I believe it’s not just
here in Kenya where Fridays are exciting especially for the working class. This
is mainly because; the day ushers in nostalgic weekend away from the bosses at
work, and challenges experienced during the entire week. What makes the
celebration of this day very different in Kenya from the rest of the planet
members is how it’s done. The appropriate description here would be “Furahi Day” like one Mathenge alias Nameless put it. For the men married to “Kanyuaji” or rather beer as commonly known, the best description
would be “Members day”. Members day,
Kenyan style , is characterized by excessive wetting of throats from Kanyuaji and cleaning the contents of
animal organs preferably from a male goat in the name of “Mbavu choma” or rather roasted ribs. It is on a Friday that men who
believe they must be featuring somewhere in the Forbes magazine as among the
wealthiest in the planet, are known or make themselves known. This group of men
displays the capability of their wallets to vomit money by decorating the
tables with bottles bearing the famous beer brands labels and an entire
consignment of “Mbavu choma” for the
rest of the members to feast on. It is also on a Friday that you realize bars
and restaurants are a good investment in Kenya since they soar to capacity
dominated by Friday members.
I do not know whether
it is a phenomenon that the ugliest things related to Lucifer must happen on a
Friday. I do not understand either, why people visit the weirdest of places on
this day and indulge in the weirdest of things. Careful not to compromise the
spirit of national reconciliation by bringing ethnicity into rivalry, I shall
be lighter in my approach to issues. It is on a Friday that one Mr.
Onkwonkwo Otero who believes that he is closer to one Mr. Bill’s
liquidity, dramatizes what is wallet can do. He believes that he is the only
man in the entire country who drives a locomotive as he calls it, of its kind.
He boasts having a collection of such cars that he likens to his wardrobe
variety of clad. You will hear him say "ile Mercedes yangu, ile
ingine iko garage” What that means is, whatever he is driving on such a day
is just but one of his fleet. He stresses he only imports from Germany! Otero
is the kind of man who tells the waiter at the pub she should only cut supply
of beer to all the revelers when they say so. He sits where everyone can see
him and puts a collection of gadgets on display at his table. He makes sure
that at any given time one of his many mobile phones is ringing. He tried
running for an electoral seat as a councilor in the last general election on
the basis of his lavish display of generosity to members but he got a smack on
his face. When the returning officer was perusing over the infamous form 16A
and announced the results to the electorate and the prospective political winners,
Mr Otero was a proud garner of three votes! It is obvious who cast the
three votes considering the logic existing in such a scenario. One was from his
daughter who had just turned eighteen acquiring a voter’s card subsequently,
his wife's and himself! Notwithstanding that he lost the seat terribly, he
believes he won the election and since he loves spending, he has since filed a
petition in the corridors of the honorable high court challenging the validity
of form 16A on the basis of bought popularity.
That's Otero
alias Oti fellow Kenyans. He aside, one Mr. Nyakundi alias Nyash
enters into the phenomenon. Nyash happens to be a very good friend of
mine. I salute him for his hard work and his ability to identify opportunities
for acquiring extra coins. He is gifted in numbers that's why he has made a
successful career as an accountant. I, on the other hand, carry a mathematics
curse that I believe might be hereditary and therefore find the logic why I
always need a calculator to help me determine the profit I make daily from my Kangeta
base Kiosk. Nyash tells me that I could be the worst human in
mathematics the entire planet has ever produced. I agree! However, on a Friday
things are different. You might think otherwise amongst both of us. I believe Nyash
is the greatest hooligan that this planet has ever produced when music in
the name of Mugithi is played. I once suggested that he seeks a job as
an event organizer for one Mike Rua since he happens to know wherever the man
shall be presenting his Mugithi over the weekend. At the dance floor,
you will notice that Nyakundi's shirt is unbuttoned halfway his chest
displaying his hairy anatomy to the public. You would be forgiven to think the
theory of evolution that dictates man originated from a close cousin, the ape,
surely did exist. He dances to the rhythm of the lewd lyrics holding his bottle
of Kanyuaji with his right hand while the left hand does a tour of
women's bosoms. He yells at the top of his voice to crescendo. Later into the night,
Nyash hires one of the skimpily dressed women to massage his body in a
rented room until dawn. Hiring a woman, in his interpretation, means hiring the
entire package that accompanies a woman from head to toe including her
fingertips for the purpose of extensive massage effectiveness. Many times
without number, Nyash has acquired a black eye after his fingers
misbehave and walk into the wrong places of unwilling women.
Exit the weekend
phenomenon enter the Monday blues. Mwaura thinks that the weekends end
faster than working days. He argues that weekends are short of some hours and
therefore less than the usual hours of a typical day. He says that if all days
are made of 24 hours, then time flies during weekends. I understand him though,
considering the work he does the entire week. Loading and offloading factory trucks,
his days must be longer than usual. This is why he finds his time spent at Mama
Pima's gone too soon. On Monday you are likely to hear Mwaura's
footsteps as he leaves for work at four in the morning. The rhythm of the
footsteps suggests that he's quiet sober but very angry and bored. You will
hear him yawn like a bloated monkey suggesting that his stomach is lacking
company and only feeling the pinch of dry liquor in it. I wonder how he
survives an entire day at work loading and offloading the rigs on an empty
stomach on Mondays. He quarrels his wife as he leaves saying she does not know the
value of money and does not realize how hard it is to put some food on the
table. He calls her a bad manager and a window shopper for the sole reason that
she asked for some more household money having spent the entire, a thousand
shillings given last Monday. She is supposed to spend it for two weeks! The
fact that Mwaura has embraced the spirit of go forth and procreate by having a
family that can easily form an entire volleyball team, isn't an excuse, he
says. He walks away stamping his feet on the ground like the Godzilla and
clicking his mouth angrily.
If you met Nyash
on Monday morning leaving for work, you may think he would not want to see your
face for the rest of his lifetime. He wears a face that suggests you are the
only enemy contributing to his woes in this planet. His face appears older than
he is, forming wrinkles on the forehead, large enough to be qualified as
furrows or ditches. His eyes seem to be popping out of their sockets suggesting
that he could be a victim of a malignant illness about to escort him to the
grave. This is because; he hardly had a wink of sleep during the weekend. I
then imagine him meeting his boss in the office in that pathetic condition. He
probably gets a pile of files on his desk waiting to be attended by him. I wonder
if any mathematics comes into play on a Monday. It's not just Nyash but
all weekend members who go clubbing and translating themselves into beer tanks
in the name of having fun. On Mondays you will find this group of Kenyans at a
bus terminus with their mouths talking less, mum like they haven't spoken in
their entire existence. The look on their faces suggests that they are
attending a burial somewhere in the city, perhaps the cemetery. When they board
the bus they doze off and snore away to their places of work.
Since I am my own boss
at my Kiosk, Mondays are ilk to any other day. I dictate when I wake up for
work. This makes the likes of Nyash and Mwaura envy my Mondays
tempting them to quit their jobs and become own entrepreneurs. This is however
short lived since I intend to procure a job that will earn me extra coins. I
will therefore save the best of Mwaura's and Nyash' hangover
ordeals for the last since I might soon be wearing a similar shoe!
Compiled by Tickler
Son of the
Unquenched
Kevin Murungi
murungikevin@yahoo.com
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