Memories of an African Childhood: Days before Christmas

We are deep into December holidays. Schooling has been forgotten as a very distant memory, my exercise books are lost, we have used some pages to light fire, and some to smoke cigars of ash. I last bathed that last school day; dirt has made a hard crust on my legs all the way to my knees such that it is difficult to kneel without discomfort. Bathing is a chilly affair and must be avoided at all costs. In the few times I indulge my body in this luxury, the crust is so hard it could take a whole day to reach my original skin. I wonder why the crust assumes a black color. I am supposed to be chocolate in color, if not lighter.

Damn this dirt! It is ok though, I can live with it. Where do my legs collect all these dirt? Oh, have remembered, the cow-dung in the cattle enclosure and the mud from the dam when hunting earthworms for fish baits.

I will be in hot soup when school reopens, but, so will every other boy. Even the teacher’s own sons are not any better. He can go to hell. In any case, it is a long way off. I am sure mom will force me to correct the mess soon enough. Gosh! Bathing aint my favorite pastime, never will be.  Even swimming is not my thing; I lost appetite when Mbich drowned. I can swim well and that is enough, in case God decides on another deluge. Ah haa! That will be a tough one, for mom and my sisters Zeddy and Chebet cannot swim. Another flood is not probable anyway; at least that is what the teacher told us.

Tonight, there is no singing with the initiates; all is quiet at my grandma. They are off to some rituals called tienjinet- induction. In the boys’ hovel in the bushes, there is a beehive of activity; quite literally, there is a lot of arrivals and milling about. The initiates from other hovels are arriving in droves, to sounds of leather rapping, which we are now accustomed to as a form of greeting. They are carrying firewood in one arm, arrows on the other with bows slung on their shoulders. With their cream leather clothes and white ochre on their faces and feet, they again remind me of grazing gazelles, like the ones I once saw on the way to my auntie who lives in the border of Maasai Mara. These guys never walk; they are always running when going anywhere. I think it is part of the rituals.

Men are ferrying beer pots to the hovel from James’ home. I counted 36 beer pots in all. These guys are very strong, they are large beer pots and they hold the pots, two guys, from the hill all the way to the bushes by Kap Mwamba dam without resting, not even once. And the pots are round you know, it is quite hard to carry them even when empty. It is either that tradition is against resting or the motivation to reach the hovel was stronger than fatigue. Whatever it was, they rushed the pots one after the other like Safari Rally.

The initiates are making trips fetching water at the dam like safari ants too. There must be a big party ahead. I just wish I could be a big man and walk confidently there and ask what was going on.

I am just seated at home watching the goings on. You should see the arriving party. The old men were spectacular. With beer straws slung on their shoulders and walking staffs held across their back they came in large numbers. People I have never seen all my life, drawn to the free beer and maybe to the splendor of the rituals. Some with straw hats, some with baseball caps, but all in various states of disrepair. It confounds me to date why village old men love putting on caps and hats. (Maybe the answer should wait till my own dotage). With baggy patched trousers, decaying yet sturdy tire sandals, tattered raincoats, if a picture could have been taken of them, everybody this day would be unanimous that they were scare-crows rather than real people. They looked exactly like it!

The old men descend from the hill like locusts. The majority are staggering, they stutter as they greet me. There is one particular old man I disliked, he always greeted us with such derision, maybe it was a joke but he overdid it. He would ask us:

“How are you?”

We would reply as usual:

“We are fine!”

Then, quite out of the ordinary, he would retort:

“How about your snort, is it fine too?”

We would just stare at each other and laugh.

When the snort man passed, the rest of the motley crew are the friendly types. Most smile at me, I am sure they know me, for I am seated near home. Some ask me where mom is, I tell them she is gone to milk the cows. Some ask me for water to drink, I fetched for them from the house but the number soon overwhelmed me. I was forced to station a whole jerrican for them outside the house, rather than go in and out fetching in a tin.  I can’t blame them, the heat is sweltering. Maybe it will rain; maybe it is just a hot day. There is bliss written in the faces of all in spite of the heat.

It is not surprising why everybody is descending from the hill; they are from drinking illicit bootleg in the village of Takitech, along the ridge.

It is now 4 p.m. The younger men now arrive, some yelling in drunkenness already, broadcasting loudly their names, the names of their dads, moms and clans. I am sure they hear wherever they were. Unlike the older men, they carry no straws, some carry plastic tins in their pockets, others carry large metallic ones. Some are empty handed. This group does not ask for water, instead they ask for tins to go drink beer with. I gave them the ones we didn’t need but I soon ran out of spare tins. Another one whom I knew as Sosit picks a large rusty tin from the rubbish heap and went down running. A distant uncle of mine picked an old gumboot and went running.  I have never known beer to be that sweet!

All roads lead to menjo!

My mom came and picked a large bucket, normally used for milking and headed down to where everybody seem to melt, without a word to me. I knew I could not join them in the drinking, but because  mom was out of the way, I could not take the exclusion lying done. If women could be allowed there, it meant the rite was not much of a secret.  We were just kept away to avoid disturbances, or so I thought.

I immediately contrived a plan and went running to collect Kipsang to be my co-executor. We followed the swamp from the spring all the way to the bush near the hovel where the ceremony was. Nobody would have seen us for we were crouching all the way. Besides, we were in dark outfits.  Again, 36 pots of beer will knock the whole village out of their senses before long. We went stealthily by the bush, where we had laid out a trap for a dik-dik , inspected it and unsurprisingly there was no dik-dik struggling to be let go. We quietly walked all the way to a tall tree, not far from menjo, where a pigeon once had its nest. (I had laid a trap once to catch it asleep by pulling a string on the ground at night, only to pull out its young one, I was filled with pity, I had to climb the tree at night to return it.)

We climbed the bushy tree and perched on the branches, as stealthily as possible and made ourselves comfortable. We startled the mousebirds that called the place home and they made a lot of chirping noise they almost gave us out. I was breathing heavily, partly from the climbing and partly from the apprehension of having to witness something no boy has ever dreamt of doing. When the birds had quieted down or left altogether, we tied leaves around our clothes and heads and made small openings in the bush, facing the menjo. Disguised thus, nobody would have picked us, not even with a telescope.

Ouch! Mosquitoes seem to call this place their capital city; they bit with us with equal appetite as we had for watching the rituals.

For the first time, the menjo and its compound was in full view from us. Wow! The initiates were seated in the shade. Some men were heating water in a makeshift kitchen. What a thrill! All the beer pots were placed round mabwaita, men and old men were all over the place. Some were sleeping; looking so drunk I doubted whether they still had any space for the new beer.  Some stood in groups talking animatedly. Some sat playing with their tins, waiting for the drinking or whatever was to happen to start.

The din and smoke rise from the compound. Some young men are aiming targets with arrows. The initiator calls for order, all rise and group around mabwaita.  Even the seemingly dead rise with such energy I immediately retracted my earlier thoughts on their ability to drink any more beer.

The initiator, Mr. Haraka Up!  Is a respectable wealthy old man and he seems to command the same respect in the ceremony as he does out of it.  All the men are now quiet, on their knees, forming a circle round the pots of beer. The initiator and the blesser are standing in the middle, beside mabwaita.

(In traditional ceremonies generally, everybody respect some tacit rules and violation of the rules attract a curse from elders or a fine of a bull or a goat, depending on the severity of the crime. I heard it is simple to cast a spell on someone during these rituals. Elders simply sip beer with a straw and return it to the pot and your goose is cooked. In case you are there, they ask you to seek forgiveness and if you don’t they consult with each other whether they ‘eat’ you. If the answer is unanimously yes, then you are a goner. As simple as that! No wonder rowdy men rediscover some sense of discipline in this kind of stuff. )

Perched comfortably atop the branches but hidden from view, eating wild fruits, swatting mosquitoes, we watch the action unfold. The initiator shouted tich tumin! (All, quiet for the ceremony!). The din dies down. All the initiates are ordered into the hovel. The women, who all the while were squatting fifty meters away, are summoned into the compound. They kneel behind the men in a circle too, headscarves lowered to their necks like ties. The initiator sits down in a three-legged beaded stool. Dressed in a sheep skin and beaded head gear he looks like the kings we see in books at school, he holds a rough long staff, brown with age. It is called nogirwet, it signifies peace and is only carried by octogenarians and older men. If you are pointed with it, you die. The blesser –kipisio, is dressed the same too.  kipisio rise from his chair , holding a gourd-gomta, full of beer with sinendet plants tied on its neck. In his right hand he has a white fly whisk. He clears his throat, sips the beer, spit on the crowd round the circle and says the following incantation, waving his flywhisk:

Blesser: kokile tumin (I say it is a ritual)

All: tumin  ( it is a ritual)

Blesser: loet  ( a big pot)

All: loet  ( a big pot)

Blesser:  mi menjo   ( it is in the hovel)

All: mi menjo ( it is in the hovel)

Blesser: tomnenyon ( our hovel secrecy)

All: Tomnenyon ( our hovel secrecy)

Blesser: Moirbei ( is waterproof)

All: Moirbei ( is waterproof)                                       

Blesser: ir kumiat ( honey seeps through)

All: ir kumiat ( honey seeps through)

Blessser: tumtanyon ( our rituals)

All: Tumtanyon ( our rituals)

Blesser: Manailim ( unknown to Luos)

All: Manailim ( unknown to Luos)

All: Nai nandi ( known to Nandis)

(he sips some more beer and spit on the crowd round the circle)

Blesser: okot kitogutab lakwa, burgei kele burgei (even a child crib is warm, it is warm indeed!- read a woman’s uterus)

All: burgei (it is warm indeed!)

Blesser: mi kerek, mi kele mi ( it smells of childbirth, it smells indeed!)

All: mi (it smells indeed!)

Blesser: bo ng’etunye, bo kele bo ( they belong to the group of ng’etunyo, they belong indeed)

All: bo (they belong indeed!)

Blesser: Bo Kipkaige , bo kele bo( they belong to the group of kipkaige, they belong indeed)

All: Bo (they belong indeed!)

Blesser: Bo Kasanet, bo  kele bo ( they belong to the group of kasanet, they  belong indeed!)

All:  bo (they belong indeed!)

Blesser: bo kebeni, bo kele bo (they belong to the group of kebeni, they belong indeed!)

All: bo (they belong indeed!)

( he sips more beer and spits at the crowd)

Blesser: tinye ibin, tinye kele tinye ( they have an age-set, they truly have)

All: tinye( they have)

Blesser: tinye murenik, tinye kele tinye ( they have men, they truly have)

All: tinye ( they have!)

Blesser: tinye sanik, tinye kele tinye ( they have in-laws, they truly have)

All: tinye! ( they have)

Blesser: tinye koima ,tinye kele tinye ( they have hearth stones, they truly have- read vaginas)

All: tinye (they have)

Blesser: bo bureti, bo kele bo (they belong to Bureti, they really belong)

All: bo (they belong)

Blesser: ker bunyon koimen, koger ko laba, laba kele laba (may when the enemy sees them its dark and when they see the enemy there is light)

All: laba (there is light)

Blesser: kigas en nandi, kigas kele kigas (it is heard in Nandi land, it is truly heard)

All: kigas (it is heard)

Blesser: kigas en tugen, kigas kele kigas (it is heard in Tugen land, it is truly heard)

All: kigas (it is heard)

Blesser: Kigas en Chebolungu,kigas kele kigas ( it is heard in Chebolungu land, it is heard)

All: kigas (it is heard)

Blesser: mie kele mie (well, it is well)

All: mie ( it is well)

Blesser: baibai kele baibai ( it is a happy situation, it is truly happy)

All: abai ( it is a happy situation)

Blesser: kutuny kele kutuny ( they kneel, they truly kneel)

All: kutuny ( they kneel)

Blesser: set kele set (they go on a raid, they truly go)

All: set (they go for a raid)

Blesser: bor kere bor (they succeed, they really do)

All: bor (they succeed)

Blesser: king kele king (it is over, it is truly over

All: kiiiiiiiiiing!!!!!!! (it is over!)

Blesser: king kele king

All: Kiiiiiiiing!!!!!!!

The men jostle to position their straws in the pots, dipping their straws, they go quiet sipping the beer, the party has just started .The mood is ecstatic. The blesser resumes his seat, the initiator calls for attention; his staff of peace is raised in the air. Some people are still talking. He turns and looks around;

‘’which uncircumcised boy is talking here? Who is it that one to desecrate this ritual?”

All is quiet. The revered initiator then orders all the men to surrender their straws to women so they can sip too. The women place down their tins and sip, watching them in case the unruly young men snatch them away. The din rise louder and louder. An assistant initiator draws beer from a pot with a gourd cut in half, and distributes it to young men who did not have straws; they swig the beer on their knees.

Everybody is down on their knees, like cows drinking water in a dam with the initiator as sole herdsman.

The initiates, who are locked inside the reeds –thatched hovel away from view start singing, supposedly to entertain their mothers.  The women are taking turns with men sipping beer from the pots, kneeling down, just like the men. All are merry. There is enough if not too much beer. It is a real carousal.

Some men, who have little standing in society, are boiling water in a makeshift kitchen on the far left of the menjo. I can hear other men calling them loudly to add some more water in the pots, jokingly referring to them as women, simply because they were playing women’s role in the kitchen. They seem not to mind; for it is only jokes and secondly because they are just but riff raffs. For their trouble and degradation, they have a pot of beer to themselves. Even in rituals, men of means are respected and are given preferential treatment. They are seated close to the pots.

 The initiator occasionally admonish some misbehaving revelers, a look from him was enough. His word was law. No one dared go against him. The drunken young men occasionally fought, it is highly discouraged but anything small make the men fight. If blood is spilled from anybody as a result, someone would be blamed for having desecrated the ceremony. He would be made to pay a fine of a bull or a goat to cleanse it otherwise a spell is cast on him to go mad. The worst was to break a beer pot, that one was non-negotiable, even without any spell; someone would pay with his life unless he is cleansed. It was an unheard of abomination.

The initiates sing, the men and women drink.

It is 8 p.m., pressure lamps light the whole compound like it is daytime. It is getting cold in the tree but the action before us is too good to be left halfway, so we stick around. We engage in low tone conversations, for no one would spot us there anymore. The leaves rubbed around me occasionally gave me a scare, they are cold and I imagined a snake tying itself around me. Arrrrgh!

It is time for the women to leave. They are tipsy, some are outright drunk. They whip out tins of all sorts to be filled with beer by the initiator.  Once all have had their tins of beer, they leave the compound, ululating and singing their own strange songs.

Recently initiated men are not allowed to drink ceremonial beers, so they follow the departing women for a sip of their beer. The women are generous and allow some sips. The women leave in different directions for home, I could see my mom, carrying a big bucket of beer, wish I was home, I would drink with her but no, let me finish with here first.

Some women without much esteem in society, whose husbands are too old to discipline them or are widowed or simply wayward, are too drunk and stagger precariously along the way. One woman who was too drunk came towards our direction alone; I don’t know where she was trying to go. I reckon she had confused the direction to her home. Her tin of beer fell but she seemed not to notice. She bent down to pee but fell down awkwardly in a heap, with her dress lifted up, and her red panty half way down in her knees. She was about twenty meters from where we were. What a pitiable sight!

 Some two young men, recently initiated, were following her from a distance, probably to snatch beer from her. They never noticed that she had fallen for where she was lying was poorly lit by a moon whose rays was from time to time being interrupted by moving clouds. They followed her like a dog trailing a quarry by way of scent; they saw the beer tin and scrambled for the little beer that was left.

Done with the little beer, they went by the bush to pee, only to stumble on the woman. They looked dumbfounded for a while. They consulted in low tones, as if they were being watched.

Oh my goodness! The two men squatted by the old hag, yanked off her panty, one man parted her legs and held them apart as the other went on his knees and raped the woman. Oh God, I have never witnessed a rape before. The woman was muttering in her drunken stupor, not fully comprehending what was going on. I almost fell from the tree; I was feeling some sense of attraction and repulsion at the same time. I wish I could save her and at the same time participate in the sex orgy. We just kept quiet, nudging each other as I suppressed an insistent laughter; we could not dare move, lest we were found out. The consequences would have been direr if we were found than in missing the fun. I imagined the curiosity that killed the cat might have made it jump from a tall tree like the one we were perched. What a catch 21 situation!

The first man seemed to have had his fill, when he rose, the other man removed his trouser in a lightning speed and threw it aside and jumped into action. He was faster than the first, he pumped up and down with such ferocity the woman gave a loud moan, the other man gagged her mouth. All I could hear were muffled cries. Shame on me, my dick too was rising in my shorts. What a shame! But again, what a missed opportunity, wish I was a man and not an uncircumcised boy stealing glances of rituals and getting more than I had bargained for.

The two men took endless turns, screwing the woman quiet. I didn’t know whether the woman was enjoying or not but from the looks in the men’s faces, they were in cloud nine. The men were obviously tired; they have been working on the woman for almost one hour. They sat by their prey, conversing and giggling and pinching each other, maybe in felicitation. They seemed to have arrived at a conclusion, putting their trousers on; they went back to the hovel. Soon, they came back with two of their age mates, they repeated the act. Oh God, I bet the woman will die, lucky for her the men were young.

I thought the woman had swooned but no, when the last man worked on her, she cooed like a happy pigeon. So she is alive after all!

I didn’t know how some other men knew of the sex orgy down there. A dozen or so drunk men ran and scrambled for the woman, soon they were fighting for her. I even spotted a son dragging his father away from the woman, both having removed their trousers, the son overpowered the father and managed to dip his manhood in the woman, but only for a second, more men arrived and fierce fighting for the woman ensued. The commotion attracted some sober minded elders in the hovel; one came with a whip and made everybody scamper to safety. A few elders examined the woman, called for reinforcement and carried the muddled woman away. She was a mess of mud, beer, vomit and of course sperms. The sex scavengers left, laughing gaily, talking loudly how they screwed the woman as they went back to the hovel. 

On ritual nights, so many things happen. There is a license for misdemeanor. Even rape was possible, but to some drunk careless sluts of women. Not respectable ones.

After the macabre scenes, we again focused our attention to the action in the menjo. The singing goes on from the initiates but the men have started their own songs too. There is a bonfire that has been lit now. All over the field, men form small groups and sing in circles clapping hands. It is a cacophony of noise but you can make out a few words if you strain a bit. Some order seems to have been established by default:  the singers sing, the hardcore drunkards continued drinking. It was a question of choice not lack or coercion.

 Some whose systems have taken overdose are dead-drunk and lied sprawled all over the place. Some were too faithful to the drink to ever leave it for anything else, this group of mainly elders, sat sipping with their straws, talking in drunken tones. The bacchanalia seem to have has just begun.

The worst lot is comatose; some men are mixing water and flour and administering it to them in a bid to resuscitate them. Thank goodness that every poison has its antidote, otherwise free beer could kill many in the name of merry making!

The singing continues unabated, the drinking continues uninterrupted.

 I can make out one song from the cacophony:

Soloist: Werchuchok ee, aiya, werchunchok kole werchunchok kirabsoi (our brothers ee, aiya, our brothers, our brothers in the land of Soi)

Chorus: oee, aeeeee

Soloist : Mwoktosol  ee, aiya, mwoktosol kole mwoktosol kwaiyabei ee ( they fire ee,aiya, they fire inside the water- read a man fucking a woman)

Chorus: oeee, aeeeeee

Soloist: ming’in tiony ee, aiya, ming’in kole ming’in kiplekwet eee (small animal, small animal aiya, small animal is a hare)

Chorus: oeee aeeeeeee

Soloist: legen tiony eee, aiya, legen tiony kole legen tiony cheplanget ee (colored animal, aiya, colored animal is a leopard)

Chorus: oeeee, aeeeeeeeee

Soloist: tortang’ot eee, aiya, tortang’ot kole torta kwo kiplis ee (they throw spears, aiya, they throw spears inside targets- read a man screwing a woman again)

Chorus: oeee, aeeeeeeee

Soloist: kumin tiony ee, aiya, kumin tiony kole kumin tiony sigiriet (the best fucking animal, aiya, the best fucker of all animals is the donkey)

Chorus: oee, aeeeeeeee

Soloist: anyiny tiony eee, aiya, anyiny tiony kole anyiny tiony mokolet eee (the sweetest animal, aiya, the sweetest animal is a pussie)

Chorus: oeee, aeeeeee

Soloist: chi kwonyes ee, aiya, chi kwonyes kole chi kwonyes konambus ee ( she who cooks, aiya, she who cooks must touch the flour- maybe this is vulgar again for in Kipsigis language, flour also means pussie)

Soloist: oeee, aeeeeeee

The song goes on and on. Another group is singing another song but the lyrics are too hard to grasp. When one was tired singing, he goes inside the hovel to sing with the initiates. We stayed in our place till it was way past mid night. Nothing new happens, my feet were fatigued, and sleep was fast approaching. We decided to go home. Those guys were not showing any signs of tiring. We gave up.

The voice cords of those guys must have been of the most original quality, for I slept when they were singing and yelling and woke up to their songs and yells again!

The day has broken; drunkards from the hovel now pass by our home, staggering but still carrying tins full of beer again. Their dreg-caked teeth only peep in an attempt at a smile, they were happy though but more of exhausted with lack of sleep than the former. No wonder some slept on the shades along the road for the better part of the day.

The world is full of wacky adventures and an equal number of oddballs who promote them.