Several
metres from our village home, on your way to that big road used by people coming
to the city, on the immediate left turning, is Mwenda Uthui’s homestead.
Uthui (not
his real name), several years my senior, came to Nairobi (Kenya’s capital), to
seek out for a well-paying job. Several days
into his arrival, and Uthui has no money. Hustling becomes the order of the
day. After months
of doing odd manual jobs, which were hard to obtain anyway, including being a
waiter at a smoky hotel in Mathare and moonlighting at construction sites, he
gets tired of city life.
So much work
yet very meager wages, if at all, enough is enough.
He decides
to go back to the village. Life is not as costly there; at least 3 meals a day are
assured, or even more, if anyone so wishes. Another problem
ensues. He has no fare to go back! A man with a mission, and nothing to lose at
that, can have ‘brilliant’ ideas. He decides to become a mganga (a witchdoctor/diviner). So he gets a traditional hat, two
big birds’ feathers, a gourd with black spotting and some stones inside-the assortments
of a typical mganga.
He then paints
these words on an old rusty iron sheet, and pins it on an electric post:
‘MGANGA KUTOKA ZANZIBARI: ANATIBU MAPENZI, KUPITA MTIHANI, KUPATA
KAZI….e.t.c PIGA SIMU 0725***555(DIVINER
FROM ZANZIBAR: SORTS LOVE ISSUES, PASSING EXAMS, GETTING A JOB…CALL THIS NUMBER)’
Day 1 into
the new ‘job’. Clients trickle in, escorted by their problems. Whether by sheer
wisdom, fate, coincidence or something, he solves their issues. He earns good
money and decides to stay a little longer-this job is paying! On Day 2,
Uthui is excited, and enthusiastically does his job, continuing with it for a
month, when the inevitable happens...
 |
| Image Courtesy of kabwelacomix.blogspot.com |
A ‘client’,
with whom Uthui once worked together at a construction site, recognizes his
voice. The client chooses to ignore it, after all, if his issue will be dealt
with, what’s the big deal? Unfortunately, it was not to be.
His request? All he wanted was for him to be recalled the following morning to his former job where he had been sacked, to which Uthui declared with confidence: ‘Consider it done’
His request? All he wanted was for him to be recalled the following morning to his former job where he had been sacked, to which Uthui declared with confidence: ‘Consider it done’
Come the day
after, and there was no response from his former employer. He later learnt that
someone else had been picked for the post. Out of anger,
he organized a gang to teach Uthui ‘a lesson or two’, recover his money and jettison
him out of town. And were it not for Kasee, a friend of Uthui’s, and who had
also been recruited to ‘eliminate’ Uthui, who now informed him of the plot, he
would have been turned into something more than a punching bag.
Late in the
night, poor Uthui packed his few belongings and took off…his destination? The
village, never to come back to the city again.
“Eneke the bird says that since men
have learnt to shoot without missing, he has learnt to fly without perching” ~Chinua
Achebe~
***
"Come to me, all you who are
weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” Jesus Christ. (New International
Version) Matthew 11:28
