THANK YOU, I am moving

Dear follower,

I hope this mail finds you well.

Writing has been a journey for me. When I started blogging, I did not know where it would lead to but one I was certain about is I loved to write. Writing to me is more than just putting words together, it is the only time I say what I want to say exactly how I would like to say it. It has been a good experience so far and I hope you had fun reading my blogs. The good ones, the not so good ones and the random ones.

I would like to let you know that I will no longer blog on blogspot. This blog will remain and die a natural death so you can always refer to it if you wish to. I am moving to www.stuttistics.com, I will let you know when it goes on air. Meanwhile, you can like my page on Facebook; STUTTISTICS to keep in touch with my new blogs on culture and football.

I hope I will get the time to write, entertain and educate you more as I learn myself.

Than you all and God Bless you indeed.

PEACE

While I was Away from Night Clubs

This past Madaraka Day weekend I went clubbing after a very long time, a decade to be precise. I have not told my lovely wife this, I pray she doesn’t read this. If at all she reads, may the heavens soften her heart. We were on a mission to a place called Kaimosi, if you don’t know Kaimosi I am sure you have heard of Shamakhokho. It is about two kilometres from this market with a luhyaisque name, where a man dared to stone President Moi’s motorcade during the 1992 general election campaigns.

We left Nairobi as the city is preparing to welcome Baba Raila Odinga. We decide to negotiate our way to Eldoret for the night. Unfortunately I am with an all clubbing crew, here I am, with people who can’t wait to enter a club called Spree in Eldoret. We get to Eldoret, and set out to look for dinner. Two people in our team grew up in Eldoret so they lead us to Kims Hotel. We hear it has finger licking chicken.

Only one of us is a Luhya, who claims to be the president of a breakaway republic called Eshitundu. We all went for our basic schooling in Kaimosi so we never lack the appetite for well cooked chicken. Kaimosi is the cradle of Christianity in Luhya land. The Quakers, also called Friends who used to pray with an earthquake sound in the earlier days landed in Kaimosi at the turn of twentieth century to set up a mission centre. It is said they had only about eight converts after sixteen years but the number shot up when they set up a water fall powered posho mill in the area. They had cracked the brief and found the way to the hearts of Tiriki people.

We get to Kims and make our orders. I ask for tea and it is brought in a flask. The others ask for 750 ml of John Walker. This bottle is commonly known as mzinga, or magazine, not the one with pages but the other one which can make you turn a new page into past tense. People must have felt fully armed when with a full bottle of alcohol, hence the name.

The men said they are men of few words in response to Johnie Walker’s fathers’ day advert.  Mbati is from Kisii but grew up among Luhyas, a very weird combination. One thing he lacks in abundance is silence, so for him to put a ‘mzinga’ on the table and claim he is a man of few words, is ironical and paradoxical. Then they begin to bash my ‘mzinga’ on the table. I tell them mzinga ni mzinga, and we chat the evening waiting for our chicken.

I sip my tea, and realize they know how to brew tea. If you love tea, you know what I am talking about, the kind of tea that makes a strange land home and strangers comrades. As we catch up on what has been happening since we left Kaimosi we realized we need to track many others lost in the hustles and bustles of the rat race.

Their are people we would like to see all grown up now just to see if they are still behaving as they did in primary school. The chicken is brought, and the faces around the table shine, the eyes twinkle and backs are raised. This is what good food does to tired people. We wash our hands with warm water, good for the chilly Eldoret town and set our fingers into the bowl.

When we are done, we bless the cook as we water down the chicken with the remaining drinks. I cannot clear my flask of team, and that attracts some verbal jabs from the rest of the team. Soon we are on the road into town. We pass Spree and turn into a road with a twenty four hour Nakumatt Supermarket. Eldoret has arrived on the table of big towns. We park the cars and walk into a building that looks old and unkempt from outside.

Walking in we are greeted by a large portrait of Col. Mustaffa, with a campaign to reduce stress. The last time I heard of Mustaffa, he was one half of Mavultures duo. Welcome to 411, a club I later realized is a subsidiary of spree. It has been a decade since I went clubbing so this gonna be an adventure. First shock, we pay two hundred shillings to enter. Even when I used to club, I only paid to enter Carnivore or Florida 2000, this is Eldoret.

Inside, I see crowd of young souls jumping up and down in the name of dancing. The middle age crowd is seated drinking. We walk to the back of the club near the DJ and I notice a packed balcony as well, there is also a ‘NO SMOKING’ sign in the club, that is strange. A lot has happened since I left the scene. The crowd is mainly students from Moi University and its children like Chepkoilel, I hear it is now University of Eldoret. There are flat TV screen all over the walls, and Second shocker, the DJ is doing the Omega One thing of talking and hyping up the crew with crude nothings.

I order a bottle of water; sip it slowly as I take note of what is happening around. One of my friends orders Pilsner Ice, so this sweet beer came back into the market, I left when it had gone AWOL. I know that because it hit the market with the entry of internet. Its advert had a tagline- Pilsnerice.com, and thats what a friend of mine and me would call each other. One of the ladies orders Reds ale and it comes in a black bottle, that’s new. I remember reds in a white and red can. Sean Paul and Kelly Rowland are on the screen singing- how deep is your love. That sounds familiar.

Mustafa comes in with a white towel over his face. He goes up the DJs booth then walks down to where we are. Apparently where we are is a stage. A few seats are shoved off to create room for his act. Some bouncers are standing a few metres behind him like you can attempt to touch Mustafa, Mustafa? oh my, the guy is beat.

He has a big Samsung phone on one hand, a fully sagged jeans pants and huge gold chain, I say huge because you can spot it from far, and from the look, it is far from real gold. His towel is now around his neck and this marks the beginning of a boring two hours. I manage to sneak out to the wash-rooms.

On my way back, I step aside to give a young couple way to go into the wash rooms. Just as I step aside, the boy taps the girl (I mean it, they are that young) at the back of her head and she bends down giving the boy a rub on his vital area. This is ‘bend over’ dance, I am watching it live next to me. I walk back to my seat and my friends pull me up to dance.

I caught a video clip once of a song called – a tchi-tcha- or something like that. The DJ decides to play it and the crownd is now ecstatic, Mustafa has finished his hustle, not show. I cant dance the song so I sit down. Behind me, a group is glued to the TV, when I turn there is a repeat of some athletics and the crowd cheers the Kenyans as they win. This is Eldoret.

While I was away, people pay to enter two star clubs, bend over came and a song that I can’t even remember the title became a hit. Then the DJ play Ken Wamaria’s fundamendoz and the club roars in approval. He then plays some songs I don’t know, before playing  Emmy Chepchumba’s song accompanied by videos of Ghana football player Asamoah Gyan doing azonto dance on the screen. The crown is ecstatic, the dances vibrant and the shouts thunderous. This is Eldoret.

At about four in the morning, we stroll out of 411 for a short nap before we hit the road to Kaimosi. That was an experience, a lot has happened since I left. As Raila Odinga comes back from his sabbatical, I now know why everyone is busy tweeting about it.

Looking for Onyango in Maasai Land

Looking for people makes them feel special. Too bad if he has a chip on his shoulder, the man will feel sweet like an overflowing bag of chips. I set out to Narok, the County with the Seventh Wonder of the world. Narok is such a beautiful land, and the rural folk of Narok are so cultured and very spiritual, they look organized like a herd of wildebeest crossing Mara River.

I have travelled all over Kenya, and the Maasai top the list of best community in Kenya. They should be the official Kenyan brand. Second are Kambas, and the rest follow. The way they treat their environment, wild animals and each other show how they revere God and his creation.

It is in Narok that I realize that Nairobi needs to change its name to Nairouwa. There is a village on your way to Maasai Mara called Maji Moto this translates to Enkare Nairouwa the opposite of Enkare Nairobi. Now that Nairobi is no longer a spring of cold water, why not pull a Bombay- Mumbai and change the name.

If you have lived in Nairobi long enough, you will notice that the coolness of ‘its waters’ has been diminishing over time. The Nairobi winter in June and July is not as cold. I will go to Pumwani Maternity to check if there has been a reduction in the baby boom in March and April. That cold weather has a way of making unlike poles attract.

 I think Nairobi became Nairouwa when it was named “The City in the Sun” – culminating in the name “shamba la mawe” - the rocky patch. It is not about rocks but the grit in trying to eke a living in this city. So I leave Nairobi and turn off to Narok at Mai Mahiu, another place of hot water, named from the Kikuyu dialect.

Narok is eighty seven kilometres from Mai Mahiu. You will never miss Suswa at 29km from Mai Mahiu, sitting at the base of Mount Suswa like a tired mountain climber. Like someone trying to tie the laces of his boots before trying to go up Mount Suswa again or walk into the plains.  The town has not changed much since the days when William ole Ntimama would hold Maa Congress and come up with Maa declarations.

I pass Duka Moja, Nairegie Enkare- trust Maasai with their obsession with water. Nairegie Enkare means a swampy place or the place with stagnant water. Ntulele the black spot beckons and I go past it in a swoosh, then Eoro Ekule where Ole Kawaro comes from, then I ease into Narok, the town in the valley. Even Narok is Enkare Narok, the place of black water.

I had driven down this road a few months earlier in search of ground water. I found the water at point in a place called Tepesua, brought a drill rig and sunk a borehole. This commodity that made Maasais to name every point of social convergence after the quality of water is vital but more for cattle than people.

So I am out to look for Onyango in a place called Ng’oswani, I doubt if it is about water even though I did not ask. Onyango I am told will help me pipe this water to where it can give a place a name.

In Narok I meet Ali, a Kenyan of Asian descent. I am introduced to him by his driver, and they proceed to speak in Kipsigis. Ali speaks Kipsigis so fluently you would think he is hiding Kip-Left and Kip-Right genes behind his pure Asian breed. I like such people, so I name him, Kipkoech, after a primary school mate we named ‘pirechot’ a corruption of Luo- Abiro Chuadi.

I leave Narok town and pass a small township called Ewaso Ng’iro, the place of muddy waters or brown water. The river that passes here is literally brown. The brown colour (Ng’iro) has a way of sticking longer or even for ever on the teeth of those who drink it. I pass the place and take the road to the great Maasai Mara. The Loita plain is ahead flat with hills that stick out like painful boils on supple skin. The plain is named after one of the biggest Maasai clans.

Some fifteen kilometres after Ewaso Ng’iro, the tarmac ends. This road was once tarmacked to Sekenani gate, but that was long time ago. It has now degenerated back to a rough road in Rear Vision 1990 style.  I start the rought road, pass Maji Moto junction and see a heard of wilderbeasts looking for a passage through the recently erected barbed wire. They see me approach and in a move similar to the jump into Mara River they run from the road side into the Loita plains far away.

The Maasai used to own land communally. The area I am driving through was once Mara-Olkinyei group ranch. The members have subdivided it and now the fences are coming up. This is now hindering free movement of wild animals within a land they once shared freely with Maasai cattle.

 I pass Mpora, Tepesua then I land in Ng’oswani. A dusty market with people idling around asking for rides to the next market. I politely tell them I have arrived at my destination. I get a hunger pang jab- the kind of hunger that hits you when you check the clock and realize it is half past one. I send word around that I need to see Onyango. Here it seems everyone knows everyone, so phone calls are made as I jump into butchery for meat.

If you thought Nerkwo has sweet meet, you have never been to Ng’oswani. I waited for forty five minutes for the goat meat to be ready and when it arrived, I forgot about Onyango and water. It’s the kind of meat that massages your teeth then caresses your tongue. By the time it slides into your gut, you realize that there are goats, and there are Ng’oswani goats. I ask the butcher to pack for me two kilos of the goat meat. Some people in Nairobi need to know people who know where good meat can be found.

I have not seen Onyango or let me say the meat made me forget Onyango.  I am led to a shop where he likes to hang around. The shopkeeper lost his phone recently so he has not yet seen the need of saving Onyango’s phone number again. An opportunity to sieve the people who get into his phone book arose with the loss of his phone. Then suddenly a ten year old boy comes to the shop and he is asked if he has seen Onyango. He immediately recites Onyango’s phone number from the top of his head. Onyango means different things to different people.

I record the number, save it then try to call but he is out of reach. I am directed to Onyango’s house and I soon find myself outide a shack latched from outside but without a padlock. This Onyango man does not represent his name, the house seems to lack anything worth stealing. I walk back to the shop.

I meet a lanky man, smiling at me. He talks to me in good Kiswahili with a faded Maasai accent. Oh yes, I am Onyango he says. The first question I ask is how he got that name. He tells me that he was picked up in the streets of Kisumu and dropped in Ng’oswani by a Good Samaritan. It turns out later that the man has never been to Kisumu.

When we get down to the real work, I find out whay he is called Onyango. He is stronger than the average Maasai and he does a good job. He is proud of his name and for being associated with the Luos. Yet he cannot utter a single Luo word.

I  left Loita plains a happy man. I touched children’s heads in greeting, ate good meet and had an opportunity to speak my broken Maasai. Arejo- Asheh Oleng’ that is just another way of saying, I am saying- thank you very much.