Mukoigo sat under the large guava tree just outside his late
grandfather’s almost completely ruined mud house. It always looked back at him
with pity all over its face, tilting to one side like an elderly lady walking
from the market with a heavy basket of cassavas using an almost c-shaped
walking stick. He had promised to bring it down some day, but watched it bend
day after day till its roof kissed the ground on one side.
“What a wreck..!” he smirked and spit out a sticky tobacco
stained saliva ball.
Standing at five foot two, and a funnily slim figure, his
age mates loved looking down upon him, so he made up for his small frame in
wisdom, always keeping abreast with matters new in the nation. His National
Star radio always sat by his side, and he made sure to keep a new pair of
batteries on standby just in case. Age had caught up with his lovely source of
information, and only one of the speakers was functional, a condition which
many believed was a result of the many roaches using it as a habitat.
“Hivi leo Rais
amezindua upya reli…….” (The president has today unveiled the railway) The
mono speaker croaked.
This was the piece of news he had been waiting for the whole
day. Somehow in his drunken walk home the previous night, he heard a bunch of
men discuss how the president was to unveil what they called ‘Reli Kali ta ngoma’ in a dialect only
know by the sons and daughters of the slopes. This had irked him, something
people knew and he had not the slightest idea about.
He pulled the radio closer, slightly slapped its battery
compartment and it roared with new found zeal. He smiled, revealing a perfectly
brown set of teeth, placed the radio back and listened, this time keenly, like
he was searching for the horsed card in a ‘pata potea’ game. The radio ranted
on about the fantasy ride, how it would cut through the national park (but did
not really mention which national park), and how it would take a staggering 5
hours for a trip he had taken almost two days in his youthful years, when he
had confused a cargo train for the passenger one.
Contented with the newly found information, Mukoigo turned
off the radio, placed it back in his bedroom, threw on his old woolen cardigan
and set off to set some standards, neck held high and a big stab of tobacco
sticking loosely out of his mouth. Each pull left behind a cloud of smoke which
covered his whole head.
In no time he was at the shopping center, outside their
‘watering den’, where he found his old time friends Njooro and Baba Kamau
trying to discuss the new train which as they also said was ‘Kali ta Ngoma’ .
“You people don’t even know what you are talking about…”
That was always his opening remarks when he set out to show his mates how
little they knew.
“Mukoigo, Jambo?? Have
you heard about the new train?” Baba Kamau enquired.
Baba kamau considered himself a ‘retired’ Class three
teacher, though generation after generation have been told how he was chased
out of the Slopes Primary School after parents realized that class three
students were getting dumber year after year.
“Heard…?” Mukoigo asked, with a sarcastic laugh “My friend,
you are talking about hearing while some of us are planning to go and ride on
it”
“Wait, what do you mean…..?” Baba kamau was surprised.
The two men were slightly scared by their friend’s levels of
ambition. Njooro, who was a tea picker who also doubled up as a mole-catcher
and tea-picking basket maker opened his mouth to give his two cents, considered
the possible cost of first getting to the capital from the slopes then the
train fare to Mombasa, compared it to his turnover per mole caught, and just
kept quite after realizing he would need to catch more than a thousand moles. It
was believed that when things were thick financially he would walk into a farm
with a dying mole in the pocket and claim to have caught it for payment to be
done. Even this trick would not help.
“I will ride on that ‘fast snake’ before it gets old, before
the president’s spray fades off the train..” Mukoigo stamped his left leg in a
bid to sink his words into the two heads.
“But Mukoigo, you don’t even know the capital, you will get
lost between the buildings..” Finally Njooro was able to talk. Word has it that
he never had set a foot in the capital.
“My friend, I was there fifteen years ago, when we visited
my in laws..” Mukoigo interjected. How could he forget the day his trousers lost
the zip and he had to stand behind people at his own function?
“Mukoigo, that was the land of pineapples not the capital..”
Baba Kamau jumped in.
Mukoigo just sneered at him, “It’s all the same…!”
"I hear it will be take a very short time to get to Mombasa.." The mole catcher sounded uncertain.
"Five hours.." Mukoigo jumped in, with excitement all over his face "Five hours going through the serengeti...."
"Nairobi national part..." Baba Kamau couged.
Mukoigo was agitated, and momentarily wished his friend somewhere between the jaws of a crocodile. "Okey Tell us, because you now know what i was saying."
Baba kamau looked back expressionless, but deep inside his lungs were clapping.
“How do you plan on riding the train, assuming you have a
plan to rob some bank somewhere?” The mole catcher asked.
That was a question Mukoigo had not had a thought on, the
financial aspect. Things were financially thick, he had just managed to beg the
Slopes Primary school head to allow his lastborn son attend school without
lunch money, and the small fella had to hide behind the school toilets with the
flies as his mates devoured their plate of Maize, few beans and soup.
***
Mukoigo remembered his wife also needed some new petticoats
and other undergarments, and the short but precise argument they had a few days
back still rang…
“Baba Kangi, I need some few petticoats..” She had asked in
the smoothest voice she knew.
He had shot a cloud of tobacco to the atmosphere, watched it
form rings, thinking on what to tell her.
“But mama kangi, you have more
petticoats than I have trousers..”
“Yes, but my favorite is torn..” She looked to be having all
the answers.
“You can rush it to the tailor, and he will mend it..”
Mukoigo had pointed out.
“Aaaai.. Baba Kangi”, she had cut him short “It is torn and
you know its growing too small for me now..”
She had won, he remembered how he now slept on just a
portion of their bed, thanks to her uncontrollably growing frame.
***
He looked deep into the other men’s eyes, like searching for
some lost treasure, found none but just patches of hangover from the previous
night’s drink, and some darker patches of hopelessness and hunger for food.
“You don’t worry, I will get the money, and I will go to the
capital to board the metallic snake. You all can stay here and rot in
hopelessness.” He half whispered. None of the two men opened up, somewhere in
their conscience they knew Mukoigo was just as broke as them, and the only way
he would board the train was in his wild dreams.
Night was falling fast, and the den had finally opened its
doors for Slope dwellers and tea pickers to drown their sorrows, and the three
men walked in and took their positions. Mukoigo sat in a withdrawn position,
and his mind ran and ran..
‘I will board the train, I must board it and very soon…!’ he
kept saying to himself.. ‘I will pay for my son’s lunch money, buy my wife a
new petticoat, and then gather enough money to board the train to Mombasa and
back.’
He remembered his daughter had finally realized that parents
were supposed to give their children in high school pocket money, and she had
made it very clear her intention of not reporting back to school after mid-term
without the money.. He swallowed hard on the burning liquid when he remembered
his son Kangi had been sitting in a cell for the past few days since his
parents were not ready to part ways with the 200 bob bribe that was being
demanded.
“I will still ride the
train…. I wiil.. I will….” He sang as he staggered home that night.
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