If you think I spent my last weekend in Nairobi, you’d better think again. If you think I spent last weekend with Kasamu, you’d better think again. If you think I went to Zimaz to accompany Kasamu to squeeze, you’d better think again. If you think I went to watch buttocks, you'd better think again. Folks, let me not torture you with guesswork. I went to my rural home. Kasamu did not even accompany me because, as he put it, he was fully engaged. You see, his wife came back and his habit of moving around supermarkets squeezing mangoes and avocados had come to an end. When I asked him to accompany me, he said, “My friend, I wish I could, but I am so busy I don’t even have time to die”. When a man talks like that, you leave him alone.
So the only other person I could turn to was Plato. Shakespeare was preparing for university CATS. Though he had bought several lunches (actually it was me who had been doing the buying) to another lady so that she write notes on her thighs and expose them for him to see during the CAT, he still thought it wise not to fully rely on her. She may write them before going to sleep and a man may rub all of them during the night! Plato accepted and since we had assisted him in fighting for his independence, there was no fear that he would be denied permission to leave. You see, Plato is such a gentlemen and a good husband that even though he had fought for his independence, he still had to tell his wife that he will be away. Of course from that experience of being tossed in the air, she could not say a word.
Now, the main purpose of going to the rural home, otherwise referred to as ‘shags’ by the broiler chicken generation, was two fold. One, to buy a 90 kg sack of maize and convert it to maize flour to cushion the rising cost of maize flour in the shops. After taking my calculator and doing some mathematics, I found out that I can save some good amount of money if I took this measure. The money saved will be used to purchase a 50X100 plot at Malili ICT City.
Secondly, the purpose of going to shags was to answer summons from my village elders. You see, when I was a teacher, the first thing I did with my first Mwalimu cooperative loan was to buy a cow. The fourth generation of this cow was a bull that came to be named Ngunuo. If I may put it straight, Ngunuo was champion of love. He could have 10 cows as temporary wives in a day and leave all them satisfied and pregnant. People say Ngunuo has the strength of a railway line. I decided one day to take Ngunuo for grazing to see for myself what he eats to have the strength he had. I found out that there was a certain species of leaves he was concentrating on. I took a few of those leaves which I intend to boil and drink when my Mrs Plato is not around. Who knows, I may have the strength that Ngunuo has and women in Nairobi will no longer have to bother Maina Kageni every morning with their bedroom woes and frustrations!. As a result my fame and that of Ngunuo grew in the village. As I have mentioned earlier I am intending to purchase a piece of land in Malili ICT City. Other than deleting Jogoo flour from the list of domestic food items and saving here and there, I was going to sell Ngunuo to see if this dream could be realized.
So I and Plato sat before a council of seven elders and the local pastor to explain why I wanted to sell Ngunuo. As soon as the Village Headman had commenced the meeting, one elder shot up,
“You want to sell Ngunuo. If you sell Ngunuo are you going to be the one making our cows pregnant”.
There was dead silence. Silence that seemed to last forever. I don’t know whether the other elders were expecting an answer from me or not. From the silence it seemed that they expected one. For a long time I had never been insulted. The last insult nearer to this was the one Kovulo Kofa threw to my friend Kasamu, that ako na wasiwasi kama suruali ya Malaya mwisho wa mwezi. I don’t know whethee Kasamu will sympathize with me the way I did when he told me about his insult. Plato looked at me and whispered something. He told me, “Tell them yes, that you will make their cows pregnant if they want”. One good thing with Plato is that he is a thinker and I always know that with him things will be fine. I shot up and told them, “Yes I will make your cows pregnant”. There was another dead silence. Then Plato whispered something else to me. “Tell that old man to start by bringing his cow right now so that he can know you are capable”. I did exactly that, while pretending to be unbuttoning my zip. As soon as I finished saying this all the elders screamed. The local pastor stood up and calmed the elders. Then he went ahead and offered prayers, asking for God’s intervention.
Since I got annoyed, I asked Plato to take over and answer all their stupid questions. Plato explained to them the purpose of selling Ngunuo. He went into so many details about the Malili City and how something just next door should not bypass us.
Plato posed this question to them, ‘Because you do not want Magigi to sell his bull and you do not want him to make your cows pregnant as you have requested, I want you to discuss amongst yourselves and come up with a solution. We will be coming for an answer next weekend.” To show the elders how much I was annoyed, we got into Plato’s Probox and zoomed off…
We arrived back in Nairobi at 6.00 pm. We passed by my residence to offload the 90 kg of maize flour.
I smelled trouble as soon as the kids came to greet me and check what I had brought from shags. The first born was the first to ask me, “Daddy, kwani tunanunua farasi”. I asked her why, “This is the kind of food I see being fed to horses in their stable”. Plato looked at me and laughed hysterically, a laughter that was accompanied by a loud fart. I went silent for a few seconds and then I quipped,
“mmmmmhhhhhh yeah, mmhhh…no, it is for a friend of mine who sent me” I knew my effort to save some money to buy a plot a Malili ICT city had hit a wall. If you have horses in your stable, sorry home that eat this kind of maize flour let me know so that I can share. It is too much for me and my Mrs Plato.