My whole body felt as if it had been pierced with a thousand needles, I jumped up and frantically tried to remove my clothes, due to the excruciating pain I tried to remove all at once, the t-shrt + the trouser so as to find out what was causing this miserly, I felt like screaming but the situation I was in couldn’t allow it, after my vigourous majestic dance which lasted for over 20 seconds the damn clothes were off na ndio nikaona Thuraku, hundreds of Safari ants were all taking a bite of my body at the same time. Poor me, hapa nilijiingiza aje. Lets start from the beginning.
In the seventh year of Jomos reign somewhere in rural Nairobi between two ridges and a valley, a baby boy was born in one of the last farms to have sugar plantations in Nairobi, well, I always thought it was a plantation till I saw Muhoroni plantation so ours we can call it a farm. Ever since I was a little boy every fortnight or so an old Bedford truck would come to the valley and old drunkard men would harvest the cane and take it to “kimiri” in the market place where they would press it for the juice to make muratina, all the cane dressing would be left on the valley floor to make humus and manure and also to prevent faster drying of the moisture. As in all ridges ours also had a river, the river between our ridges is called Kabuthi (pronounciation: kabowthe), and it starts from ondiri swamp ili nilielezea juzi. long time ago the waters used to be clear but after the condemned pit from the slaughter houses up stream spilled over our happy valley changed, everything from the cows ofals flowed downstream and well enough all the living things in the stream died, the fish, the “jururi” and the frogs, we remained only with big fat toads which provided music throughout the nights.
But we were a happy lot coz of the free manure that flowed on the stream, our crops did well, ever since i could carry a ndoo of water i used to water our vegetables which were planted a few meters from the valley floor which was strictly for canes, my mum would plant a nursery of sukuma wiki for you and it was your responsibility to transplant the seedlings when they were ready and then water them every day, once in the morning before you went to school and in the evening when you came back from school, it was a daily routine which I hated lakini wapi, it had to be done. Every market day mum would go sell the sukuma in the market but daily we had women coming to our farm to buy the same, neighbours would also come by to buy their daily ration. We also had nurseries for spinach and carrots. On top of this we had kuku kienyeji. Ours was the only homestead without a zero grazing cow but we had lot of napier grass which was also for sale.
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(pic taken 2011)
Our hse was smack in the middle of the ridge, in the mornings you couldn’t see the other ridge coz of the mist which used to clear by 8am, so in the morning we used to go under the clouds to water the garden, when the sun emerged our valley was and still is beautiful ata kaa sa hizi watu wamejenga sana hadi kwa mto lakini kuna kitu hawajui, ive seen this tiny river in full flood, once in “77 and again in “83, the tiny river became a raging torrent and everything in the happy valley was washed away including all the cane. Tell them they have been warned. Hii shamba babu yangu alipata wakati wa consolidation where all the tiny parcels of land you had strewn all over the place were consolidated into one and bless my grandpa for choosing the happy valley.
On Saturdays which was our market day I would carry my fair share of sacks and while mum was busy selling natembea sokoni kujionea, I used to be thrilled by the “kimiri”, it was locally assembled and a full cane would be put inside and squeezed to the last drop, hio process ingine sikua naelewa but I loved their songs as they did moved round and round. Pesa ya kutoka hii shamba from the hard work we put ndio ilitusomesha.
In the 80s one late evening from school nikiwa kwa garden watering my sukuma patch the village beauty a nyarari called Nduta came to buy sukuma, as fate would have it I was all alone, Nduta was two classes behind me in the local high school and all fisis were salivating for her, I did a sign of the cross and said “chia korire Wachu mugunda” and switched to full fisi mode. Siku hizo shambani tulikua twapima sukuma za 1 bob unapima by kugrab fist mbili, mimi nilimchukulia nyingi kabisa kaa nampea story of giants na hatimaye I gained my courage nikaomba vitu, acha Nduta aanze maringo, eti ooh sijui nini, ooh sijawai fanya hivo , ooh hio ni tabia mbaya while all the time nilikua namvuta ndani ya miwa, ustake jua ile boner nilikua nayo. Anakataa lakini anakuja tu. Kiondo yake tuliacha pale kwa boundary ya sukuma na miwa.
When we got to where I considered a safe distance inside the cane I stopped na nikaongea yangu yote vile nampenda na vile nilikua natamani awe wangu, Nduta naye her heart was racing at 100kms/h and she was only saying mmmm, mmmm. Ingekua siku hizi that was a signal for a French kiss lakini sisi tulikua watu wa Nairobi rural, kissing was unheard of, after kushikashika mahaga na KCC with no resistance kamwambia tuketi chini lakini akaringa, ilibidi nimpige sweep tukajipata chini, mara hio hio mkono yangu ikaanza kwenda canaan, acha catfight ianze, tulisumbuana kindu 3 minutes hatimaye akatulia lakini akasema niigizie kichwa tu kwa side. Ngotha hatoi.
Kumbe pale tulikua tumelala ilikua ni route ya wadudu wengine hawataki disturbance, under the sugarcane leaves carpet was the main route ya Safari ants, Thuraku. As we were struggling groping each other, the thuraku were stealthily taking up positions on our bodies, my frien huwes sikia hizi vitu zikipanda, just when Nduta ametulia vizuri ndio kichwa iingie is when the thuraku general gave the attack signal.
