SOLITUDE

Trips to the Lunar and back jaunting through half smoked stubs.

Peals of laughter crashing over waves of silence. Following one another through and through.

Dreams gathering dust and smoke on the rafters where rats and cockroaches have taken to  whispering and sniggering.

My company in days spent wistfully before Loice, my laptop. Furiously typing away,  dreams of my future, of stories untold.

My grandfather told me of his days lumbering in Tanzania. Lost in jungles sawing through forests to the melodic singing of birds and mean hissing snakes.

My grandfather told me of the softness of  woman after a long day spent hauling timber and breathing saw dust.

In a room permeated with cigarette smoke and weed stubs, the smell of our sweat and lovemaking screams for attention.

Her hair in my face. I try to extract myself from beneath her where I am straddled cowboy. I can't. Riding behind her ecstatic screams, sleep had followed on wings of exhaustion.

I light a half smoked joint one handed, brush her hair out of my face and peer at the rats playing hide and seek through a film of smoke.

 Halos of dusk streak in in lazy orange colors to remind me of evening.Of yet another day spent in stupor. Thinking up plots, tripping, shredding them, forgetting them.

She wakes up and takes the stub from my hand. A long drag later, "What time is it?" "Three minutes to seven," "Oh shit oh shit,” my mum will be home by now." She starts looking for her pants under the bed.

Darkness creeps in with her departure, the rats are growing bold.

Jaunts in Technicolor, town lights illuminate my room in hues of stars. Lying there staring at the sounds of rats and darkness, I realize,

The Morning sun has become a stranger.

@mossetti

AN ANGRY WOMAN

AN ANGRY WOMAN

Fierce as leopard

Sharp as a needle

Cute as a princess

Hands gesturing

Head held high

A torrent of words flowing

Biting and chilling

Grating on the ears

Cowering others

Now she changes poise

And stands astride

Arms akimbo

Dare contradict her

Her eyes boring into you

An angry woman

@mossetti

AFTER THE GAME

AFTER THE GAME

When I get to the office, I find a white girl seated at my desk.

I have come in late today as a result of last night’s binge.. In any case, it is Saturday I only have one game to cover.  Western Stima is hosting Top fry at the Mumias complex Stadium for a Kenya Premier League match. The stadium is in Mumias, a town thirty minutes away from Kakamega. Top fry, the newest entrants into the league this season had unexpectedly beaten last season’s league winners 3-0 in the match prior to this and everyone is out to see how they will fair against the western team.

Kate, the white lady is in town to shoot clips for a children show she is producing for a local TV station. Our photographer is her contact person in the region. Surprisingly, she is half Kenyan half Scandinavian with the white genes dominating.

As we leave, Mzee wa Kazi, our ageing cameraman as he is fondly called, offers her the co-driver’s seat in the Dmax Isuzu double cab that we use. Four of us crammed in the back seat having picked up two other guys, we head out. Up until now, we haven’t spoken save for a grunt to acknowledge each other as I was rummaging in my desk for my KPL accreditation pass.

“So where are you from?” I venture.

I come from all over, I was born in Holland but I have lived in Hungary all my life. My parents are from Hungary, though my father is Kenyan.” She replies confusing me in the process.

“Yes. My father is Kenyan; I was reunited with him about four years ago. He lives in Nairobi but he is actually from western Kenya. My mother gave me up for adoption and since my Parents are Hungarian, they raised me there.” She tells me.

Mzee wa Kazi sees his shot as I have sparked conversation and asks, “how do you find Kenya, or this part of western?”

At which she replies, “I love it! It’s such a nice place, and it is home, I am thinking of relocating permanently to Kenya, My father has already given me land to build my house.”

The conversation picks up with the other guys two guys offering the occasional grunts that make them relevant to the conversation. She tells us about Holland where she has been staying for most of her adult life working as a TV and Radio producer. She has just seen an opportunity in Kenya that is ripe for picking and is investing heavily on it. Journalism for Kids. She is appalled at how kids in Kenya do not actually matter. All the content on most programs is dominantly adult with maybe an hour set aside for a children’s programme.

We get to Mumias some minutes into the game. As our camera man sets up she pulls me aside, “where can I have a quiet smoke?” she asks. We are sitting in the VIP area or what passes off for VIP in this place. There are plastic chairs to sit on and none of the usual hooliganism that passes for official fan behavior. Of course someone will occasionally have one too many start shouting profanities here, but hey, its soccer!

We duck behind the changing rooms and she hands me a Marlboro. We light up. As we smoke, I inquire about her past life and why she chose to come to Kenya. She tells me she is divorced has two daughters and one son and her reasons for coming to Kenya.

She first came to Kenya six years ago looking for her father. The poor guy did not even know he had a white daughter. He had met her mother abroad while studying. He left back for Kenya without ever knowing that he had implanted his seed somewhere or without ever knowing for the past  decades that he had a daughter. When Kate first gave him a call, he was equally astounded and almost thought it a prank before she mentioned her mother’s details. “He met me at the airport and he was expecting a colored lady. It’s a funny thing I turned out entirely white.” She laughs as she says this displaying a set of browning teeth.

Then she saw the need for journalism for kids. After the usual groundwork, she dropped her jobs in Holland packed her bags and set out to Kenya. That’s when she met the rest of her step family in Western. After that, she got the land from her father, started producing content for one of the TV stations and also working on starting her own studio.

She finishes her fag, and stubs it out with the heel of a shoe. So unladylike I think to myself.

“I want to speak to the kids who come to these matches. Those who are accompanied by parents, those who come on their own and even those who do not manage to get into the stadium.” This last bit she adds after espying a rat-rag army of kids watching the game from behind the stadium boundary. “I may also want to speak to the parents and find out what they think of their kids attending such the matches.” The game begins.

We are sitting by the media section on the Terrace at kick off. The match commissar, a bulky brusque lady is kicking people who do have their KPL passes of the Terrace. They include other journalists. By then, Kate has gone off and is talking to the ball boys who have milled around her. There is something about Kenyan children and white folks. They congregate around them and start talking excitedly among themselves mostly in mother tongue or Swahili with the occasional English speaking one acting as leader and interpreter. They can follow a white person for miles on end without any apparent reason.

The match comm wants to kick Kate off the pitch. All the attention has turned from soccer to her as various people are asking what she is doing talking to children and why she is taking pictures of them. She also does not have a KPL accreditation pass. The rest of the crowd who are sitting by in the common Benches are shouting, “toa huyo mzungu kwa uwanja! Kuja twende kwangu leo! kuja unipige picha! Unapeleka picha za watotot wetu wapi?” Lately, there have been rampant reports of child trafficking and the folks here are naturally cautious. The other day a woman was arrested for trafficking and it was reported that she was working with a ring of white people from Russia.

She lies that she has a badge, borrows mine as half time approaches and continues doing her interviews. Quite a crowd has gathered around her by the time the whistle goes for the break. Western Stima is leading by one goal while Top fry are yet to score. Stima have been pushing the debutants who seem all over the place. Fry, however look resilient, they are fighting and attacking at every opportunity. Any lapse in the Stima defense lorded by a one George Wesa will see them concede a goal, and they know it! Stima and Fry shake hands during the break, Jerseys removed to expose torsos that have been hardened by days of practice and hard work. Bottles of water are thrown at them as they get off the pitch. They catch them midair, tear open the seals, uncork them and proceed to pour the water on their heads and chests before drinking the rest in quick large gulps.

Another fag marks how we spend halftime as she regales me with tales of Holland. Well, Its Holland, I learn that they grow their weed in green houses. I learn that it is a very small country, it only takes about three hours to drive from the eastern boundary to the west. Only a few people practice farming and they do it on large scale. I remember this internet meme describing the Dutch as a bunch of high people riding bicycles through the streets of Amsterdam and the picture of a one Louis Moreno Ocampo comes into mind as he rides his bicycle to the ICC. I muse, maybe he does that!

The game ends with the solitary goal from Stima. On the way back to Kakamega, Kate and I agree to hook up later for drinks. I also forget to take her number as my editor is already on my neck asking for the story.

Mzee wa Kazi calls me at around eight. “Come to Diamond there is free booze here,” he tells me.

When I get there, Kate is bored. She has also worked her way through a bottle of Penasol. She wanted to party in Kakamega. The photographer has taken her to the old guys joint. Here elderly people are holding onto their Tuskers in a cloud of smoke as the guys in the Kitchen work away at scorching the Nyamchom they are or will be enjoying. A rugged looking local band comprised of elderly men with instruments that look like they had seen John Rebman when he first stepped into Africa are badly belting out a rendition of Madilu’s Zele in halts and jerks that are not exactly rhythmical. Kate doesn’t get Rhumba. In fact she is even bored with Mzee wa Kazi.

“He keeps holding my hand, it’s annoying!” she tells me as we stand outside smoking. “And this place, it looks like it has no life. Could we go somewhere they play party music and stuff? I want to dance.” She does a little jig on her feet and continues.  “I had to ask him to call you, he did not want you to come by the way.” I can’t help it when I laugh maliciously.

We end up at Club Hush as Mzee wa Kazi leaves for home at around eleven asking me to take care of Kate. He also tells her to be wary of these little boys. As we walk in, the fat Bouncer recognizes me and clears a table for us at the balcony. Hush is already full. It’s a Saturday after all, and it’s end month. The college girls are here in groupies or hanging out with older guys or the monied younger ones who can afford them drinks.

Then the action begins. A bottle of Bond 7 lands on the table. Her Marlboros are out and we switch to my Dunhills. The usual friends are here. The party people! 

Davy comes over, “eh, Mose, umetoa wapi mzungu leo, ebu utupatie huyu.”  I play basketball with Davy. Fortunately, the basket ballers are not here or else they could be crowding me. Halfway through the bottle, the DJ plays Afro Jack’s Rock This House. Everyone gets up to dance. Kate is the only white girl in the house amongst a bunch of voluptuous girls on the dance floor gyrating and swaying to the rhythm. Their hands are outstretched up wards as the DJ swings into LMFAO’s Champagne Showers prompting the revelers to start shuffling. She is carefree, she is dancing, she is having fun. A big smile plastered on her face not caring a thing about the men who are trying in vain to get a white girl to dance with them.

I realize she is getting high when I get up to smoke and she joins me leaning heavily and onto me as she does it. These two Indian guys who have just come into the club are attempting to get her attention. As she comes back after she speaking to them, she goes, “I don’t like Indian guys.”  She then tells me she worked in India for a while in the late 90’s. I ask the question. “How old are you”

“I’m forty two!” she says and drags heavily on her cigarette.

“What the fuck!” all the while I had been thinking she was in her late twenties at the most, and she looks it.

The whisky is gone, we call for another. The fat bouncer comes back to inquire if we are okay. I ask Davy to keep her busy as I visit the Johns. The disco lights are casting a spiraling effect, I feel like I’m spinning round and round with them. My friend Teach hands me a Guiness which Kate grabs from my hand. “I have had enough of the Whisky.” She says nuzzling next to me, a cigarette in her other hand. I light it for her. The Indians are looking at me with what I perceive to be animosity. One of them comes over to ask for a Fag. I’m tempted to refuse him but I give it to him anyway.

I’m thinking, forty two? I really wanted to tap that! Now she is almost as old as my mother. 

@mossetti

CHANGES

CHANGES

The weather has changed.

Lately you cannot anticipate the rain. Once it has given its warning, it pours from the skies at its own discretion. Before, it used to start raining from the hills, you could watch it advance as you did the last minute shelter oriented preparations. You could watch it come, usually from the east, seen as a milky mist that could cover the hill, then spread around until you heard it drumming on the iron sheet rooftops of the town center. Then it was time to go inside. Listening to an old man speak the other day, he referred to it as the rain is falling ‘from the nape’.

As kids, School holidays were characterized by countless days spent patronizing the river valley. Under ruse of going to graze the cows, we could stay the whole day  engaging in all the games we imagined possible. The river valley had not been cultivated yet and it was one sprawling grassland punctuated by random thickets and bushes. The banks of the river were full of trees which gave the river a kind of privacy from the rest of the world. Under the shade of these trees, we could sit, light fires and burn the juicy maize cobs or potatoes which we had ‘picked’ from one of the neighboring shambas, thus completing our menu for lunch. Then we could swim until the shadows grew long and thin by which time we couldn’t hear ourselves properly owing to the water in our ears.

The river valley has been cultivated, the trees from the banks have been cleared away and presently you cannot find a single surviving thicket thanks to the charcoal burners and the growing population. The river is no longer as serene as it used to be, the long soft grass, the kind that is makes thatch that was witness to a lot of illicit affairs is no longer there. At one point, the river opens up to form a pool where we used to swim, in our time a tree branch overhung from the bank where we could crawl and dive into the river. All gone. Am told no one even bothers to put that concoction of herbs we used to put in the river when the waters were low to make the big fat mudfish that were a delicacy to us rise drunkenly to the surface.

I am home alone. All the friends I grew up with are away. Since Dommy’s house burnt down, he vowed never to come home, I haven’t seen the dude ever since I was in seconds year. I hear Phanice got married. I can’t find Alex, after finishing from the police academy, he rarely ever comes home.  Edna got married, she now has a kid. No one know where Linet is, Zippy is in Nairobi, she tells me she plans to be married soon and Dorothy flew to the States.

The other kids, the ones we always counted as too young to join our games or those who played children while we played the parents in Kalongolongo have all grown up. They are now strapping brawny young men just breaking their voices and starting to notice the girls. They sit by the rails on the bridge waiting and discussing as we once did.  My own brothers are in this lot. I remember my time here, I remember almost being beaten because of some girl and then almost being beaten again after I had taken Paul to go see Lydia.

My primary school tutor began an Academy  Primary School, way to go man! The school has picked up. One thing about this guy, he never even for one moment ever did treat me as a kid in all the time he was my teacher. He used to tell me everything, his plans, his aspirations for his family and his zeal to learn. He has just completed his diploma and is starting his degree programme in August.  This he tells me over drinks in a bar he began but had to sell due to community pressure. Apparently he was growing too fast for the community’s liking so he had to sell the Bar or else his wife had started saying that he wants to marry another woman and stay at the bar since its some distance off from their homestead.

All the talk I seem to be hearing all over whenever I meet the older portion of the village is how I have become a young man and how I should think about marrying. I fear I am going to be a disappointment to these folks. Marriage is the furthest thing from my mind at the moment. I am still deciding on what I want to do with my life. I am at that stage where having a conversation with people feels bothersome, I’d just rather be left alone to my wiles, but how do you tell your mother that you don’t feel like conversation and that you just want to be alone? And that when she is used to your bubbly nature and sunny disposition

College is done. I need to go out there find a job. The prospect of being all alone in the big wide world is scary. My mother is being of no help either from the way she is speaking. Today the conversation at the table was about this family who all went to college to do education, about six members from the same family. Mum is insinuating that had I done education I could have found a job without any hassle. All am asking for is cash to go rent a house with and start tarmacking, my parents all seem to be broke.

 @mossetti

HOME

HOME

Dorca the neighbor from the other end of the village comes in charging. Purposely as if tasked with the responsibility of the world, she marches and in a booming voice asks, “who is in this compound?”

She has always had a heavy voice, a voice so heavy when she quarrels, the whole village is witness to her squabbles. This doesn’t help either when her husband, a soft spoken guy with the disposition of a retard and the anger to match decides to go ape on her and chases her around the village. The husband is a barrel of a man, and almost shy. A strict protestant, he frowns on people doing anything on the Sabbath, even the tenants on his piece of land are prohibited from doing anything on those lands during Saturday. I remember as a kid, the family used to own some guavas which to us kids were a juicy delicacy. A gang of little boys and girls swarming up the three trees that produced the juicy delicacies would take to his Shamba when the fruits were in season. We’d come on weekends when we were not attending school and terrorize his guavas. It always ended up in a game of hide and seek with everyone scrambling down the branches at a speed monkeys could have envied. Then there was this thing where you could never climb down a tree the same way you went up, to prove your prowess you used a branch and if it wasn’t low enough, you had to jump. Anyone afraid to do so was labeled a total sissy. So the husband used to chase us, his big tummy quivering up and down as he furiously mouthed obscenities to us in low mumbles. We even had a nickname for him, Marindi, owing to his fat legs and barrel of a body.

My mother answers, “we are in the house, what is it?” we are having lunch, kienyeji vegetables; masosa mixed with enderema , Ugali and curdled milk. Oh how I have missed curdled milk all the time I have been away at school.

She wants to call her son using my aunt’s phone. She had called earlier to ask for money with which to buy unga to to cook Ugali for the men repairing one of the doors in her shack of a house. Mom tells me later that the son had bought cement, sand, timber and even paid the Fundi to come do the repair. “Just lunch money is what makes a mother bother her sons like that? No wonder her sons are so rude to her on phone,”

This is how the conversation between my mother and her goes.

 “I want to call my son to send me money to by flour to cook ugali for the Fundis. I have even already cooked the vegetables, can you imagine up to now they haven’t eaten” she booms pauses for effect and then continues, “or could you spare me a kilo of flour and I will give it back to you later.”

“Where did you take your phone?” my mother asks.

“It is at the fundi being repaired, do you think that is a phone I have? It’s just scrap. So anyway, I had spoken with him earlier and he told me he was going to sends something on Mpesa.”

“Dorca, do you mean to say that you cannot afford to get lunch for your Fundis?” mom inquires

“where do I get the money?”

Then the palaver takes an unexpected twist.

“even those women I have living in my house cannot contribute food, they are in the house right now drunk and sleeping. Can you believe I hear one had 200 shillings which she finished at the Chang’aa place.” She says conspiratorially.

“Well, it’s your fault, you made them get used to that kind of a life.” My mother points out.

“She flings out her hands dramatically and says, “I’m tired I can’t handle them any more, they have defeated me.”

My mother steers the topic back to hand.

“My phone doesn’t have credit, why don’t you go buy Bamba and come speak with him?”

“Let me see about that then.” She responds and shuffles away not to return.

As she leaves my mother switches into gossip mode, “some women really have bad manners. Imagine the house she that is being repaired is the same house they sold land some years ago to build, that door had been rained so much it rotted away and they were almost sleeping in the open. Now that the son has offered to repair it for her, how difficult is it to get lunch for her Fundis?” I realize this question is rhetorical as my mother goes on, “those women you hear her talking about, the younger one is her grandchild and is a prostitute and she drinks like a fish. The elder one is her sister-in-law’s child who I hear couldn’t maintain her marriage so was kicked away. She had started of nicely doing business before she started interacting with the likes of, Irene, then her life went downhill. Irene and her gang is not good company, they can totally ruin you.  But she is such a strong worker, she wakes up at four, goes digging, by six she is in the tea plantations plucking tea, and by nine she is back to the again digging. Where does one get such energy, does she smoke Bhang?” My mom muses to herself.

To keep the conversation going, my aunt and I grunt along and punctuate her tirade with random questions.

“What became of the younger sister to the elder girl, the sister-in-law’s kid, I ask.

“She got married, I hear she lives in Nairobi with her husband these days, sometime ago she came home and she was looking really smart.” Mom answers me and goes back to her tale.

“will a grown woman live her life begging from other people, am sure she will not return with the credit, that is the kind of thing she likes, she borrows, salt from here, cooking fat from there and even fire. You know she says she can’t even work for anything. She has sold her land almost up to her doorstep. And the children she is bothering for money are not even employed, like the eldest son finished from a teacher’s training college with his wife recently. They even lessened her load by taking one of the younger kids to live with them. Her eldest daughter resorted to prostitution some time ago and Dorca used to tell her, please send me sugar, oh am sleeping hungry I don’t have anything to eat, some women really have no shame.!” With this she concludes her gossip and changes the topic to something else.

After lunch I decide to go visit that old lady who usually fills me in on all the village stories that have passed me by since I was last home. On the way there, I decide to pass by Deno’s. Deno is my childhood friend, on the way there, I meet Mogere his best friend and we proceed there.

We don’t find him but his wife is there, sweeping the compound, she is heavy with child and she has another daughter who is just starting to make coherence in her sentences when she speaks. Very cute too. I remember how Deno married, looking back now, it almost seems like a joke. He used to date this girl and I recall how she used to visit, then one day she came and she never went away. Now they seem happily married and yet they are both just kids in their early twenties.

The woman I wanted to see is not at her place. I had told her I could come today after she asked me yesterday why I had not been to see her. She also asked me when, I‘d bring home a girl. Her eldest son has married, I was a class ahead of him in secondary school, after he finished he joined the police force and has graduated not long ago from training school. “We could not allow the money to go anywhere else once he finished and started working so we advised him to bring home a girl so we can see where the money was going, you also do the same once you find a job. The world has become a dangerous place these days.” She told me.

As I leave, they clouds are casting a grim shadow in the air with promise of heavy rains. I want to listen to music as I walk home but I realize I forgot my earphones. Heck! This is the village, who cares? I put on the music anyway and walk along as I listen to the Essential Mix by Perseus and Jonas Rathsman.

@Mossetti

BAGHDAD

I haven’t been to Baghdad for a while.

Kama’s place is unusually crowded today. Groups clustered together each holding a joint in their hands in the waning African sunset. Low mumbles and sharp intakes of breath can be heard as the guys chase the smoke down their lungs with puffs of air. A majority of the guys are standing while some sit on the grass silently puffing away. Strangers brought together by the necessity of an addiction or an escapism from reality, or heck! just the need to lead life from a different dimension.

Baghdad is a pretty little den of all the lowlifes of Town. This used to be formerly municipal land that lay barren for so long squatters made it their home. As is characteristic of most shanties, there is nothing permanent here. Structures composed hastily of mud and poles and iron sheets to provide a resemblance of a home dot the landscape. The land sits on a slope that dip all the way to a stream that divides the slum from Juakali an estate just beyond the other rise of the slope.

Flanking Kama’s little shanty or ‘business place’ or base as it is commonly labeled in street lingo, is another shanty that houses a whole family of (not to be insensitive) prostitutes. Apparently they are all women one of them elderly. The women have a child about three years old who is normally left in the care of the elderly lady. The other ladies, I do not know how many of them share the shanty as I see a lot of them come and go. Kama had told me they all live there but I never wanted to pry in as much as curiosity was gnawing at my insides.

Baghdad also boasts of its own opinion leader. He is the official lawyer, village head, landlord,(block buster) sometimes judge and when the situation fits adviser. Drama is the norm of the day in the shanty, Today, a woman is dead and they are trying to organize the burial. Interestingly, the woman had a lot of money by slum standards which is causing ripples through the society. Everyone wants a piece of this money and yet the funeral has to be organized. They have found Sh 84,000 hidden in all nooks and crannies in her shanty. The Chama she subscribes to also say she has saved around Sh 37,000 in their group. The opinion leader is at the thick of it telling Kama and anyone who cares to listen how the money has been budgeted; a certain amount will go the coffin, a little towards printing pictures and eulogies, a little for radio announcement, a lot will go towards food and so forth.

It is the Easter weekend and the town is full. Good Friday people! The town was crowded. “Hata huwezi jua nani mkirstu nani mwislamu.”  Kama tells me as an ice breaker. “Ehe Arif, leo watu walikuwa msikiti, wengine kanisa, si tao imejaa,” he tells me as he hands me a joint. A little while later, a probox parks the nearby. It hoots and some street urchins come calling him, “unaitwa kwa ile gari” one of them excitedly announces. “Jeshi, sipendi hiyo gari, hizo ndio zile magava hutembelea.” He tells me and stoically stands his ground.  A little while later on, a guy gets out of the vehicle and walks over, “Kama si ukam, ni kina nani wanakuita,” he says. “Oh ni wewe,” Kama responds and continues, “hizi gari mimi sijawaizipenda kabisa!” He walks over to the car, another transaction in progress. Kama sells to everyone indiscriminately, he is well known through the town and one could be surprised at the number of suits that stop at his base!

As I leave I use the path that will lead me straight to behind the market. The path cuts through living houses, eateries where you can have your fill at twenty shillings and have your stomach grumble for a year. Here the refuse of normal food is sold, chicken legs, chicken heads, cow legs and heads, name them. People are clustered in groups discussing whatever it is people in groups discuss. I do not linger to find out. The ditch has been re-dug probably to direct the run-off now that the rainy season is here. Behind the video showing room where they charge ten shillings to watch a movie, the woman who sells samosas is busy selling to the crowd gathered by her jiko in total disregard of their safety. One wrong move and one will tumble into the cooking oil. Fortunately it has never happened.

By the time I get to the Market place and start home, the evening light is almost dying away. The stalls stand lazy amidst the hustle and bustle as the traders pack their wares for another day. Baghdad is visible in the background, shadows and silhouettes in the young African night.

@mossetti