The year is 1990. I am old enough to record dates.
The December festivities are over. We report to school, I am late but it is only the first week. I am a lot disoriented after the long holiday. Christmas passed, New Year day passed. Both celebrated with rice, chicken and chapatti. Oh sorry, we had goat meat on the latter. Strange food; loved and looked forward to every year. It is 5th of January or thereabout, mom still makes chapatti for breakfast, but soon we will revert to our usual tea and ugali for the rest of the year. Our usual diet has ugali as a constant, breakfast, lunch and supper even brunches and four o’clock tea, all.
To show off the special addition to our menu, we take some chapatti to school, hidden between the books. I pinch a little piece beneath the desk to my old friends but the teacher soon notice. He confiscates all my two chapattis and uses them as a reward scheme for those who get a math problem right on the board. Does the idiot know I am not good in math? I flunked all the math problems on the board and thereby never tasted a piece of my own chapatti. Too bad, I vowed never to take any more chapattis to school.
As always my exercise books are all lost, so I am reporting to school without any. Not much of a problem anyway for the first week we are just collecting litter in the compound and cutting the long grass that have overgrown to our class and so forth. We are all in class four now. Some pupils are amiss, some have transferred to other schools, some have dropped out, and some have been made to repeat another year in class three. My friend Paul Kibet will report after the third week, that I am sure. Mr. Kosgey is no longer teaching us, so no more storytelling and Bible stories, even Physical Education. He will be greatly missed.
Here, every lesson has its teacher, what a shock. There is even a time table. Again, we write with ink pens, no more pencils. Another novelty. The first teacher was Mrs. Kimetto, she teaches us Christian Religious Education (CRE). The first lesson we sing ‘row your boat’ the syllables as we hear it that is, I don’t have an inkling as to what the words mean. After that we sing a song in Kipsigis about Moses taking people to Canaan, along the way they started whining that the foods were better in Egypt. That one I understood and loved. I sing it to this day in the bath room.
The December hangover is still evident in our stories and the farts in class. It seems when the teacher took to confiscating our food to reward math geniuses, many too became geniuses of hiding their food in the safety of their stomachs. The only problem with our invention was, we overate. So diarrhea and farts were all too common that first week. One could also see the evidence of the festivities in what we covered our exercise books with. It was the wrappings of all the major bread companies: Tosti, Sanik and many others.
In class four, we caught up with a wacky fellow called Kipsoroi , a moniker meaning goat droppings. He was a nice chap; the only odd thing about him was that he refused to move to the next class unless he topped the class. I left Rotik Primary School, four years later, with Kipsoroi unrelenting in his dream of topping class four. Why he chose that class and not any other class, I cannot tell. When he became too old, he dropped out altogether, after doing eight years in class four with the top position completely eluding him. That was some principled chap, I heard he decided to drop out rather than proceed. I miss him; he was my chum that one year I stayed with him. When I was in high school, with him still in class four, I used to receive his greetings on holidays from my younger siblings.
The first term had athletics competitions in its calendar. What a relief, at least to break the humdrum of schooling. I didn’t hate class work per se. I hated math, in fact I used to wonder why the math teacher never fell sick, get hospitalized and miss school for a whole year.
If there is a school that took games and sports seriously, it was our school. I don’t know why but somehow, that school was good in outdoor stuff. Academics was a problem though. I remember we were divided into two competing teams: Russia and America. I was always in Russia; (though I am not a communist) I didn’t have any idea what the division was all about. Now I do. We had the best cheering squad in that Russia team, by sheer fluke, we had the cutest girls, so the runners outdid each other to attract the attention of the girls, and the girls too outdid each other in cheering the runners. Never be cheated though, the pupils in that school were not babies, some might have been twenty years old or even older. Some came to school only during games.
The Hall of Fame in that school as far as sports is concerned has: Omwai, Frank, Bobby, Gichuru, Ondari, Weche, Cecilia, Mercy, Joshua Goalie, Maritim, Chebunyo, Jenson…I am missing though. I never quite completed a 400 meter lap in that school or in any other school for that matter and neither have I done it after. With 100 Kilograms of pure fat weighing me down now, it’s apparent I won’t achieve that feat in this world. Maybe by walking. That one, I can try.
‘America’ and ‘Russia ‘competed; the best in the two teams were chosen to face Ndanai, Mosonik, Rotik and Kipsingei primary schools. No school day on competition days, I loved it except for one thing.
Before we could leave for Ndanai Primary School, we were forced to weed in the maize field first. I hated it; imagine being spared of school work only to do home chores. I was so irked seeing my school mates walking on the road relaxed while I toiled in the farm. I missed the first races as a result. With time though I devised a strategy, I would wake up very early at 5 a.m. and by 8 a.m., I was done with my share of the work.
Another problem cropped up, we took turns to look after the cattle on such days so that mom could go sell sugarcane and stuff to the athletes. A solution to that eluded me and I decided on one thing, forbearance. That would be the longest day, ever. Not at all helped by the fact that I could hear the cheers and shouts in Ndanai, two and a half kilometers away. What cannot be changed must be born with. That was my mantra.
After weeding, mom would cook for us an early lunch and give us each some two shillings to buy sweets, guavas, loquats, anything that was sold in the field that day. I won’t forget this one day though. I was with my brother Alois, watching the games when I spotted a lady selling some big oranges. I sought the opinion of my brother on my buying the oranges and he was positive. They were big and yellow and ripe, my mouth watered.
I inquired from the lady how much she was selling and she quoted two shillings. I fished my two shillings from my shorts’ pocket, untied from the handkerchief, handed her and selected the biggest orange. I repaired to a shade in a corner, next to Mr. Daudi’s dam, if you know Ndanai Primary School well. I peeled half way but curiosity caught the better part of me and decided to sink my teeth in the peeled part. I bit off a huge chunk of it but ouch! The damn thing was bitter, real bitter like some poison or something worse. My God! Have I just been duped right now? I bit it again to get a second opinion. Oh noooo! The damn lady is a cheat. God! All my two shillings in exchange for poison?
I was about to throw away the orange but on second thoughts, decided to confront the seller and demand back my money . You should hear what the thief of a woman told me.
“This is bitter lemon not oranges, I thought you knew when you were buying,” “No!” I retorted. “I asked how much you were selling the oranges, and you said two shillings, why didn’t you correct me that they were bitter lemons not oranges?” I was seething with anger but wait till the lady replied. “You asked the price of an orange and I am selling lemons, and you went ahead and picked a lemon. I am here to sell not teach pupils, look for your teachers for that.”
I noted I was dealing with a vixen of a woman and didn’t expect any justice. I silently resolved to plot revenge. The lady must pay for my two shillings; I would not let her steal my mom’s two shillings. No.
I looked for Paul Kibet immediately and found him. I told him my story and showed him the poisonous fruit I had bought. He told me the lemon I had bought was not an orange at all and neither was it fit for human consumption. It was for feeding cows. Damn! I went bonkers. Somebody has the nerve to sell me cow feeds for all the money I am worth in the world? Am I a cow? Damn!
I had noticed where the lady had kept my two shillings: beneath the sack she had placed her ‘cow feeds’. We waited for an opportunity to present itself so I could exact revenge. Our mind went completely from sports to recovering my money. We must have waited for two hours, hovering around, with my half bitten lemon in my pocket, jutting out.
The highly anticipated 100 meters finals were almost starting. That was not our main business at that moment. When the start gun went off, everybody, including the woman left her lemons and ran to the finish line. We ran to her lemons, lifted the sack, picked all the money she had stolen from unsuspecting kids and crushed her lemons with our feet. By the time we left, she had lemonade. I remembered my half bitten lemon and returned it to her stand. Up to her to finish it for me!
It all happened in a flash. We melted into the cheering crowd of the school that had won the 100 meters as we counted our loot. Stealing from a thief is a fair game. We had some twenty shillings in all, I was not sure whether we had stolen or just did some justice. Then, I thought she deserved it, now I am not so sure.
I looked for my brother and told him part of the story. And the devil told me that he knew all along that the fruit I had bought was not an orange but a lemon. Heartless creature but I told him I took the woman to a police station. He begged me for the whole story but I refused. I gave him one shilling from my bounty and told him that was part of the damages I was paid. We went away with Paul Kibet laughing all the way to a hotel for our favorite tea and buns.
It is April, Easter holiday. We have moved house to a smaller hut, five meters away from the main road, twenty meters from the dip, and 150 meters from the spring where we drew water for domestic use. It was smaller than our previous house but a bigger house was under construction. Mud and grass thatch as usual with a single large window facing the road; I went out by the same window at times, when nobody was around, just for fun. It is a taboo to go through a window, it is typical of thieves.
We were separated by a hedge of Mauritius thorns from the road, though we could not see the road clearly, we heard all that was being said by passers. I didn’t enjoy eavesdropping, my main interest was with the drunkards who went singing and talking by themselves at night.
Most of them were nicknamed according to what they always said when drunk. To date I don’t know their real names. One, my favorite, was called Abwo (now deceased). He was the first drunkard to go home, on the entertaining least that is. He would stop on the road and with his walking stick, pretend playing a guitar and sing, ‘tengara tenga torore’ ,a onetime Kissii hit which means’ let us dance’. He would play his ‘guitar’ and dance singing the song. Done with his antics he would complete with a loud yell and say ‘abwoooo! asista ak arawet!’ – ‘abwoooo! The sun and the moon!’
The word abwooo! earned him his name Abwo, to date his home his called Kap Abwo- the homestead of Abwo. I heard he once had a real guitar and was one of the first men in our village to buy a gramophone. So, his love for music was for real. After shouting Abwoooo, he would move another five hundred meters and repeat the same act, till he got to his home, another two kilometers away.
Second was Kipng’echir (now deceased) alias Ng’etundo (the lion). Abwo and Kipng’echir were brothers, funny enough. He would walk roaring like a lion, and say, ‘shhhhhh wuuuuu! ng’etundo!’- ‘shhhhhh wuuuuu, I am a lion’. As a climax, he would stop laugh loud ‘ehe heeeeee! Saying, “I am never scared!” (You should have seen his gums, all his lower teeth were missing, a lion indeed!) and continued walking to repeat the same after awhile.
Next was an older man called Onyango, he would walk along the road shouting ‘wo ng’oo?’ ‘Who is taller?’ Kids whose homes were ‘along the road would respond, ‘wo tegat’- ‘bamboo plants are the tallest.’ We always rushed out to respond to him. His phrase was an excerpt from a children’s play song that was performed with tossing multiple Sodom apple fruits in the air and catching them with one hand. The song went thus:
Wo ng’o? wo tegat, ( who is taller? The bamboo plant is taller)
tegat ng’o ?, tegat ngulu, ( which bamboo? Bamboo of Ngulu)
ngulu ng’o , ngulu nyasi, ( who is Ngulu? Ngulu of Nyasi)
nyasi ng’o? nyasi bol, ( who is Nyasi? Nyasi of bol)
bol ng’o? bol kire (who is bol? Bol of kire)
kire ng’o , kire ti, (who is kire? Kire of ti)
ti ng’o, ti ngongo (who is ti? ti is ngongo)
ngongo ng’o? ngongo ng’we ( who is ngongo? Ngongo the fast one)
ng’we ng’o ? (who is faster?)
ng’weng arap matian kigen ndege morishoo ( Mr. you-can’t-wait-for-long airplane of morishoo)
(One girl poses the question while the other responds; they both throw the apples in the air. The last line is sung by both, by the last syllable all the Sodom apples should have been let to fall while one is retained in the hand.)
We have answered his question, and the kids in the next homestead would answer him too.
Next drunkard would be Mr. Sirma. He yelled the loudest. He would stand and say’; “I have a million!” It is said he once planted many acres of tobacco crop and sold it for a lot of money in Sotik town where he spent all the money, he had to trek home, some 20 kilometers when the last penny was spent. Legend has it that it was a lot of money, but nobody knows the exact amount. All they know is that he returned home screaming, “I have a million!” He stills says it to date whenever he is drunk, coming home same time he did twenty years ago.
Following Mr. Sirma was Mr. Haraka , Up! (Fast! Up!) (Now deceased). He would walk along the road, talking to himself and occasionally would swear haraka!Up! Kwang’eta! Asakit kou lelgut- ‘unless I am an uncircumcised boy, unless I grow emaciated like my cow Lelgut’. It was said his first cow was called Lelgut, the one he was swearing with.
Mr. Raboro, a cousin to my dad would come after Haraka, slowly belting out various lovely tunes, classics from the community. He was a first rate singer, singing in soprano. Everybody commented on his being a good singer, only that he has quit the bottle nowadays. I remember this song:
Ng’wan chumbechu kiwonu chorwet en soiwo, tos mokiole kilamit ak siletit. (Alas! the whites who were chased by your friends from Soiwo, we would not be buying a pen and a slate.)
Another of his favorite was:
Bik che ng’omen koboisien che berber, kap cheberges ak king’aa (the wise exploit the foolish, Mr. Cheberges and King’aa)
Whenever we were still awake, he would pass by home for supper. We would tell him to sing for us and he never disappointed.
Accompanying him sometimes was Mr. Kamar (now deceased). He was not a native of our village, but a stranger who was working as a herdsman cum farmhand with a certain family. Nobody knew his home and he never volunteered any information about it. He died supposedly with diarrhea, supposedly an old bachelor. He was buried in a public cemetery. Not that there was no place to bury him in our village, no, if somebody is buried in a place, his kids have a right to claim a piece of that land. Since nobody knew whether he had any kids or not, nobody could risk having his land claimed later. So Kamar’s remains were interred in Kapkatet public cemetery, some 22 kilometers away. He died after staying in our village for more than thirty years.
But before he died, he used to recite poems along the road when he was drunk, in a strange accent, some said he was a Tugen, others said he was a Keiyo. He never confirmed nor denied any. He was called Kamar, not that because it was his name but rather because he called everybody Kamar. He had no form of identification in him, so everybody called him Kamar. Heard he died saying, “Kamar, this thing aint good men, this stomach aint no ordinary stomach, Kamar.” He died immediately after these words, though nobody knew for sure what ailed him since he believed in home cures, only rushed to hospital when he was too sick to resist. The late Kamar poem went thus:
‘emenyon, robon ropta, our land, let it rain
Emenyon, chemaluk our land, that never dries of milk
Nekobore koluk teta, kiyoki where when a cow wants to dry up, it is grazed
Kimoi, kutuny Mr. Moi ( President at that time, comes from our tribe)bent down
Kei cheko milk the cows
Matiba, weken gaa Matiba (opposition leader at that time) go back home
Wui rib tugaa go herd your cows
Peter was the last to leave for home. He was a Luo, with the same status and occupation as Kamar. Nobody knew his home, suffice to say he arrived when he was in his late twenties. No form of identification too. He loved drinking and to some extent, he was a friend to our family. When drunk, he would say his name in full; Peter Nyamasaria. He sung Luo songs that were too hard to remember. He used to pass by home for supper at times too.
He shocked us one day though, coming home as usual, he found us having our supper, and we served him. He ate saying “gosh! Something bad has happened”. At intervals of five minutes, he would shake his head and say, “gosh! Something bad has happened.” We kept asking him what was wrong but his only answer was, “gosh! Something bad has happened”.
After he had cleared his food and washed his hands, he said, ‘’Joel is dead!” We were shocked; Joel is the lastborn brother to my dad. We told him in disbelief to clarify. He said he had fallen into a quarry, two kilometers away. We ran without waiting for another word from him.
There is an open disused quarry, next to the path that connected our road to Takitech, a village where people drunk bootleg. The path passed by the edge of the quarry and there was no optional route. The other alternative was long and passed next to a police station. Rather than get arrested, drunkards chose to risk falling into the quarry.
The quarry is about fifty meters deep, with water on one side of its bed, and pure rock on the other side. It was said a hare fell and died on the quarry when it was new. A hare in our culture carries good omen, so since its blood was the first to be spilled there, no human blood would be spilled again. The first old man to fall inside was one Tamogey, followed by the one and only Sirma (of the one million fame), and shortly by a fellow called Musa, then Gichuru , then a young girl called Cherono ( not a drunkard) then our uncle Joel , and we are still counting, all lucky survivors.
It didn’t make sense why Peter chose to come all the way to our home instead of calling for help there and then. More confounding was the fact he even had the appetite to eat first then break the news much later. All these occupied my mind as we ran to save the ‘dead man’.
I was the first to get there, I examined him, he was still, for once, I thought he was a goner. When Alois arrived, we struggled to lift him up and jeez! He was very much alive. He didn’t talk though nor move his eyes. Boy, did I think he was injured? We lifted him with a lot of effort to the road and set on the direction of the health center.
We didn’t move a meter, he stood up and screamed and flexed his muscles. I tried convincing him that we took him to hospital but he could hear none. He walked home. Dad arrived and we told him the story. My brother and dad accompanied him home. I went to the market, not far away and bought him pain killers. When I was passing by the quarry, I saw the height he had fallen in disbelief. Fifty meters of pure jutting rocks and my uncle did not have a scratch in him!
He woke up the following day, hale and hearty! That is the mystery of that quarry; don’t turn to it for suicide, it is contended with the hare’s life it took as a sacrifice.
It was within the same April that mom gave birth to twins. A rarity in the village and a cause for much celebration. We were asleep in the tiny house by the road when mom woke us complaining of pain in her tummy. I didn’t know what the matter was. I was too young to know when one was pregnant and when not, unless when the stomach was distended. My mom’s was not.
She sent us to collect Rebecca our neighbor, Juliana our auntie who was also a nurse and Raeli, our other auntie. We started with Rebecca then Raeli and lastly Juliana. We arrived home when there were two little babies, moving their lips. Everybody was amazed for mom had not shown signs of bearing twins, so was she.
It was around 4 a.m. They debated on the names as they fed the new denizens. Mom was covered in a blanket in her bed; she was even contributing to the debate. Finally, they agreed on Chepkorir and Chepkoech, meaning born as the day break. They were later added Marylyn and Golden respectively.
There was no sleeping again. Tea was brewed and it was a new dawn again with two additional human beings to Paulina’s nest. When grandma arrived, the two little creatures were added one other name each, ancestral names of Christina and Chebosigowo, after some departed relatives, now reborn in my two sisters.
The kids cried all the time though, night and day. It was said my mom’s breastfeeding ought to be supplemented. My auntie Juliana, bought mom a thermos flask for keeping their food hot. I had never seen a thermos flask before; it was some new mystery. We were warned not to touch it because it was fragile. I touched it the same day nevertheless, and I was surprised it was not hot to touch yet it kept liquids hot. Wonders of the world!
We received a lot of visitors when mom was ‘coming out’. You know, when a woman gives birth, it is called ‘going in’. She stays for a week, eating and doing nothing. Babies too are not seen by strangers during this period for fear of some infections euphemistically referred to as ‘women’s colds’. I think it is some fatal fungal infection that manifests itself as whitish rashes in the palate and tongue of kids. Some women are rumored to be carriers of these ‘colds’. I have never established the veracity of these claims but kids sometimes die of it.
‘Coming out’ is a celebration that is held after a week from the birth of a baby. Women folk visit with firewood, water, millet flour, milk and anything imaginable. I have heard they do a ritual, something I have never witnessed for anything to do with women’s rituals are kept a secret. (I hear that when Kipsigis women have a conflict, they resolve it with a dictum that, ‘how can we despise ourselves when men have despised us enough!)
All I know is they celebrate ‘coming out’ with a lot of tea and gossip. They also admire the newborn baby, examine and speculate who it resembles i.e. establish the father of the baby in case the mother is single or known to be unfaithful. It is a happy time for women; men keep off, probably away drinking hooch in Takitech.
Women crack all sorts of jokes in these functions, mostly lewd and related to childbirth. I heard them tease a neighbor once that she moaned in labor saying, “wuuui, Jehovah, why did you make it sweet when going in but very painful when coming out? Huh?” They also taunted another lady for having thrown a stone at her husband telling him, “You devil, get out of my sight, you were telling me to come closer in bed and now I am bearing the pain all alone as you smile in a distance like a baboon. You will never touch me again, I swear.” On and on went the women’s chatter.
Visitors streamed in for the rest of that month: relatives, friends and women groups, from near and far, all bearing gifts of all sorts. We were very busy entertaining guests and staying as disciplined as much as we could muster. The entry of those babies into the world was indeed celebrated and appreciated by many people.
However, that did not stop some overzealous relatives from bringing bottles upon bottles of lard that was said to ward off witchcraft from jealous hags. I don’t know whether it helped or not but the little girls were always happy.
The once in a while cries, coughs and stomach upsets were taken care by the herbs that mom bathed and fed the babies with. Depending on what they seemed to be suffering from, the herbs were changed accordingly. Even this was stooped in superstitions too; the herbal concoctions were placed out of sight. In fact women refused to enter our house on their own volition when the herbs were being boiled, lest their shadows wipe away the potency of the herbs.
When the excitement of the twins died down, life returned back to normal, one large happy family. In addition to the now pet named twins Cheta and Cheto, we were eight in all : my elder sister Cherono alias Chero, my brother Kiplang’at, me , my little brother Leonard alias Imi, sister Viola Chebet, and sister Zeddy.
Mom reminded us that she was happy to have born the twins at home, for she would not have stomached leaving us all alone again. In fact all of us were born at home with the exception of the tiny Viola, who was sometimes referred to as Chepchumba, meaning born in the white man’s facilities: Kaplong Mission Hospital, some 21 Kilometers away.
Heard mom had developed some complications with blood pressure and stuff. I just remember seeing her swollen legs. That was 1987.
I can’t remember exact dates but what is vivid in my mind like yesterday was the tribulation we underwent as she was admitted in the hospital for one week. My elder sister, Chero, was only twelve, too young to cook for us so we moved to our grandma’s house. Grandma was not around, she had accompanied mom to hospital. My auntie Mary was home.
She was a vixen that girl. She made our stay as hell as hell could get. I remember when we were waiting for supper, she used to order us that we fold our arms on our chest and remain quiet. Any movement was rewarded with a knock to the head. When eating and you wanted something, we were not allowed to talk, we just extended our hands, and she would decide what to place in your hand.
She roasted maize as we watched, ate as much as she liked and count us five pieces of grains each! It was tough. My brother Leonard refused to eat, she beat him but still he refused. I refused to sleep because I had never slept anywhere apart from home. It was a tough time. She insulted us after every two minutes.
After supper, we left for home. All of us. We slept by ourselves, hoping mom would arrive any minute. The same night, my sister learned how to cook, the following morning; she perfected her art of milking. Life was better than at grandma.
It was scary at night though, all alone, in an isolated house in the middle of a maize field. But it was better at home than anywhere else. We bore the fears with stoic resolve.
The following evening, I refused to go inside the house, sat crying and singing for mom to come. In the innocence of my childhood, I thought my singing could make mom come. “Takiker Paulina, takiker mamanyun!”- I miss Paulina, I miss my mom” I sang, with my eyes fixed at the direction she would have come from, waiting for the leaves of the maize in the path to announce her arrival. I dozed off in there to wake up again inside the house, Paulina was nowhere.
I repeated my singings, mom did not turn up. I feared for the worst, I ate less and less each passing day and refused totally to leave home for anywhere. Playing was impossible. I imagined maybe mom was dead, I had resolved to die too.
One day, I was lying in the shade of the house, down with melancholy , keeping watch for mom’s arrival. I must have dozed off for I woke up to my young brother screaming and saying’ “eiye Paulina, Eiye mamanyun” - “oh it is Paulina, it is my mom!” I woke up and ran repeating the same words. There we were the four of us, hugging mom and crying. She could not hug us for she was holding a young baby in her arms, covered with a cream shawl. We just held her to us, jumping and pulling her to us. She stood looking at us, crying too.
