Thread by @CSakwah

Story Thread

I almost wifed a kienyeji girl one December. I dogged a bullet. This kienyeji babes was part of the contingent of her village people attending their kin’s wedding in the city. I had known her from the village, which I had left 4 years earlier,

just when she was clearing high school.
She was one of those babes that attended Nasiekumulo Nursery School, ACK Nasiekumulo Primary School, and finally Nasiekumulo CDF-Funded Community-Project Mixed and Day Secondary School.

If God willed, she had attended Nasiekumulo Polytechnic or Nasiekumulo Market Designers to learn how to operate a Singer sewing machine or Nasiekumulo Market saloon to learn how to braid hair. She was provincial, had never lived away from her village.

As her cousin exchanged vows with his soon-to-be wife, we exchanged numbers and sweet nothings. She had grown into a beautiful curvaceous lady. I hijacked her just when she was about to board the hired Nasiekumulo CDF-Funded-Community-Project Mixed and Day Secondary School bus.

I took her to my bedsitter in Luckysummer, that evening. During supper, she prepared a fish stew strictly using onions and tomatoes and ignored the rest of the spices and other groceries. She warmed water, poured it into a jug, and washed my hands before we started eating.

She gave me the vibe that people associated with Ugandan ladies; respectful, detailed, keen to ensure that their husbands were satisfied.
Deep into the night, I found her in her unsullied nature.

She was like Africa before the invasion of whites. The explorers had not explored her mountains, valleys, and the river between. The traders had not started using their money to get her services. I was the first missionary to convert her into a woman, that night.

The following morning, I escorted her to the Country Bus Station where she boarded a Msamaria Mwema Express bus Sio Port.
I promised her that I was going to marry her. I was honest. I just needed more time to be ready. Hers remains the best coitus I have ever had.

I was already dreaming of a lifetime of a missionary mission on her body for the rest of my life.
We kept in touch for one month, then the communication died the natural death of long-distance. She was not on Whatsapp, her phone did not allow her to be.

She was only available for communication at night, after picking her phone from the Nasiekumulo Market kinyojis where she used to charge her phone.
One and a half months after my missionary mission, she called to say that she was pregnant.

We agreed to keep the baby and move in together as soon as she had delivered. I did not need much convincing to know that she was going to be my wife. I was convinced by the great stories I had heard about the Kienyeji ladies. They were home keepers, conservatives, and submissive

Two days after breaking the great news to me, she called to ask for Ksh. 2000. ‘Pesa ya clinic.’ And this became a habit every after 2 weeks. ‘Niliambiwa after every 2 weeks, nikuwe naenda clinic na 2000.’ I hustled hard and started paying the 2k clinic tax every after 2 weeks.

Sometimes I borrowed the tax from friends when I did not have it. I paid the clinic tax 8 times and even started sending more money for the baby’s clothes and other miscellaneous.
All the time, I had not seen the baby bump. I had no evidence that she was paged.

As a missionary merchant, I trusted her words. You don’t expect a kienyeji to lie, do you? Lying is a reserve for the cirri broilers, the female talibans, and the Gilbeys mujahideens. The Kienyeji babes didn’t have a smartphone to take or send photos.

She had a kienyeji phone with a memory card whose only ability was storing Diamond Platinumz’ songs that she had probably received from the village disco matanga DJ through their phones’ Bluetooth.
One day, I called my cousin, a female, to break the news to her.

She had just delivered a baby and wanted to tell her that I also had a baby on the way. I shared with my cousin about the clinic tax that I paid after 2 weeks. She laughed and mentioned something like ‘clinic za government za village, mtu anahitaji tu book ya clinic ya 50 bobs.

The rest of the services are free or 100 per visit, kaa wanataka kukuibia.’ I did not confront her. I thought she needed the extra money to prepare for the birth of the baby.
A week later, I traveled back to the village to attend the burial of my kin.

On the night when I landed in the village, there was a disco-matanga. I called to inform her that I was traveling to the village. She was off, for 2 days. I was to visit her home after the burial.
To my surprise, that night, I spotted her sitting next to the disco-matanga DJ.

I once lost a girl to a city club DJ, no way I was losing another girl to the Disco matanga DJ, especially a girl that was expecting our baby. My cirri girl left my table to request a song in the DJ's booth. She never returned to my table, ever again.

My kienyeji babes was the one who passed the other mourner’s song requests to the DJ. When the DJ played Otieno Aloka’s Kanungo eteko mixed with Charly Black's Whine and Kotch’s beats, the kienyeji babes went wild. 'That is my song,' he shouted.

I still don’t understand how those village DJs infuse ohangla songs with Jamaican music beats. They create a cacophony of music mixes that DJ Lytta’s Hot Grabba would be envious of.

The kienyeji babes jumped onto the dancing floor, just a few meters away from where the casket lay. She, along with other village kienyejis started shaking their bum bum. The way kienyejis shake their bum is so different from the way the cirri broilers do in clubs.

Theirs is a violent and vigorous type of ass-shaking. And when they are shaking their bums, it’s only the bum that shakes, and they don’t bend over while shaking. I still don’t understand how they manage to remain standing straight while at the same time shaking their bum bum.

The DJ left the deejaying to his wingman and joined my supposed-to-be kienyeji wife on the dancing floor. They were cheered on. My cousin (male) and I watched from a bonfire (makenga) in shock.

How could a supposed-to-be 7-month pregnant lady shake her body like her demons were being exorcised? We kept on wondering.
At the end of the Kanungo eteko wine and kotch song, the DJ went back to his booth....

Soon, cirri boys, mainly JKUAT students, joined the tent which was hosting the DJ and his contingent of VIP village kienyejis. The deceased was a JKUAT student. The Juja boys were around to mourn their comrade.

They bullied the DJ into playing reggae and riddims when the villagers just wanted to dance to ohangla, mundu mulosi, and some mukangala.
My female cousin noticed the worry in my eyes. I had bought more baby clothes and borrowed some from her to give the kienyeji babes.

‘Don’t worry. Some ladies do not grow the pregnancy bump, at all. And the dancing might be because of the baby hormones. Don’t panic. It is a good thing that she is dancing. At 7 months, I could barely move around.’ She calmed me down.

Small small, ghafla bin vuu, the kienyeji babes started getting cozy next to one of the Juja boys ganja farmers. The Juja Boy had moved to sit next to her. He had dreadlocks on his head and crocs on his legs.

Even under the revenging night freeze, the JKUAT comrades insisted on donning crocs and vests. They were drinking alcohol and puffing their natural herbs, openly. They ignored the plea coming from the tend with church teachers.

They conversed using English. Listening to them at that time while they scared the villagers with their English, no one would have guessed that they went on to graduate with good grades but failed the simple TOEFL English tests needed to earn a nursing job in England.

I watched from a distance. I was getting distressed more and more. It only took a record 10 minutes for the Juja boy to praise my kienyeji babes away from the crowded DJ tent. They walked while holding hands to another tent that was darker, isolated, and unoccupied.

It was deep into the night and most of the mourners had left to their homes.
My cousins and I were still sitting by the bonfire, sharing my departed cousin’s memories.

I watched as the Juja ganja farmer started exploring her mountains, her valleys, and hills and even pushed his hand into the river between her Makuyu and Kameno ridges. He gave my babes a sip of Blue Moon Vodka. Back then, Blue Moon was the Gilbeys.

Another record ten munites later, they eloped from the compound, as most of the JKUAT students and other village kienyejis. My cousin (male) advised me to follow them, to confront her. I had promised to take her to the city as my wife after nursing her delivery.

We traced them towards my uncle’s farm. As we edged closer, we heard the kienyeji already speaking in tongue while the Juja boy was giving her another missionary sermon. They had turned a maize farm into a green lodging.

The path next to the farm was littered with JKUAT boys and other village kienyejis negotiating on their terms of missionary engagement. From a distance, one would have confused the path with downtown Luthuli Street.

What I saw that night, is probably what Jehevor Wanyonyi witnessed, got annoyed, disappeared to be with himself, and vowed never to return again.

Knowing how violent comrades mourning a comrade in some village somewhere in Kenya can be, we decided to walk away, not to disturb their moans. That boat had sailed, my cousin said.

The famed kienyeji girl is sanitized only because her sins are not documented on social media, or captured on camera. Otherwise, every cirri broiler was once a village kienyeji.

On Sunday, a day after the burial, I bumped into her in a heated exchange of unpalatable words with a boda boda rider, next to a CDF-Funded Nasiekumulo boda boda shade. She warmed up to me.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that you were coming to the village?’ She asked.

‘I tried to call you. Your phone was off.’
‘Yea. Sorry. It was charging.’
‘And what about...em… the pregnancy?’
‘Ohh that one,’ she said, as a by the way, ‘ilitoka.’
‘What?’
‘I had a miscarriage last week,’ she said. ‘Tunaanza maisha Nairobi when?’ and added.

When the boda bodas spotted me talking to her, one of them shouted.
‘Wewe witshukhulu wa Ongoma, (Ongoma’s grandson) utakufa. Rudi huko city utafute msichana anajua kuoga. Huyo ameharibika siku hizi.’
‘Uzuri babako ndio ameniharibu,’ she responded.

I was disappointed with myself. That is the girl I wanted to marry? Kienyeji is only kienyeji on social media, kwa ground, the only difference between the cirri broilers and the village kienyeji is that whereas the broilers sit on bowls while shitting,

the kienyejis crouch just above the toilet hole for the same purpose and they use unprocessed paper as toilet paper. Otherwise, their characters are dependent on their individual nature and not whether one lives in the cirri or the village.

She was paged by the JKUAT ganja farmer, I heard. She doesn’t know if her baby is a Mwangi, Otieno, Mwangi, or Koech, or Juma.

I still don’t understand how they manage to remain standing straight while at the same time shaking their bum bum.

https://twitter.com/Eddiest_KE/status/1453677195243757570?s=20

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