Thread by @CSakwah

Story Thread

In 2014, from May to September, I locked myself at home and inside the house. When I was not working on our farm, or feeding our livestock, I was in the house watching or reading. I barely left home.

At that point, only a few people knew that I had made a decision not to continue with my university education. The first day I got out of home, it was because of my grandmother’s constant persuasion to go to church. She was ever on my neck asking me to go to church.

‘Just go to church and pray to God!’ She kept on reminding me, every Saturday. ‘Don’t forget to go to church tomorrow.’ Each Sunday, for 4 months, I defied her requests and orders. One Sunday, I decided to attend church. I woke up with a heavy hangover.

I had been taking chang’aa the previous night. Yes, chang’aa. I had been into that sh*t since May. I couldn’t afford any other alcohol. I used to lock myself in my uncle’s house, away from the main homestead, and imbibe as much as I could.

In church, I literally slept all through the service.
After church, the preaching, and prayers, a guy named Clifford walked to the pulpit and looked us into the eyes, and said, ‘brethren, it has been an honor serving you as the youth chairperson.

I am joining Maseno University this week, and I must now step down as the youths’ chairperson’’
The youth padre walked to the pulpit, after him, thanked Clifford for his service, and said, ‘we must elect a new chairperson today.’

I was half asleep, not caring to participate in the election. ‘Didn’t they have a vice-chairperson?’ I came to learn that the V chairperson had joined Moi University a week earlier. ‘Who can make our chairman?’ He asked.

There was silence, as congregants turned to skim through each other. In an unprecedented move, without I provoking any of them, without having wronged any of them, they all turned and faced me. Me? Collins Ongoma Sakwah?

A guy who was drinking-depressed? Still coming to terms with his dropping out of campus? Carrying a chang’aa hangover to church, my mouth bearing a cigarette smell from last night’s smoking, me? A church youth’s chairman?

Were they really aware that the last time I attended church was on my last day in high school, 4 years earlier? Why were they picking the sinnest sinner in that church?
‘Collins, it is.’ the church leader, Lay Canon Namusonge announced.

I looked at him, with my eyes begging, imploring, telling him, ‘this is a mistake. You can’t do this, no. I am a mess.’
At that time, I sobered up.
I was expected to be a church leader? To be a role model to most of the young members of the youth church.

Most of them were high school kids, some had just cleared high school on the transition to campus.
The youth padre, Lay Canon Numusonge, was my grandpa’s youngest brother and I couldn’t have disobeyed his choice, for that reason.

After church, I was previewed on what I was expected to do. The following Sunday, I was supposed to lead the youth service, pray, read the Bible verses, and invite the Lay Canon to preach? Me? A sinner? Standing on the pulpit.

I had not read the Bible since 2010 when I was revising for my CRE KCSE paper 2.
When I went back home, my grandma was very excited, more excited that I was named the youth chairman. Also because being the youth chairman obliged me to attend church every Sunday.

I just went from not going to church in 4 years to getting involved in every church function; youth rallies, youth conferences, parish meetings, etc etc. It was hard, especially because I was still hooked on alcohol and cigarette.

I started meeting more people, elders, the Bishop, church revered people. That post cast a different kind of limelight on me. And I was supposed to behave like a church leader.

I stopped going out at night to buy chang’aa. Instead, I sweet-talked one of our farmworkers, who would sneak chang’aa home in exchange for cash and favors. One day, I made some good cash from selling three of the chicken that I had been rearing.

I sneaked out at night, around 10 PM, to the market pub. I had missed taking Pilsiner and Tusker. At that point, I didn’t expect many people in the pub, especially those who knew me as a youth church leader. I sat in a corner, covered in my hood, away from preying judgementals.

Next to me, was some guy and a female acquaintance; someone else’s wife in the company of someone else’s husband. And he quickly recognized me. I must have been stupid to think no one was going to recognize me. I was famous in my village.

The guy turned to his acquaintance and whispered, ‘isn’t that the grandson of Lay Cannon Erina Nekesa? Isn’t he the Sikinga Church youth chairman?’
‘Yea? What is he doing in a pub?’
They must have thought they were whispering.

When you are drunk, one art that a person loses is the art of whispering.
The waitress walked to my table to pick my order. ‘Give me one bottle of water, 3 bottles of fanta orange madiaba, 2 packets of minute maid juice.’ I littered my table with soda and juice.

They stared at me, even harder. They must have been wondering, ‘what kind of a lunatic leaves his house at 10 PM to walk into a pub and order water and juice?’
It increasingly became hard to take alcohol and smoke.

I was expected to be a role model, to maintain high moral standards.
And this, the church, particularly helped me to stop smoking cigarettes and drinking chang’aa. It was also an avenue through which I came out and started meeting people.

The first time that I ever said publicly that I was a university dropout, was in that church. I learned to accept myself, and leave with the mistakes that I had made.