It was a Friday morning; I woke up ululating and gallivanting like a baboon that had spent a good night on a hanging line. I was in full full condition after sitting for my end of semester exams. This called for celebration. A Friday it was, the day that our good Lord had made, the day I got a chance to bond with my fellow ‘teachers’ of the booze. We went to town to grab two for the road although ‘two for the road’ in my case applied to two mugs of chicken soup. I must admit that Eldoret was the place to be because I never regretted the day my old man brought me to Chep in a Peugeot 404 pick up truck; his most treasured investment that then came breathing fire, wading through crater size potholes of Juction- Chepkoilel road, potholes that could swallow a whole combine harvester. In the trunk was one coffin-size suite case that had left a clear message to my fellow villagers that a ‘baboon’ among them was going to advance his ordinary levels somewhere at Koilel.
The maiden Friday kept reminding me that I would soon be heading back to the village where I was a royal customer at Gikondi Bar and Restaurant alias The Synagogue. The Synagogue was strategically located at the anals of Kiamaiko, a small shanty Mung’etho (Place to Hangout) which was the economic hub of the village. The last time I was at the village, Kiamaiko was some drunkard steps away from the local Mama Bima' who apparently happened to be Mama Gathanga, mother to Gathanga the insane cousin of mine who had gone bananas some years back thanks to some weed from Mt.Kenya forest. Gathanga used to be one ‘forkjembe’ with close resemblance to a traditional granary in Kitui when it came to hygiene (with a soft touch to my distant relatives from Kitui).
On this fateful Friday, the teachers of the booze and I, like a taboo, were on their way to some serious booze lectures at Black ball alias The Clinic. The Clinic attracts every Tom, Dick and Harry for some serious booze and music lectures or rather what you would call an entertainment course that is rarely offered at Chep because it ‘does not have exams’. This is a place you get one for the road and by the time you are on the seventh one, you are already mumbling a little French and Rocket Science. When provoked, you explore combat engineering where by, you decide to trade free blows to fellow revelers who in turn return hotter ones to your face. By the time you are done, you gully creep your way back to Chep like a tired tuk tuk that had a long day overloading.
However on our way to town, the ‘path’ lured us Kambi Nairobi, a place I must admit I’ve never been to in the three years I’ve been in Chep. Kambi Nairobi is situated some ‘lazy cow’s strides’ away from Farm. Like a cat, its curiosity and nine lives, we decided to explore it from the curiosity brought about by what the names Kambi and Nairobi may suggest to me or rather to you. “You all know that cats were awarded nine lives but the Almighty gave us only one life so that we can live it fully without regrets,” Odhis justified our adventure. As we found out, Kambi Nairobi offers some dead silence like a grave yard but its inner core offers you a one twende, tujionee na tujivinjari experience if Chang’aa and Busaa are to go by.
In this vibrant underground city, we cat walked along its ‘streets’ like confused models. ‘Kambi Nairobi’ is not a phrase you are likely to come across in the daily newspaper, or listed in the Nairobi Stock Exchange and or in the current edition of the telephone directory. Wherever it got its name from did not add up much but whoever gave it that name must have realized that, it was a place of ‘cool waters,’ because the kind of ‘water’ being distilled there was a little bit bitter than the Ruaraka one or the one Jesus turned into wine at Galilee and left bewildered wedding revelers begging for more.
Being a locally manufactured ‘chimp’ for ‘chimpanzee,’ one who had the privilege of growing up somewhere at the heart of Mukuru kwa Njenga, atmospheres of this nature are no stranger to me. In one of the dens, “Welcome to happy valley,” a man bellowed. The breath from his mouth clearly indicated that whatever he had consumed was liable to send you to an instant if not self imposed coma. Inside the big hut, was a pack of men with white recycled kasuku cooking fat cans glued to their hands, some half awake others half dead. Buddha was with them.
By sun set we were sitted round in the hut like the twelve disciples eagerly waiting for the last supper. A few glued to the kasuku and others dead drank. I knew this was no place for chicken soup and decided to sample whatever the concoction was to offer knowing well that Fridays come once in a week. I partook the bitter stuff. It was bitter, as bitter as the bitter herbs that Hammurabi and his subjects partook before embarking on a journey to the Promised Land. Anything that happened after that only Buddha knows. I regained consciousness at the local district hospital two days later confused like a village mullah who lost all his teaching materials in a pit latrine after attending to a long call of nature. That was one blush with death. I promised myself this would be the basis for my New Year resolutions. Happy New Year!
Grammatical errors regretted
Appearance; The Bridge Magazine #Issue 3 2010
The official Chepkoilel University College Students' Magazine
by Noel Mutugi
all rights reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment