I don’t love the sound of motorbikes nor that of generators. This is why I retract to my small cave of what people call loneliness and boredom. To me that’s bliss, that’s heaven. Nowadays, there are so many motorbikes in this God-forsaken village of Nasipa the latest being Karuko’s son who flaunts his Boxer motorbike everywhere. He has won the hearts of all the ladies including my Soila. Well, let’s say she is mine but am not hers. I wish Ole Karuko bought his son a boxer short so that he knows how to keep his manhood to himself and respect other people’s love life.
Anyway, who starts an introduction with rants and boxers? My name is Simintei, I don’t know which ‘born’ I am as I am not my father’s son. I am a bastard. I hear my mother slept with some Chagga man who had come to our home for some kibarua (odd-jobs). My father hated me. Let me rephrase, ‘My virtual father hated me with great passion and refused to take me to school.’ She also stripped my mother naked and tied her to the Olkiloriti tree near the cow shed and beat her mercilessly. She in turn suffered from depression and took her own life.
Jeez! Who again starts by going that raw? Forgive me but I am delighted to share my first piece with the world and with the world I mean you. The only other person who has read my pieces was Soila. Okay, I know I am boring. She just loved me because she pitied me but this monkey child of Karuko stole her away from me. I am used to coming last, I am fully aware that I am the scum of the society. They call me a ‘meeki‘ (non-Maasai) in a scorching village where you only need to learn Maasai to even speak to a dog. Olomunyak’s dog is called Bosco, we are best of friends.
I sincerely don’t want this piece to bring a wave of sadness around you but I need to introduce myself. I am a passionate reader and a witty writer. Having completely no one but my virtual father’s cows, scrawny hyenas, hedgehogs and sometimes Bosco, I taught myself that happiness is just a state of the mind. I know the depth of sadness. I have been in bed with the very nakedness of gloom so I strive to make others happy, others to me is now Bosco, Ole Karuko’s moilaa (dung beetle) stole my Soila. Aki this hurts so just allow me.
I am always reading something. During market days in Rombo, I go collecting newspaper cuts in butcheries. I would ask around from teachers and other muguka and njiri guys for books. They would call me Profesa, others ormalimui to mean teacher etc. I have many nicknames. I love the smell of old books. I taught my mind to be busy when I one day was suicidal and I ran towards a hungry lion to devour me. I wanted it to rip me apart instead but the thing chickened out. The thing ran like the Ole Karuko’s coward son they day morans were summoned to defend the community from angry elephants.
I know the wild, I have seen and conversed with all sorts of animals. Call me an animal whisperer. I have spoken to beetles, mice, skunks and recently, I have started speaking to leaves. Being rejected by the community and called all sorts of names has made me relate with other things that are not human. Most people say I am cursed, they say that my Chagga father cursed my mother because she refused to run away with her and that’s why she committed suicide.
Children are taught to fear me because I carry evil spirits and I refused to undergo both traditional and modern exorcism. I have herd my father’s cows ever since I was young. Luckily my mother ensured that I attended school until her demise back in class 6. I am a class 6 dropout, possessed by evil spirits, avoided by everyone and feared by all dogs except Bosco.
Recently, I sat face to face with Bosco and I told him, “Man, I am sorry I should have listened to you. You told me I have nothing to offer to Soila but I never listened to you. Instead, I would chase you whenever I was with her because I wanted privacy. Now it is me and you, it won’t happen again. We have so much in common, we are brothers you know? I have learnt to fear women.”
Bosco stared at me blankly, he knew I was lying but he then looked at his scars, he glanced at Tiger, Ole Karuko’s son dog, that has schooled in the Rombo Group of Schools, the best in Kajiado County and gets to lick fat and eat meaty bones at the orpul (slaughtering area). He then reminisced how Ole Naiguta beats him whenever he idles near the orpul and he realized that were two inseparable delinquents. He forgave me.
Bosco is like me, he is skinny, full of scars and hated by everyone in the society simply because of how he looks. Sincerely speaking (and I really so much hope Boco doesn’t read this as I have recently taught him how to read) he looks like the broke version of Akothee. I say sometimes the Lord puts you in a position so that you can learn humility. Bosco, doesn’t know what humility is. Despite him being stoned to the point of death (like the apostles) by children, he would still hunt and snatch their food. Pray for Bosco, he is ever learning but never coming to the understanding of truth.
It is pitch silent, and all you can hear is the smooth wind that licks the lazy leaves and brushes off the stubborn houseflies off Bosco’s eyes. For some reason I think when I read, Bosco internalizes. He sits very close to me when I read. Sometimes I am reading something funny and upon taking a glance at him, he is smiling as well. I usually keep a boundary, a great wall of China of some sorts because he doesn’t bathe. His lice is on another level. Inasmuch as I love him, there should be some boundary because he loves lice, I don’t, I am clean. What makes you think a damsel like Soila would be attracted to me?
I suddenly hear a sound I don’t like. The last time I heard that sound, Soila was gone. I wonder, “What would Ole Karuko’s coward be doing here, so deep in the bush?” True to my suspicions it was him. He was carrying two young men. They were light skin and they looked like two smokies that were just dipped in fat. These couldn’t survive Nasipa’s unforgiving sun.
“Simintei supa?” Ole Coward greeted me.
“Epa!” I retorted.
“Shie! Koree duo nkishu?” (Where are the cows?)
I almost threw my orkuma (a short thick Maasai stick) to his face but I realized that there were witnesses. The two city boys seemed learned. One looked like a lawyer. I decided to stomach it but then I realized this nincompoop was asking me a very valid question. The cows had gone too deep maybe even close to the Tsavo National Park fence.
He told me that he was helping the two young men identify their land. He asked if we would walk together as I went looking for the cows. I was infuriated. This baboon that stole my Soila was just a nincompoop, his minute brain was like a broken calabash that couldn’t even scrap the dead skin off a mad man’s heel. Sorry guys, I went too personal, I am fighting for my love. His father had done everything for him; taken him to the best school around but nothing would enter his thick cranium. His father has always wanted to see him succeed but he is just there, a lump of mud.
Before you crucify and hate Ole Coward, let me say that he has ever been with me through my darkest times. Despite everything, Ole Coward has sneaked food through a cranny in our manyatta when my dad ordered that nobody should give me food. He has housed me when I was chased away on a rainy day and has somehow been close since we were kids. He also let me read his books. I have learnt everything about primary school, high school and a little bit of college from his books. In fact, I taught him Maths and Sciences when he was in high school but despite all that, he had no right to take my Soila. Story for another day.
I reluctantly closed my book and started walking beside him. He told me in Maasai that the older light guy in a cap seems learned and I should take advantage and talk to him. But, I do not know how to talk, I only talk to Bosco. I am used to talking to dogs, and not decent ones for that matter. I talk to snakes, buffalos, skunks and other wild animals except giraffes. Giraffes look at me and run off. I hate them, they are not even beautiful, I think they should be named after Ole Karuko’s son.
Rombo group ranch was subdivided and it affected we who have resided there for years and these cool kids from Nairobi who have Maasai names but knew not the language were coming to displace us. But I am used to being sidelined, I don’t even have any inheritance, that will only affect my rich virtual brothers and sisters. So before I could even introduce myself, the guy in a cap stretched out his hand and said,
“Hello sir! My name is Siloma, you are?”
I was shook, nobody has ever addressed me in English my whole life. I almost pissed my pants, I actually did, some small droplets wet my trousers. Well, Ole Coward was used to this. I couldn’t speak, not because I never understood the language but for the first time in my life someone looked at me straight in the eye, stretched their hand out to me and found me worthy to be greeted in Queen’s English. It was an honor.
