My three year old gentleman forced me to go on all fours in the living room. He leapt on my back like a trained horseman. He forced me to trot around like a real beast of burden. Nothing is more painful than a big bellied, bald man playing on the floor. The skin on my knees was badly bruised. Later I hid in the bedroom to nurse my pain. Through the window, I heard him tell his playmates, “Baba yetu ni mzuri sana!” I was so proud! Kumbe this guy appreciates me! It must be because of my gymnastics genius, I thought. It must be because of playing donkey with his kilos on my back. I peeped. Shock of shocks… the fellows had selected the fattest boy in the neighbourhood, named him dad, and now they were heroworshipping him and misdirecting all respect to him.
Posted by Mark M. Chetambe on Saturday, 28 November 2020
I have discovered what has been preventing me from successful physical exercise. The enemy is mathematics. Imagine..I plan to do ten push-ups. I spend one hour preparing psychologically. I spend 30 minutes getting the potbelly out of the kitenge shirt, and other departments out of other prisons. I get into an ancient track suit and go down. I start counting. One! Two! Three! I become absent minded. “Si umefikisha kumi,” something whispers in my mind. I stand up. I check whether the pot has begun its journey towards six-pack. Of course it hasn’t, but what is life without hope? In the 2021-2022 financial year, my personal government will employ a Kenyan who passed maths to do the counting. I welcome early applications. Proof that you have participated in counting Jubilee and NASA votes, or counting people in a Kenyan census, will be a subtracted advantage.
Posted by Mark M. Chetambe on Saturday, 21 November 2020
When you are wrestling with an idea on the computer, you sometimes get to a point where your thoughts are on autopilot, flowing seamlessly like River Lukusi. That is where I was recently when the prepaid electricity metre began to beep. I am a typical Kenyan…I allowed it to beep away. I knew it still had 5 units. I would buy the tokens later. Then suddenly, the power went off. I quickly bought some tokens and went to the metre. It was dead. I panicked. I pressed all the buttons, but the thing could not blink. I called a technician. His phone went unanswered. I called a friend. He was more clueless than myself. I was planning to call KPLC, the minister of energy, the president and any descendant of the man who discovered electricity. But the technician called back. I became incoherent as I explained, “This thing has just died!” (The word metre disappeared when I needed it most.) He told me to slap it a few times and to pull at the cable. Remembering that I come from a family of talented slappers, I administered the slaps. Nothing. Pulled the cable. Nothing. Talked to it in mothertongue. Nothing. I was searching the place where I usually keep my tears when suddenly, the power came back on. Kumbe… it was just an ordinary blackout. You think I laughed at myself? No way! I just danced like that little lion in the KCB advert, and went back to the computer.
Posted by Mark M. Chetambe on Wednesday, 18 November 2020
I try to be a good citizen. I pay my taxes. I love our sportsmen and women. I don’t discriminate against anyone based on tribe, age, gender or religion. I try to work hard. In spite of being an introvert, I try to greet people and to smile. I love peace. I only have occasional quarrels with cockroaches and rats which stray from neighbours’ houses. I try to walk like a gentleman. I laugh when fellow Kenyans crack jokes, however flat. I am neither loud nor rude. I always act according to the constitution (the only part of the constitution I have failed to obey is the one that compels men to be polygamous.) Sasa, with all these good attributes, imagine, I get a haircut that leaves my bald head looking like an egg, I wear my favourite T-shirt, and while walking on the pavement like a future stakeholder and stickholder, an indisciplined bird releases its waste on my head.
Posted by Mark M. Chetambe on Thursday, 12 November 2020
My hobbies are changing. I no longer stress myself over little things like why a sandal has been lying upside down in the living room all day. I no longer worry about why identical socks never stick to their marriage vows. I no longer hide the baldness, or the stomach that is almost performing a handshake with the knees. I am at that stage where, if you want a Tachon wife, you can bribe me to negotiate dowry downwards. These days, the introvert smiles at cameras, awards graduands, reads recycled speeches, remembers to laugh before, during and after a joke is cracked, and no longer gets absent-minded in a crowd. Very soon, I might even start to dance in public , to hit small balls like golf, and to wave at imaginary crowds on the roadside.
Posted by Mark M. Chetambe on Tuesday, 10 November 2020
You wake up in an excited mood. You bathe like a groom. You eat your breakfast with sophisticated gestures. You select your best shirt, and for the first time in two years, you wear a tie. You select the only pair of socks that you bought after Kibaki’s retirement. You plant your feet in the shoes that your wife bought for you to wear on your last visit to her people’s village. You whistle as you lock the door, to ensure that a neighbour or two should accumulate some new respect for you. Instead of using the walking style that you inherited from your hunting-and-gathering clan, you employ highly scientific steps, like a future member of the Deep State of your village. On the street, you see a familiar Kenyan. You raise your hand and wave at him generously. He does not wave back. Meanwhile, the whole street has watched your hand go up. The amount of energy it takes your hand to come down to its usual place is enough to push a ‘mkokoteni’ from Gikomba to Timbuktu. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the reason why I sometimes spend a whole week indoors.
Posted by Mark M. Chetambe on Monday, 2 November 2020