Uko wapi

“Uko wapi?” Someone texted just a while ago.

I have been told time and again that the answer to this question is entirely dependent on who is asking and where they are asking it from.

I am from replying this text and I can’t help but smile because I’m at three different places. My mom knows I’m at the supermarket(where I should be), whoever sent the text knows I’m at a friend’s place catching up on the latest episodes of Hawaii Five-O(sorry dude, but I can’t leave this house knowing that I only have sixty shillings to my name). Anyway I’m at home watching a repeat of last week’s episode of Njoro wa Uba. These local shows are something else, especially the one with the crazy Indian lady.

It is already 2021, the second day of January 2021, though I’m sure you’re not reading this on the second. Anyway, it is the second of January 2021. Hard to believe, considering I am still in the same sweatpants I had on last year. I have already grown tired of being told “yaani this year hujaoga ata mara moja“

I will get to that once I make peace with the fact that I still have to carry a facemask, whenever I leave this house. Thankyou Miss Rona. You have done so much for us. I for one will never forget the annual end of year family get-together we had last year, it was via zoom but hey, I’m not complaining.

I haven’t heard anyone claim this to be their year yet. I was fast asleep by midnight on the 31st, so I don’t know whether you shouted Happy New Year, or you shouted JUMANJI, or you just let the fireworks and balutis do it for you. I just hope you all prayed to the heavens and poured libation to the Ancestral spirits, for obvious reasons.

Whatever you said or did then doesn’t matter anyway, that we learned the hard way. I remember how we kicked off 2020 on a high note with all the 2020 tuko key…itabidi mumetii vibes, and two months in some of us had already started begging the year to slow down with the mwaka isimame kidogo tumumunyeko njugu shenanigans. In another two months we literally had to stop and ask ourselves whether tutawezana, all thanks to the guy who took the Batman thing to a whole different level. Were it not for anybody can gerrit and the two sausages one beer thing, most ‘Fellow Kenyans’ would have already applied for Citizenship in Tanzania. I believe that would have played out like this,

“Hebu niwaulizeni, nini kimewaleta huku?” The Tanzanian Immigration Officer asks.

“Pombe.” They reply, and for that they would have been accorded Citizenship. I feel like adding If You Know You Know at this point, but si you all know you know.

I should be going now, I have errands to run, a movie to finish and a whole year to think about. Great, now the lights are out, and none of my devices are charged. My ‘business phone’ is almost dead, my laptop screen froze when I was halfway into WW84, and the other phone is at 85%. I don’t use it much since I decided to take a break from social media. I only use it for calls and music. Speaking of music, the only song I’ve listened to this year is Patoranking’s Love you Die. It’s funny, that used to be one of her favorite songs. Coincidence, I don’t think so. Anyway life goes on and who knows, maybe this year I’ll find love again, maybe this year I’ll finally get over her, I don’t want to, but…

Guess I’ll just have to wait and see, and 2021 all we’re asking is that you be better than the year that was so terrible it was named twice-twenty twenty!

Before I go, allow me to ask this-as an individual, where are you, UKO WAPI? And I’m not talking about the supermarket, or your friend’s place or at home.UKO WAPI?

Happy New Year guys.

Chiko.

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