Uongo

“Tumuonie firirida…tumuonie firirida…firirida tumuonie firirida…firirida…” blasts the  matatu radio and you just can’t help but covertly move your hips to the tune while seated beside a beautiful grumpy lady probably in her late twenties, whom some hours earlier was having a heated breakup conversation with her then ex-lover, or so you chose to assume, via Whats App text (the eyes are for seeing…don’t judge), before ‘balming’ the ‘pain’ with a Whats App status that read, “There are far, far better things ahead than we leave behind.” You smiled in ‘I feel you’ to suppress the not particularly ‘evil’ laughter that you usually let out unwarrantedly in such situations.

Heart pounding for a reason yet to be discovered by research, you lean forward and tap the quite handsome driver on the shoulder. “Dere shu… Dere shukisha hapo,” you finally manage to utter.

Maneno Town. Your hometown. East or West, Maneno is best. Alighting from the matatu, invitations along the lines of “sista, motorbike” are the first welcome statements you receive. Declining them all, you opt to trek through the sandstorm; that is quickly building up; taking in the scenery you had oh so longed for.

Wait a minute. Can you hear that? “Yabayabayaba…”

Giving heed to Johnnie Walker’s slogan, you listen keenly. Ah, there it goes.

“Wakazi wa Maneno, nawaahidi ya kwamba mkinichagua, nitahakikishakila mmoja wenu anapata maji safi piped straight kutoka Mlima Mboto. Barabara zote na hata njia za kwenda chooni nitahakikisha zimewekwa lami na,” rambled on Mheshimiwa Mawowowo, pausing to chuckle at his ‘humour’, “nitahakikisha kuna stima kila mahali mtakuwa mnaona hadi future.  Shule nitazijenga mpaka kuwe na too many wale sijui mnawaita prafesa. Vijana nawaahidi kazi mtazipata kwa wingi. Kazi zitakuwa zinawatafuta na haziwapati maana mna kazi nyingi tayari.”

Thoroughly amused by his sense of ‘humour’, he turns to a kienyeji Dwight K.Schrute standing behind him on the makeshift platform, whose jaws seem to be aching from all the feigned laughter in support of mheshimiwa’s jokes (read in preservation of mheshimiwa’s ‘favour’).

Same old story.

You begin making silly faces at an extremely cute baby girl strapped onto her mother’s back and she seems to enjoy every moment of it. By and by, you decide to continue with your journey. Buying some delicious mahindi choma from a nearby stand, you still hear mheshimiwa addressing the Maneno residents, but all your brain can register is “Uongo…uongo…hiyo ni uongo…”

Well, it’s what you have known, but what do you know? Anyway, you are yet to know.

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