its lair with a boulder.

We found it basking on the rock as it always did. Tilang went close and startled it. It chased Tilang downhill. Tilang was faster than a deer, (add the fact that he was a coward) and the gecko gave up after a 100 meters or so. Meanwhile, I was blocking its hole with a boulder. You should have seen the ensuing drama. Boys screaming in the hill as Tilang was being chased over rocks and me making catcalls as I gagged the hapless creature’s hole.

The green gecko tried entering its hole but I had blocked it. It ran round the tree in circles in a desperate attempt to locate an entrance but the screaming gang of boys pelted it with stones. We hit every part of its body it succumbed to its injuries. To make sure it was dead and harmless; I beat its head to pulp with a long stick. Next, I ordered our dog John Boss to pick it and carry it home. We sang hunting victory songs as we walked home, John Boss leading the pack while holding the green gecko on its mouth.

Dare an African village boy to a hunting expedition and you can’t ever get a better scene!

The next thing was to round our donkey into the crush to be milked. It was such an easy task for our donkey was friendly. We always rode it to and fro the watering dam with our cattle. Donkey milk is unheard of as food in that part of the world and you can imagine our curiosity. To our utter surprise, donkeys have such small quantity of milk no wonder it is not kept for it. The yellow thick stuff could not fill my small yellow cup!

That done, my grandma skinned the gecko, threw its meat to our dog John Boss to eat, but of course he declined. She then boiled its skin in a small earthenware pot. We were so curious we surrounded the hearth to watch it as it boiled (funny enough it smelled yummy!)

She poured the soup into the cup containing the yellow donkey milk and stirred it. Leaving it to cool for a while, I was ordered into a shade nearby. (All the while, I was not informed that the concoction was my treatment). I was handed my yellow cup and told to gulp down its content in one slug. Closing my eyes, I gulped the content. I remember the taste to date. It was sugary at first, then turned salty then adopted a nasty aftertaste that lingered in my mouth for a whole month.

Interestingly, I didn’t vomit though not surprising. My grandma was such a vixen she would have slapped me and made me drink it again, a hundred times if need be. I was fully aware of this fact and thus drank the gecko soup and donkey milk with inevitable relish.

The memory of that mixture from hell nauseates me to date. Afterwards, I secretly dug a hole and buried the yellow cup in the maize plantation and never saw it again. I don’t ever drink anything from a yellow cup or bowl to this day. Thanks to the gecko soup and donkey milk. But then, I never coughed since. What a sure cure! Gecko soup and donkey milk- a potent patent of my grandma!

Before it happened to me, us kids used to joke about these uncanny cures. Our mom used to threaten us that if we got ourselves rained on, she will procure gecko soup and donkey milk. It happened to me and since then, we respected the rain and took all other warnings seriously.

There was one joke about a millipede bite. It was said that if a millipede bites one, he/she will be fed on dog meat and soup for 50 days. One dog a day to keep the millipede poison away for 50 days! After the gecko-soup-donkey-milk episode, no child ever got close to a millipede. For no one was ever sure whether the dog cure was just a threat or a real cure.

Fortunately or unfortunately, no one got bitten by a millipede for us to know whether it was a mere joke or it was the only cure. You never know with African cures. I am putting my money that it is a cure. What after the strange concoction cured me!

There were still some bizarre cures that combined superstitions and myths. Take the cure for mumps as an example. Mumps in our venerable village is not regarded as an affliction for its cure is known to all and sundry. In fact, kids would wish that they contract mumps so they can perform the ritual that cured mumps. The cure is a 100% effective that to date people still practice it.

If you contract mumps, you simply collect a bundle of wood, carry it on your head , look for a tree called Kipisorwet , walk round it five times singing entreaties to the tree to take back its disease. After the fifth round, you throw the bundle of wood on the tree and ran home without looking back. By the time you get home your mumps is cured! I did try it once and it worked. How? I don’t have the slightest of idea.

If you think that astounding, what about this: when we were young with my elder brother, we often fainted. For two years we were taken to all the hospitals in the province till my grandpa decided to visit a soothsayer called Arap Mwaita ( he lived in a place called Rongena, near Sotik town). While we were still hospitalized without a cure on sight, the soothsayer told my grandpa that us kids were not sick but we were just under some spell that arose from a conflict over the ownership of a cow with his brother. He was advised to take us home from hospital, summon his brother whom he was not in talking terms, share a pot of traditional beer (busaa) and drink milk together.

The following day, we were brought home from Kaplong Mission Hospital, we sat with our two grandpas as they shared their beer and drank milk, shook hands and that was it. We never saw the inside of a hospital over the same problem again. Africa is full of mystery if you ask me. I am a living example of some.

There are yet other cures we use to practice that I honestly don’t know whether they worked or not. Take for example swollen lymph nodes when you have a wound. To cure, you simply pick a clod from a house wall, heat it on the fire and rub it over the swollen glands and throw it hard on the wall and it is cured. I can’t honestly vouch for this. Don’t remember whether it worked or it is a myth. Some claim it works. Maybe it does.

Now, this one worked for us kids then. Whenever there was green maize in the farm, we often over-ate roasted maize. Fearing constipation the following day, my mom would advise us to collect some ash from the hearth and write anything on our stomachs. I would collect some ash and write figures on my stomach and woke up the following day with a clear stomach. No flatulence, no rumblings, nothing!

And what about if something enters your eye and makes it painful? Simply go to a breastfeeding mother and she pours some tit milk into your eye and it is cured. Simple. If it is a serious one like some cactus sap accidentally getting into your eye, as it was wont to happen with us boys, you cut a sheep’s ear and drip its blood into your eye and it is cured instantly.

In case it is your ear troubling you, like it happened to my brother Leonard, the cure was equally simple. You slaughter a hen, get out the yellow fat, boil it and pour it into your ear. It works for it worked for my bro. There are a million cures in that part of the world I would need a million days to document, I am not equal to that task at the moment.

What if a baby gets some fungal infections in the mouth? (Fungal infections are common with babies and it is fatal in that part of Africa.) Can I tell you what cured my little sis Zeddy? My grandmas send us looking for the droppings of an aardvark. She roasted them and put on her mouth. After two days, she was cured. Droppings are medicinal!

Again, if your little baby’s navel fails to heal after cutting, look for the white droppings of a house lizard and apply! And if the same navel heals but is elongated and bulging, get the baby’s uncle to touch it with his right leg toe. My cousin Bonzi, was ‘step on’ by our uncle and her navel just shrunk to normal size!

I almost forget the most respected cures in our village to date: soup from boiled entrails of a goat! Whatever ailment you suffer from, known or unknown, this soup will obviously fix it. Take my case for instance. My auntie chewed tobacco. I envied her so much for this. The way she put it in her mouth, tuck it inside one cheek and sit spitting the whole time as she bantered with mom and other village women so enamored me. She always hid some chewed leftovers beneath our whetstone for the next helping in case she missed a fresh one.

One day, I decided to partake of her little secret. Unseen by anybody, I took the stale tobacco from under the whetstone and put it in my mouth , tucked it in a corner, folded my legs like she used to do and started spitting like her. It was bitter and instead of spitting I vomited my stomach’s content plus the tobacco. I was still retching when my mom found me. I was giddy and the distant hills of Abosi were moving round and round. Our house was floating in the air and the trees in the nearby bush were upside down. I must have fainted for I came to sipping goat’s soup from a gourd. I got well before long. Thanks to soup made from a goat’s entrails. Have seen so many sick people get cured by this soup. It is our kind of elixir!

(I am compelled to write about the many superstitions and myths we observed as kids next. Even at a tender age, your life is steeped in mystique for this is mystical Africa.)

Memories of an African Childhood: Story-telling Session

The last hour to lunch was always a moment to look forward to. The first lesson of the day was Math and therefore detestable to me. The last lesson always had something that soothed and obliterated the affliction of the Math lesson.  It was time to make fun and even get cheeky but unlike in class, with positive consequences and compliments. It was my time to shine being the naughtiest brat in that class. Music, Art and Craft, Story-telling, Physical Education, History, Home Science, CRE etc occupied this hallowed hour but with no predictable pattern.

For Math, I would always shilly-shally till Mr. Kosgey just gave up on me. Whenever he came round to mark my book, I would always tell him ‘I haven’t finished.’ All the while trying to copy what my neighbor had done. By then the teacher had given him a correct tick. The mean idiot would close his book and look at me with teasing eyes. I would pinch and dare him menacingly to report me to the teacher. He could not dare. Mr. Kosgey would then announce the end of the Math lesson and move on to the next. Anything was always better than Math. I hated Math, still do.

Wait till he said, ‘’ it is time for Story-telling!” I will be revived like a dik-dik that has been startled out of its lair. We would shout ‘yessssssssssss!’ at the same time dashing out to a shade at the corner of the school compound.

Mr. Kosgey, the class prefect and monitor would follow us with story-telling paraphernalia. Know what, we didn’t just tell stories, we performed them. Girls worn cow tails, shukas and jingles. Us boys donned face masks, shukas and held clubs like young warriors. I had a gazelle horn ‘vuvuzela’ and the other boys had whistles. Our teacher, Mr. Kosgey was dressed like a king and sat on a three-legged stool with a fly whisk. He spotted a colobus monkey head gear and worn a leopard skin.  Sometimes we painted our faces with crayons. Since I was stout, I painted one eye black so I played a one-eyed monster. Thus dressed, we were a sight to behold.

We divided ourselves according to rows in our class and took turns reciting folk stories. The teacher was just but a spectator seated at the bottom of the tree surrounded by little wild-looking kids.

We loved stories that had songs so we could dance.

There was this story of a silly girl who had gone to pick fruits in the forest with other girls. They decided to shut their eyes so they could know who can chance the most ripened fruits. The silly girl shut her eyes but the rest of the girls did not and they picked the ripe fruits. The silly girl picked unripe fruits. They repeated it many times and the results were the same. The silly girl did not get the catch.

Soon it was dark and the girls who had picked the ripe fruits decided to go home. The silly girl cried and beseeched the other girls to wait for her as she picked the ripe fruits. The other girls refused and she was left alone in the dark forest picking fruits. It soon became very dark and she got lost in the forest. She cried calling her mom and a one-eyed monster heard her. He picked her up with one hand and carried her home for fattening to be eaten at a later date. She was fed on meat, milk and honey. She became so chubby and beautiful the ogre decided to marry her instead.

As she tended the ogre’s cows every day, she painstakingly weaved a huge basket. One day, when the basket was ready, she rounded all the ogre’s cows, sheep and goats to the basket and sung:

Whirl, whirl my basket whirl

Twirl, twirl my basket twirl

Round and round and round

Off the ground the ground

Fly home to mom to mom

She mourns she mourns

(We danced round the tree, blowing my horn as other boys blew whistles, girls’ jingles jingling. Our teacher just sat bemused)

The basket moved and twirled above the trees and made for the direction of the girl’s home. The ogre saw his livestock and the girl flying away and ran on the ground in circles, his head turned up to the sky, entreating the girl to leave him even one sickly cow. (We would run round the tree beseeching an imaginary girl in the sky to drop a cow, even the one with diarrhea. You should have seen my cousin Stephen aka Tractor perform this part!)

The basket took the now very beautiful girl back to her mom. She was welcomed home with a feast and owing to her new-found beauty and wealth, the king married her and they lived happily ever after. And that is the end of the story. We would clap our hands and ululate for the heroine girl.

Another group will recite a different story. My favorite was the tale of a girl and an ogre suitor:

‘’Once upon a time, there lived a girl who was so beautiful but vain. She rejected all the suitors in that village till all girls of her age were married off. One day, there was a dance in the village and all the girls turned up. She decided to attend the dance too. All the girls had male dancing partners except her because she had despised all her suitors. That day, the ogre came looking so dapper he passed for a human being. The beautiful vain girl fell for him. All the girls knew he was an ogre except her. When the dance was over, all the girls and their partners retired home. The beautiful girl eloped with the ogre aboard his motorbike.

They rode to the forest. The girl thought her new husband was just from a distant village across the forest. As they rode deep into the forest, the ogre threw his shoes away. Seated on the back of the motorbike, the girl asked him, “husband, why are you throwing your shoes away?” The ogre replied, “ I have so many pairs at home!”. After awhile, as they got deeper into the forest, the ogre removed his hat and threw it away. The girl asked him why he was throwing it away and he replied that he had a lot of hats at home.

Deeper into the forest, the ogre removed his shirt and threw it away. Exposed was his hairy body. The girl asked him why he was so hairy; the ogre replied that he needed the hairs to fight the cold in the forest. As the forest got thicker, the ogre removed his trouser. Exposed was his long tail, the girl was so scared she lost her speech. They alighted from the motorbike and entered his house. There were a lot of human skulls lying around his house and the girl knew she will be eaten.

She spend that night with the ogre. In the morning, the ogre boiled water in a big cauldron and the girl knew she will be boiled and eaten that day. The ogre left the house to look for other ogres to feast on her.  The girl remembered a song she was taught by her former boyfriend, Kwirindit, which she had jilted. She sung:

Kwirindit o Kwirindit

Come hither o Kiwirindit

Kwirindit o Kwirindit

Come hither o Kwirindit

The girl heard Kiwirindit singing in a distance:

Kwirindit o Kwindirit

Who is calling me Kwirindit

Is it an ogre o Kwirindit

Kwirindit o Kwirindit

The girl sang:

Kwirindit o kwirindit

It’s is me o Kwirindit

With an ogre o Kwirindit

They will eat me Kwirindit

Kwirindit o Kwirindit

As the girl sang, so many ogres bolted into the house, growling with long brown teeth. One could be heard saying he will have the leg, another said he wanted an arm, another  said the intestines, yet another wanted the tits. The girl was so terrified she fainted. In that instant, her former boyfriend Kwirindit emerged from the rooftop and hurled all the ogres into the boiling cauldron.

She picked the beautiful girl, drove all the ogre’s cattle and went home to a huge wedding feast . The villagers made him a king and they lived happily ever after!

And that is the end of my story.

The way I recited this story and the way the girls danced would have obviously landed me a theater role in Broadway. But then, Rotik Primary School, P.O Box 2 Ndanai was in the middle of nowhere.

The story telling session gave way to reciting riddles. Here, a pupil will pose a riddle thus:

I am posing a riddle!

We will respond:

Ichoo!

And the poser will go ahead to pose a riddle like:

I have a house without a door

We will look to unravel the riddle.

Someone will get the answer as ‘an egg’.

If we missed the answer, we will ‘give cows’ to the poser of the riddle. The cows were in form of spitting little showers to the poser (spitting on someone affectionately is a blessing ritual in Kipsigis culture).When he/she has had enough ‘cows’, she would then give an answer.

There were so many riddles:

Riddle: my bull that lifts a hill

Answer: Mushroom

Riddle: it is here and it is there

Answer: the swallow

Riddle: I hit a girl called Chelang’at  and her bones stuck out

Answer: a bicycle

Riddle: I threw away my club and the world was in echoes

Answer:  wails

Riddle: rattles and squabbles in hell

Answer: a rat

Riddle: a box in the sky

Answer: an airplane

Riddle: a man descending from the hill with long legs

Answer: rain

Riddle: my house with only one pillar

Answer: a mushroom

Riddle: he writes doodles in the ridge

Answer: a hare

                                                                                               

The bell for lunch would ring and we will sadly part with our paraphernalia, our teacher and run home for lunch. The following day always had its surprises, for our teacher was as creative as any Broadway impresario. Believe you me, Mr. Kosgey was a creative legend!

(Do you have any riddles in mind? Write them down here and I will try to unravel them)