Help, I'm feeling sooo paid!

WERE WA'SHITSESWA has been observing what happens to people after they get paid at the end of the month. Here, have a look at his "exclusive" investigation.

You don’t wanna be broke at this time. Nuh. This is high time. Big time. Holy time. It is time to visit every floor of the supermarket and still smile at the cashiers. It is time to watch news with legs on the table. It is a time to eat good and tell the body “sorry”. It is end-month.

End-month is a time to sleep with change. It doesn’t matter how long it has taken to collect it, nor how hard the journey has been. It doesn't matter how long the change lasts. You sleep with change and that's what goes to the bank. You have change in the pocket; change in the wallet; change in the bedroom; and your table never lacks a note or two. Your biggest problem now is how to spend.

You see, folks be like: Life is hard. Life is hard? End-month is time to fear going to paradise: there’s a better one on earth. Life is hard? Time you wake up and see this angel waiting by the bedside, then spend the day with the smile of that angel, in the fragrance of roses, and brightness of the day, and the cool of the wind, and the warmth of what they call beauty. And you can decide to have angels. Just pressing a button. Tap: Entre Angel. Tap: Exeunt Devil. Tap: Happiness in the backstage. Tap: Honey and milk. Tap. Tap. What money can do . . .?!

End-month is time to call Steve and wonder why he is still in the village. Today you are asking Steve why the president sank the ship with two-point-something billion stuff. Billion? You want Steve to tell you if Lesotho is bigger than Africa. Today, you are a stable member of Tetemesha. When Steve hangs up from the other end, you curse and complain why the nerd doesn’t wanna talk these days. 

You dial Mesh and Sam and Don and Tash. You even call the plot gateman to wish him a good night.

Now, if the landlady wants to come, let her. A very mean badger. Sadist too. But it’s time to make peace and smile. Even Dorcas the grocer is gonna be paid. It’s time to smile to the taut at the bus station. It’s time to visit the tailor for newer designs. 

You nurse a young beard and a moustache, each has a barber and it’s time to engage them. Still there is change to sleep with at the end of the day. 

 

There is only one end month in a month. No month has an end-month in its middle. You walk on the streets wearing that YOLO look. And you discover for the first time that streets can as well have only happy faces. 

It’s only the guy selling rubber stamps that doesn’t smile; but how do you when you spend your entire year counterfeiting stamps and seals? Spill-over benefits see the kid on the street happy too. Everyone on Facebook is posting pics of happiness. I swear it is happiness.

End-month is what comes at the end of every month. A month is a working period. After work, it’s time to go roving. At end-month, Madam doesn’t need to whine for holiday. Holiday comes to Madam. Nakuru for flamingos, Mombasa for the beaches, Masaku for bitches (hey! I mean), choose any destination and go relax. Kampala, ooh Kampala! I will come back, dear nice, sweet, lovely Kampala.

Merry.

But as you make merry, remember there is mid-month, and there is a last quarter of the month. There are kids to go to school. There are in-laws with reproductive hospital bills and there are cousins to be arrested. Be moderate.

Happy end-month.

Close your books; let’s have some staffroom gossip

Want some bit of staffroom gossip? WERE WA’SHITSESWA has lots of it.

Last Monday, Joyce Makongolo called the principal. She called the principal to lament that her son was being savaged and denied constitutional rights and freedoms. Said her son should never be canned, nor slapped, nor kicked, nor be frowned at. That her son, second born, was no donkey for the school. And so the principal is very cross.

The principal is very cross — with you.

Joyce, wife to the late councillor, said that next time she heard any such complaint from her son, she is sure gonna take matters into her hands. You don't want Joyce to do that, do you?

Well, some introductions.

Joyce is the area nominated county rep (she got 16 votes compared to the winner’s 1,632). Joyce has been donating goodies to the school since her nomination and has already vowed to bring condoms if the Bill goes through. Very economical with reason and last time I checked, she wanted to upgrade a school into a college while still retaining the entire staff.

Allan, on the other hand, is a bright student who sits at the back bench of Form Two South. His brightness starts and stops in the dining hall. In class, Allan is a genius in failure, and last term you had to spare eight teaching weeks just encouraging him to accept that his name must always start with a capital letter. In the process, before your giving up, you used some non-diplomacy, and he did not get it funny. Allan is Joyce's second born.

Now you see why this thing is a tough thing?

The principal — who is in charge of your hire, tire, and fire — is cross. The principal, who wants the school a beneficiary of well-wishing, is mad. How can you, the small person, mess up the fortunes of the institution?

“But you gave him punishment when you knew whose son he was! You have destroyed us, and this we cannot accept.” That’s what you were told in that court where the judge is the plaintiff too.

Boss, they cannot accept this! What? What then?

You have been here for the last seven months and life’s been somehow better. You now have a handkerchief and you bought a new ex-UK phone. You have come to know the price of an egg and you now know that Sidika is a person while sticker is a leaflet.

These days you brush your shoes at the shoe-shiner’s and there are already some lipstick eyes looking at you suggestively whenever you pass by the salon downtown.  

You think of where you’ve come from. Hard days of unsuccessful tarmac-ing and bitter eyes from matatu touts who think money is plucked from some avocado tree at home. Dragging nights on empty stomach. Hide-and-seek games with the landlord who does not speak your language. No, sir; you don’t wanna go back there.

Number One should not get mad this way. It was only a little slap on the cheek, and little slaps on the cheek are known to do miracles these sides. Shh, it happens.

Getting a job is anything but Pampers’ business. You also want to be in the same position as others. You want to look Safaricom in the eye and smile. There are bills to pay and bribes to give and someone’s daughter to spoil. There are those young ones who have introduced your name in some nursery school registries and you don’t want to meet the children’s rights officers a second time. There is an aunt who wants a lesso and an uncle who says you should complete the dowry your father failed to finalise.  

For a second, you look at the bunch of books on your desk and you get angrier. Inside those books are sentences written breaking the very rules you've been parroting about. Inside those books are names of cities, teachers, village elders, rapists . . . all starting with small letters while the writers are somewhere near a canteen or dozing in another lesson.

But you should not slap. The mother of Allan says that even a bad eye at her child is not allowed! This joke must go to the World Cup . . .

Just then, the phone rings and you startle up. It is mid-month and so the nursery school teacher of your last kid should not be the one calling. You fish the phone out and fortunately, it is not the madam. But it is Yours Employerly, and he wants to see you in his office immediately. In other news, you are back to home.

And Karma is a pagan.

Mornings of waking up on an empty stomach again? Just one pair of shoes for the road. Chilly rainy mornings escaping taxi drivers and anti-loitering police all in one stride. Days of counting cockroaches on the ceiling. No phone. No friends. No contact with the world. No eggs. No one even saying the fat kid she is expecting is yours.

Allan! Allan is the next client at the morgue.

What you should know about Stend Kisa and its many cases (Part II)

Then you don't know Stend Kisa and its stage for vehicles!

The manambas of Stend Kisa tussle. I mean, even before the vehicle fills to capacity, which happens just after every solar eclipse, there they are! One is in a faded UDF T-shirt and miraa suffocating his teeth somewhere. Fighting over a woman's luggage. 

The woman eventually enters, followed by her four children of equal height. Their heads resemble tortoises, and so with no ill intent you baptise them Likhutu-wan, Likhutu-tuu, Likhutu-tsiri and Likhutu-foo. She sits next to you, and places Likhutu-tsiri on Likhutu-wan, Likhutu-wan on Likhutu-foo, and Likhutu-foo on her laps. You have no otherwise but to find space for Likhutu-tuu on your laps, plus a noisy hen, the sugarcane they've bought from commercial fear, a burst baloon and seven nosefuls of pungent urine fumes. 

Oh her God, who has taken her purse?

But you cannot claim to have been at Stend Kisa stage if you didn't see Amigo. Amigo is a legend around here, and all who hear of him always know him first sight. You see, even Amigo himself believes he is crazy! But we all know what he does, because you can never fail to get the strong Luanda (holy) weed if he is around stage. Ever present. 

The only time he ever avoided the place was some April day in 2002, when the marketters (villagers?) decided without dialogue to force body hygiene onto everyone. But in those rags, Amigo is an asset to the transport guys. He scares children and pregnant women into vehicles to Kisumu or Lubao or to their safety. 

Young college girls and frightened city dwellers also hasten into vehicles whenever amicus Amigo approaches. And manambas regularly tip him for services. Thank the skies, no sane woman can dress the Nairobi way when they travel through Stend Kisa, otherwise they might see what the woman of Murang'a saw one fateful day, long time ago, courtesy of Amigo.

And our Stend Kisa has an average of three beggars a day. No, not those scared faces who claim having lost money after the manamba scuffles around them. Stend Kisa has regular proffessional beggars who call you Al-Shabaab or Olelengo when you don't drop something into their bowls. One is called Salimu. Salimu tells us he was born blind. But he always knows when to remind you that you should not return that one-thousand-shilling note into your pocket. 

Whatever he smokes, it is not kitchen smoke. But I am not through with Salimu: he crosses the busy Stend Kisa road all by himself, appears at vehicle 'windows' all by himself, always removes and hides the big note from the bowl all by himself, avoids hitting the sales woman's maize cobs all by himself, yet he asks you to walk him to the food kiosk, and asks you whether you have paid for his meal so God could bless you. 

Last time a person at Stend Kisa told me that my new leather (!) belt was smart, and you wouldn't want to know who that was.

This Stend Kisa bus stage, brethren, will kill someone some day!

What you should know about Stend Kisa and its many cases (part I)

We have Westernised cultures and westernised bus stops. WERE WA'SHISTESWA tells you more about what to expect in a bus stop full of people from the western part of Kenya.

They call it Stend Kisa bus stage, although bicycles, camels and beggars stop there too. In fact, majority of vehicles here are vans, pick-ups, cars and lorries before you even think of Msamaria or Mbukinya. The stage is known from Lwanda to Mulwanda; Khwisero to Khayega to Malakisi to Funyula, and Msamaria Mwema touts of Nairobi know it also. 

Stend Kisa bus stage is not your everyday bus (and camel) stop: it is peculiar; distinct. When you go to Stend Kisa bus stage, unless you didn't go there, there are things that can never escape your eye.

There is this woman selling onions, sugarcane and boiled groundnuts. She always has on her leso and rubber shoes that reveal more toes than hide. She is fat, tough looking and with a muscle you would never wish to meet. 

In fact, she must be doing more of her selling through infliction of this commercial fear than business attraction. The way she sits on that her wooden stool will make you define your qualities of a mother in law, but the way she frowns at a non-buyer makes you hate poverty. 

Stend Kisa bus station has the manambas. For those who need definition, a manamba is that samaritan who knows of your journey more than you do, and that you need his accurate and unparallelled advice while you are at it. They are always there. Chofrii, Kition, Mrefu, Mandeke, Chonii, among others. 

You must see them because those unchoreographed calls will not allow it otherwise. To call passangers to their ship, they whistle, they whine, they bray, they howl, they hoot, they shout, they purr; but still remain manambas looking for the day's flour. 

The vehicles at Stend Kisa have boards showing the destinations for each, but still Chofrii will insist on wanting to help you know where to go. And this is help, until you play contrary to their script. Then you start to know how you have an ugly eye or how you are proud without education or even the secret of why your spouse abandoned you.

Next time schools open, I will never attend to sons of some professionals in my class, unless someone apologises.

But they are not alone. There is always this or that conductor asking where boss you are going. You play sharp and ask him where his metal junk (pronounced as 'chopper') is headed. He tells you. You say you are not going there. He asks again where it is you are going therefore. His vehicle seems to be going everywhere now. You say Khumusalaba to buy a dog. He says come he in fact has one space for Khumusalaba before the van leaves for Butere. You say you are not going to the Khumusalaba of Butere but that of Soi. He says no problem, come with him he has space for that too. He even has a hand on your sisal sack that should carry your pet back. You are cornered. You tell him to leave you alone. He calls the manambas, and they give you collective insults. Boss, you never mess with those of Stend Kisa.

But even that's not all. When you eventually enter the matatu comes the sales boy. Weak, mulnourished and disillussioned, he looks like he shall collapse in his next blink. His shirt has three rat holes near the left shoulder-line, but he is yet to start knowing inconfidence. 

Like his other compatriots, he sells everything too. Sells Nacet, a jembe, Eveready, tealeaves, shirt buttons, needles, bar soap, bamba ten, cutex, Dasani and rat poison. In the other hand are sachets of groundnuts, two cobs of roasted maize, a roll of polythene rope, toothpaste, ginger biscuits, mukombera, a roast chicken leg, and a woman's panties. The only things I don't see are the Femiplan female condom and Aromat. He also has fishing lines for sale. Don't ask me how he carries all. I also don't know. He insists you should buy.

Ignore him? 

(Part 2 coming soon)

How about everyone aborting the very idea of having an abortion?

JUSPER MOINDI asserts that something ought to be done about abortion. And fast.

In my daily scrutiny on the female gender at close quarters, I am always compelled to digest and accept things the way they are. I know we all have our own flaws that might have placed the cat amongst the pigeons, but to be precise with some ladies, their asset column has done so badly on their balance sheet. You may choose to be at odds with me, but that’s welcome.

Pick my brains on this and I will tell you where the dog died.

Mark you; I have no personal vendetta against the female gender and am not cultivating the sense of bigotry here. Mine is to undress and cascade their most vociferous antics. So please, put this in your pipe and smoke it.

When I tell people of this day and age that life nowadays is a journey to Damascus with thorny passages and contrived corridors, most of them say that my presumption is for the birds.

Instead of being vigilant of the perils imposed therein, they choose to move at a different orbital. You don’t need a degree or a certificate to understand this.

In your daily rounds, you must have seen a good number of full-fledged chaps and ladies in the jam-packed pleasure of life. What if their mothers decided to destroy them in utero, robbing them of all their experiences in this world? 

I know if I try to run this flag of abortion up the flagpole, most ladies will not salute to it. I know most of them will not embrace abortion but paradoxically, if you go to their circles, abortion stories will always hit the headlines.

Most ladies have opted to set sail on the ocean of love but alas, most of them have been wasted in the desert! Their dignity has been discolored in the sea of nameless faces of men who knock at their door of love, take advantage of the fruits falling from that ‘tree’, and then end up leaving them in blues.

A little bird was telling me that, if you bump into a lady who has gone through campus life and has not done an abortion or stewed in her own juice of unwanted pregnancy, then that lady deserves a cookie.

With due compliance, give credits to that lady because, while others are sketchily “opening legs” and busy doing abortions, she has chosen to tack in her deeds, nature the pregnancy and take care of the child.

The other day, a fully-grown fetus covered with a polythene bag was found dead in the dustbin near the female hostels in Moi University. I was engrossed with the way people acutely lamented on this abysmal skirmish of an innocent creature.

All and sundry squeezed out their ire against this “callous ghost” that killed an infant, and as if that was not enough, she chose to throw him in a dustbin. Probably, even the lady who did it, under false pretenses, was remorseful to the “Jezebel” that robbed the life of that innocent child.

Folks, it’s ill-fated that an archetypal lady, a prospective wife and mother, can choose to be that heartless and cold blooded. I’m afraid, if crocodiles decide to eat their own eggs, what would they do to the flesh of a frog?

Indeed, a budding criminal that has really harvested gigantic proportions, is the frequency of abortions. It’s typical for people to cohabit. No strings attached. I know people like sex and it is a basic need to some. But why can’t we be wary of the dangers tagged therein and own responsibility when the rain falls? Day in day out, abortion stories make the headlines.

At least you will hear it daily that an idiot somewhere has done antenatal murder. Why should you elect to destroy the life of thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo? Ladies, I loathe on the type of culture that we are cultivating.

Well, to some extent, I can give ladies a benefit of doubt. There is no woman who wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or Porsche! She wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg. She wants an abortion because she has no option especially when “her man” fails to be responsible of the pregnancy.

The other day, a lady friend attacked me that ladies don’t get pregnant miraculously. They don’t get pregnant through the Holy Spirit. That only happened to Mary, the mother of Jesus. It’s the men who make them pregnant and then ignore to take responsibility.

Well, that is logical. If men were equally at risk from this condition, if they knew that their bellies might swell as if they were suffering from end-stage cirrhosis, if they knew that they would have to go nearly a year without a stiff drink, a cigarette or even an aspirin, if they knew that they would be subject to fainting spells and unable to fight their way onto the commuter trains, then am surefire that unwanted pregnancy would be classified as sexually transmitted disease and abortions would be no more controversial than emergency appendectomies.

The day I saw the "error" in "terror"

ABU OKARI describes a moment in Nairobi that set his mind rolling on matters of dying for 72 virgins, ethnic profiling and the terrorism question

I couldn’t help admiring the man’s guts.

He approached the matatu slowly. It was parked, waiting for people headed to Nanyuki. We had taken our seats but were waiting outside for it to fill up. The streets were busy and it felt like everybody was travelling at once. And downtown Nairobi is the epicentre on upcountry travel. We were at Tearoom.

His beard was dyed light orange, the hue of the sky when the sun is on its very final moves down the horizon. He wore a fairly decent pair of trousers, a shirt and a half coat that is very liked among the Somali community, at least the ones that I see.

He approached the kange and the driver who stood at the front of the matatu, and had a chat with then.  Then he approached the matatu, a laminated document at heart.

He said his name after a hello. I didn’t get it, I was interested in the story, the details.

 “I am a refugee from Somalia,” he continued, raising his laminated document. “This is from the UNHCR and the Kenyan government, proof of my refugee status. And these here”, he turned the document over, there were black and white photos of ladies in hijab, “are my daughters”.

“We have no eaten in three days because we cannot come out as the government wants to send us back.” He paused, I think for effect.

I wondered where he had done this severally. Although he broke sentences unexpectedly, and picked up from anywhere, he was pretty eloquent and comfortable in his little speech. His English was accented in the way Kenyan comedians like to stereotype the way Somalis speaks, “r” sounds showed up where you never expected them and he sounded as though the speaking was forced, but not anybody.

“If you have anything, maybe a hundred shillings, or fifty shillings to help me buy unga for my family, God will bless you.” He paused. The inside of the matatu was quiet for a while.

Will the reaction of the people in the matatu mirror what I had heard expressed elsewhere? I wondered.

At one point, I willed him to walk away before someone said something nasty.  I looked and waited. Then someone at the back seat thrust his arm forward with a hundred shillings.

I was surprised. But soon, more hands replicated the act, a hundred shillings here, and fifty shillings there. He stuffed them into his pocket.

“Thank you very much.” He said. The “r” in very vibrated and stretched a bit. “Have a happy Easter.” He added before walking away. I was awed by the people’s act. But being in Nairobi, I asked myself whether whatever the guy had said was true.

But it didn’t matter.  Whatever his motive, the outcome of the whole interaction said a lot about our society — that we are a surprising people who cannot be defined by one category. I was sure my Easter weekend was going to be happy, surprising and undefined.

The whole episode got me thinking how the blogosphere scares me, especially when the country breaks into two parts over an issue. Tribalism disguised as politics is one of those keg powder issues, another one that has come up recently is religion. From the moments the first shots are fired, there is no lull, human being after human takes to the blogosphere to express their feelings.

Some of them are ridiculous and callous. Take the recent crackdown on illegal immigrants in Eastleigh and a few other parts of the country. The government said it was looking for terrorists. Others, especially the Somali community and the Muslim community felt they were being targeted and profiled. And they made their thoughts known, the leaders on mainstream media, and the rest on social media.

And this is where the hot mess was. How people exchanged insults! How they spewed forth filth! How they let it be known what they thought of the other! 

Others made light of others beliefs. Of particular interest was the commonly used line that one of the gifts of those people who die for Islam is a gift of 72 virgins in Jannah. Also, the question of being fully Kenyan (sic) or half Kenyan (sic) was widely discussed, but not nicely. 

On several occasions, I asked myself what if some people act on these feelings. I heard stories (unconfirmed) of people alighting form matatus just because someone in Muslim garb boarded it. Then I realized people’s thoughts had moved into feelings, and wondered if this was a common thing. The blogosphere makes it sound like people are about to pounce on each other.

That is why, my heart momentarily stopped when I saw the daring man over the Easter weekend. 

The fun of being a football fan

Fasten your seatbelts and hold your stomachs tight as WERE WA'SHITESWA describes to you the horror that comes with being a football fan. 

Being a football fan is news. News to your mother, your wife and everyone else who strives to shun you.

You must have a hard heart. A hard heart is not just a heart to accept defeats and embarrassment; here, nigger needs more. Like, when someone Hai-Faifs you for a greeting, you need to respond the same way you do to those who ‘Honey’ and ‘Sweetheart’ you.

When people smile in public, you control yourself not to oversmile. Trouble is that if you smile it all today, what shall you smile tomorrow when your boys are being sixed right centre and left? Boss, you must reserve your smile for future use. Free advice.

Then you happen to be in the stadium. Those hooligans have hammered you one already and they have pitched camp in your half. You develop a flying stomach and wish there was a washbush around. The big striker from the opponent team is now making a threatening run into what you call your eighteen. You contract every muscle on your body. Contract your mouth and everything that resembles a mouth. Clench a fist, grip your jaws and eyebrows get a muscle pull. You hold that breath and before you realize your armpits are dripping, the striker strikes! It hits the far pole back into the field of play. The ball is cleared. Lucky. You free two muscles for the task ahead.

Being a fan is bad news.

Your mouth must learn to yell the hell throughout the ninety that make a match. It must learn to change shape into parallelogram, square, rhombus and that shape of amoeba; into shapes of the moon and the crescent. Can an owww, a pout, an argh, and a snarl be made in the same second? You must master the sounds of domestic animals and of those that mate in the bush. You must learn to bark like a hound, croak like a toad, rattle like what rattles… you just never know which player shall need what. To be that fan watching a live game, you must also get much from choreographers and speech therapists.

Your tongue must be beyond adolescence. Click at the linesman for raising that flag when your player makes the run for goal. You have been waiting for this single run for the last seventy three minutes. Worse still, the fella whom you bought the match ticket says the linesman is right; you get an appetite for human flesh but suppress it. Your player gets yellow-carded for saying what the referee does not want to hear. Second yellow. You kick at the bottle closest to your leg, miss it by inches, hit your toe on a stone and shout unprintables for the referee’s ear. You shout what you shouted to the politician who stole your votes. Your heavy tongue tears another click for the six-millionth time, you check whether all muscles of your body are still tight. Before long, the game restarts and the first single touch sees the ball sail over the twenty players in the middle before edging past an unprepared goon in your goal post. Opponent fans explode into jubilation. You remember it is taboo to cry.

Football be bad news, oga.

Trouble comes when the game is ending and the fans on your side are as mute as silence. You start remembering bad things. You also remember you have had a D-L-L-L-L-L luck in the last six outings. Even before your last draw, you lost. That was when the current coach came. Now it is nil-nil and the three minutes of added time are fast expiring. You are in prayers for a goal. Your team is attacking hard. Your strikers are terrorizing their defenders. Corner. Free kick. Corner. Throw-in. And then, God answers. Your striker beats their goalkeeper and sets a low one for the empty goal. Followed by the rest of the team, he starts running to the corner for celebration. You jump with noise and intentionally step on the toes of the one joyriding on your ticket. Little do you know that the ball has been cleared just from the line and the bad guys are now running alone for the counter. The next time you open your eyes, it is the turn for some heart attack. The net behind your goalkeeper is shaking, the keeper is looking at the fans like a fool and Mr. Referee is pointing to the centre. The coach must gooooo!

This thing is news!

You come back home and your wife thinks you are frowning for her. You aren’t given a grace period to explain. She says it must be the girl next door. Says she will claw her. In rage, she flushes your food in the sink and announces there is no gas in the cylinder. Go eat where you ate lunch. You remember you missed lunch and breakfast. You are still standing, Madam has switched into her night dress – tight jeans – and the lights go off from the main switch. A long mscheww.

Then your work place. First thing those people ask is how you faired. When you win, no one asks. Today, even your boss calls you for a chat. This is when Sam – and I don’t know why those mouthies always have to be Sam or Frank – reports to work still putting on that faded jersey of his. And he invites you for an evening drink, not that he will pay! Seeing your gloom, Sam innocently reminds you that YOU played well. That YOU did not deserve that red card. He wants a chat, this Sam, a chat where you must have a big African heart. The gateman, from a distance, looks at you in a manner to suggest he won’t mind weekend stories. That is when you realize you need to have preserved smiles earlier.

Yet not even a single radio station runs your profile for having not tethered yourself onto the ceiling!