Before Subaru owners and their car keys arrived on the scene, the social superstar was the man who carried a newspaper. In those days, newspapers opened hearts and we don’t know what else. Even if you had the added disadvantage of a pot and a bald head, carrying a newspaper gave you the added advantage that is comparable to a fat wallet today. As boys, we read newspapers cover to cover. If a visitor arrived bearing a newspaper, the menu was instantly revised upwards. I still have a hangover of those days. I do read my weekend newspaper slowly and studiously. So yesterday, I pushed my tummy labouriously to the salesman at the street corner. His stock was sold out, so I laboured my way to Kheti’a’s and endured the thermogun and the handwashing. (Why do they put those buckets so low that an otherwise dignified Kenyan has to bend painfully, oppressing his stubborn stomach and exposing boxers that testify to the owner’s poor sense of colour and age?) Armed with the paper, I pushed my expanded abdominal territory back, but with a prouder gait and an enthusiastic smile under the mask. Back at the house, I threw the paper on the shelf, crawled to the bedroom and collapsed on the bed to recover from the strain of the walk. Centuries later, I evolved from the pupa stage and walked to the living room, ready to read the paper, beginning with Kamau Ngotho, John Kamau, Makau Mutua, Gerry Loughran, Gavin Bennet and Lukoye Atwoli. But the newspaper was not on the shelf. I searched everywhere, including inside a tea flask. Giving up, I erupted, “Where is my newspaper?” “I used it to light the jiko,” came the reply from the housegirl, in heavy Ugandan English.
Posted by Mark M. Chetambe on Sunday, 21 June 2020
Free advice to Safaricom. You can modify your messages as follows:
1. Samahani, mteja wa nambari uliyopiga alikublock.
2. Sorry, you do not have enough credit to call Joseph. Please try calling the other Joseph.
3. You do not have enough funds in your mpesa account. Please humble yourself and borrow from Joy.
4. Your fuliza limit is below the poverty line.
5. The number you have dialled belongs to somebody who has saved you as ‘Idiot.’
6. The number you have dialled is currently pretending to be busy.
7. The mpesa money you sent to Patrick was withdrawn. Forgive him for not acknowledging.
8. For peace and national harmony, please don’t call this number after 7PM.
9. The person you have called is in Nakuru and not Siaya as he claimed.
10. Please do not send money to this number. It has 2000 reports of eating fare.Posted by Mark M. Chetambe on Tuesday, 9 June 2020
I read in some magazine that walking is a good way to fight against belly expansion. So, I have been doing some evening walking. One hour per session. Mashambani, Marrel, Kiwanja Ndege, Posta and back to Mashambani. Before every walk, I usually take two large mugs of water to oil the moveable parts. I wear an oversize jacket to hide the biological luggage. I wear a long cap to hide the bald head and the years. I wear a mask to threaten the virus, but also to enhance my disguise and keep off the temptations that one is likely to encounter on such important trips. I half close the left eye for the same reason. To complete the disguise, I walk like a penguin. Recently, I was enjoying the walk when I realized that the water I had taken had descended like a waterfall and quickly settled in my limited bladder. If you know how Ndakaine dam was at the peak of the floods, that is how my bladder was behaving. I quickened my pace. You know how the nearer to the home, the more the bladder riots? I was now walking like a matter of national urgency. Then at Posta, I bump into an old friend who is also a talented weaverbird. You know these guys whose sentences run into each other with neither a comma nor a fullstop? He was changing topics without swallowing saliva. Then he began the questions: Hii gorona unaona ikiisha? Na logotown watatoa lini? Pato uko tu na pipi mocha? Kwani ulitoka Tisedi kwa Makufuli na hausemi? I was spotwalking, you know…generally suffering on one spot by lifting one leg and then the other. I coughed, pocketed, shed a tear and growled, but as you know, weaverbirds are deaf to bladder language. Fellow Kenyans, why did we fight for independence only for a man to be recolonized by a weaverbird and a bladder?
Posted by Mark M. Chetambe on Sunday, 7 June 2020