Body Odour

I firmly believe that Jesus was not crucified for me to be overly concerned about people’s hygiene habits. This belief was severely tested when I boarded a matatu sometimes back and a lady walked by the aisle and I was hit by a nauseating stench of sweat. If it had a man’s I wouldn’t have been bothered. But a lady’s? That’s a complete NO. Man, if you could peer closely and intently you could see individual smell particles rising off her body like smoke.

I didn’t peer at her form, but I thought she had been entrusted by the entire femaledom to carry their sweat stench. Ladies are supposed to adhere to extremely high hygiene standards. Through rigorous training, as Dave Barry puts it, they can see individual dirt particles. But men can’t see dirt until it has piled high enough to support certain edible plant species.

It turns out that she was part of the matatu crew, and that stench – her stench – would been a premonition that I was about to be robbed point blank by the tout. First of all, the matatu set off with a billion guys hanging precariously by the door, with two light skinned guys behaving as though they were lovers. One even reached for the other’s cheeks as if to kiss, and the other guy was quite comfortable with it.

Then the tout began collecting money from the passengers. He was dressed in jeans that hang quite below where the recommended waist line should be. He had on a black and white checked round neck sweater that turned purplish from the matatu’s lighting effects. He got to me and I handed him a hundred shillings note. He tucked it around his middle finger as is the norm with these mobile accountants. Then he went ahead and to collect from the rest of the passengers.

When he was done, I tapped his shoulder and asked him for my change. He asked me how much I had given him. I told him.

“Boss imeisha,” he calmly told me and then acted as though I did not exist. I was wise enough not to protest for what I witnessed from one of the guys hanging on the door. The matatu had stopped to pick passengers when one prospective passenger disagreed with him. He was punched, Tyson style, and the matatu sped away.

I sat there wishing the worst of things for the tout for robbing me my hard earned money. I wished that he would buy airtime and call that crush he had been eyeing for ages, and she will accept upon which she would infect him with an STI. I wished that he would buy mutura and he would diarrhea non-stop. I wished that he would buy water and choke while drinking it. I wished a thousand other worse things to make feel better that I was letting go of my fifty shillings without a fight. 

I wished that the girl with the abominable stench was his girlfriend. And that she rolled that way even when she has had a thirty minute shower.

The Drunkard

The men loved the brew more than life

They congregated everyday to listen to sermons

Sermons inspired by chang’aa induced stupor

Sometimes the spirit instructed them to grab

A collar or another, and dare to eviscerate the aggressor

Talking in eloquently slurred language

A language that will dissipate with the morning dew

If they make it home alive

Barmuriat staggered home one night and fell into the river

There, he slept and never woke up again

Truphena’s husband lay by the roadside one evening

And succumbed to intoxication that very night

Kiptum’s father, while drunk, undressed in the rain

And died peacefully, his soul pounded by the pouring rain

Haggard, shabby and unsightly men hover

In and out of drinking dens, courting death. and oblivion

Wives and children have since ceased praying for them

Their tear glands have run dry, leaving a desert of tenderness

A grave yard of cares, love and compassion

While alive, they are used to their absence

If they do not resort to violence to pass their crude messages

The Lawyerist

As a teenager, it was quite fashionable to perform activities that made an immense contribution to our psyche, if not our gross domestic product, namely: loaf time in the shopping centre. Not seeking to deviate from this behavior, I often left home in the afternoons to idle in the shopping until such a time when I determined that supper was ready at home, and then I’d slip out surreptitiously. Sometimes, when in a good mood, I’d leave early in time to ensure all the domestic animals had made it to their respective enclosures.  Over time, this activity wore me out, save one incident that’s indelibly etched in my mind.

The sun had deemed it fit to go and shine in another world, paving way for people to take stock of their day and make the following deductions: had breakfast, lunch and supper, yet I don’t know where the food came from – so far so good, let’s do it again tomorrow. I was walking gingerly home, trying to get there before darkness had a dictatorial grip on the events that would follow. I took a short cut through an idle farm. On reaching the road, I found an old man, seemingly confused. He asked for a homestead of a retired teacher. I knew one barely three hundred metres from where we were standing. He instructed me to take him there.

With complete disregard to my personal conscience, we did set off to the homestead. The old man had had one too many, and blubbered all the way to the designated destination. I personally don’t have a problem listening a drunkard’s musing. But this one did faze me. Perhaps it was due to my relative inexperience with such people. I was still in high school at the time.

“I am lawyerist,” the old man said boisterously.

He then went on to talk of having been to Dar es Salaam University, upon which he benefitted from the teaching of Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere. Or that he was a classmate of his. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that he had a close encounter with Tanzania’s founding father. The old man did not give me a chance to say anything, not that I had anything. Maybe he was pleased to have such an attentive audience. I do not know.

Before we reached our destination, the old man saw it fit to scare the living daylights out of me. I personally believe that no one can utter words they are not able to do. The old man took his walking stick and balanced it horizontally on his open palm. He then glanced at a fear-stricken teenager in me and dared me:

“AWALAGE? AWALEGE? (Can I transform myself?)”

The words escaped his mouth, sounding as though my consent was all it depended to come true or not. My mind raced at the numerous things or creatures that this old man was capable of changing himself into. It could only settle on one thing: snake. I cowed with fright, and told him:

“NO!!” I repeated this response each time he made the threat. I wasn’t about to be the first person to witness a human being change himself into a snake. Lord knows what the snake could do. Perhaps it could swallow me alive. Or bite me and inject venom that would pre-digest my person, turning me into soup upon which it would just sip me. At the time, I hadn’t discovered alcohol, so you can imagine how my body would have been JUICY.

It turns out that the old man’s threats were emptier than Uhunye’s promise of eradicating corruption as part of his legacy. We reached the homestead and the old man shouted so loudly as though he was calling out someone located in Pluto. A bulky man showed up. The old man explained his problem. The bulky man said that were in the wrong homestead, and gave us directions to another. He was generous enough to allow us to take a short through ‘his’ farm. This form of generosity is quite rare, and even rarer, when the homestead has a girl coming of age. Girls here are permanently grounded. However, even under this stringent parental upbringing, plenty of them still, quite mysteriously, manage to get pregnant. You could easily hunt down and slay the Holy Spirit, if you are a father.

I walked the old man, darkness slowly setting in. I hadn’t planned on being that late. I was still a novice on this coveted teenage indulgence. Besides, my pool skills are comparable to a diseased cockroach – or even worse, only that no one can coax a diseased cockroach for a pool game with me.

We walked on the railway track, then turned right after a few metres to join a road that led to the new homestead. Apparently, the old man had been looking for a retired teacher with one ‘bad leg.’ I knew him well, for he taught me to hate school, for two terms, while in class three.

When we reached the gate, I exhorted the old man to enter but he went straight, silent as the wind, ignoring me as though I was absent. I looked on, bewildered, as his form got swallowed by the darkness. I washed my hands, in a bid to absolve myself of any blame should the man attempt his witchcraft on me, and walked home.

Although with a disturbed soul.

Integrity Deficient Nation

A massive heist, a thorough plunder,

of money meant to buy life-saving drugs

for the country’s poor, the downtrodden

without influence, discounting God’s

a man stops a bullet in the forest, tortured first

hit men, having God’s job description,

delight in dinghy bars, celebrating a job ‘well done’

the police, baffled, will hit dead ends on its leads

our beloved country is addicted to integrity

so much that we resent its absence

leaders hold the bible with velvet gloves

thereafter receive money earned through ungodly means

God laughs at our vain attempts at prayer

For we mask our evils in his name

Shout about salvation from the pulpit

Yet, unaware, sacrificing our blessings all the same

Yesterday

you made away with my yesterday,
every single moment seems longest
as I lie on my bed, thinking of you - 

thinking of the dreams, 

thinking of your laughter, 

thinking of you love,

thinking of you arms wrapped around me 

thinking that you may not even be thinking about me

thinking endless thoughts

and wishing that we never should have met 

Always The Best of Time

I got to tell you how it feels beside you

Like waiting for heaven’s gate to fling open

And we stand there waiting to embrace forever

Always the best of time dearie

Something stills time, your smile

I could walk a million a mile

And ten more to spend awhile

With you, happiness pile

Sitting side by side couldn’t tell what you mean

How I don’t know how to act around you

Yet deep down me a feeling ripples through

The kind that tells me you’re my only queen

I will trade my life for your love

A gift of wings to a dove

To hover around heavens above

You aren’t earthly my love

Strutting

You strutted into my mind as would,

a model, auditioning for my attention

from the first sight, I picked you

you are a clear winner,

and you are hereby given the power,

to reign in my heart for a thousand eternities