With bank loan, I can finally  build house befitting my status

Those of you who have a good memory will recall that last year, I embarked on a two-year plan to build a permanent house for myself. You will all agree that a respectable man like me should not be staying in his parents’ home. You will also agree that a man like yours truly should not be staying in a house whose floor and walls are made of soil mixed with dung.

Once Fiolina, the laugh of my life, completes college and gets employed by TSC, it will be a great shame to have her squatting to smear the floor with dung. That is not the life my wife and I, who are respected role models in this community, should live.

This is why I started the ambitious plan of constructing a permanent house — a house whose size, design and grandeur is yet to be seen in Mwisho wa Lami and its environs. Not everyone agreed with me when I started it. For some it was jealousy while for others it was the fear that I would be bewitched.

“It is unheard of to build a permanent house as the first structure in your home,” said Rasto at the time. He had come looking for me when he saw a tractor deliver sand at the construction site. “You should at first build a mud structure and then later build what you want.” I asked him why.

“It is not good to take long building your first house. Your first house in a new home should be built in a day,” he said. The answer he gave was insufficient.  I prodded him further.

“Mwisho wa Lami people have bad eyes,” he said. “When you take long to build your house their bad eyes may slow down the project and you may never finish it.”

My parents too were opposed to the project. “We don’t want you to die early,” said my mother. “The jealous people of Mwisho wa Lami will think that you have a lot of money and kill you.”

CHEAP LABOUR

I ignored all of them and started off the project. I had initially wanted to start after Fiolina completes college but the salary increment we were awarded last year encouraged me to start off immediately. 

The construction site was a bee-hive of activity as every man in Mwisho wa Lami passed by to witness the spectacle. But soon, the courts took away our increment, I became broke, and the project stalled.

Within a few weeks, the rains came and covered the foundation that had been dug, plants started growing and within a few months the once busy construction site was just another abandoned farm, with animals grazing there.

The old geezers who had discouraged me from constructing the house had a field day, and they never stopped reminding me that I should have listened to them. They could not understand that an aborted salary increment was the reason my project had stalled.

“I told you not to start building your own home before your elder brother Pius moves out,” said Alfayo. “Now you see.” Matters were not made any easy by the fact that in December, Pius moved from our home. Unlike me, Pius built a semi-permanent house within a day and moved in. Alphayo come reminding me that this is what I should have done.

Whenever he drunk, my father would walk around singing how the house will never be completed. There was one exception. Whenever he was drunk on my money, he would praise my name reminding everyone how I had started one of the biggest houses in Mwisho wa Lami and its environs. “Once the house is complete, Dre will be our MP”, he would sing.”

Occasionally, my mother would visit the site and pray to God to open ways for me to complete the house. And it seems that her prayers were answered; for in April, I approached Nyayo to make for me some bricks to be paid in installments. Early June, he baked them. Although I still owed him some, he allowed me to take the 6,000 bricks.

For the last two weeks, everyday after school, I use a wheel-barrow to move the bricks home. Two weeks ago, an idea came to me and one day during games time, I took all the boys from class five to eight to Nyayo’s home where everyone carried two bricks to the construction site. They made several trips. The boys enjoyed it and within two days, I was done with transporting the bricks.

DRESSED TO KILL

Luckily for me, I completed repaying the loan for Fiolina’s fees in May. I considered taking a sacco development loan to complete the house but I was not very sure that it was a wise idea. But two weeks ago, great news reached us that the government had accepted to give teachers a massive salary increment. I may not have the full details but none other than Sossion, the best thing that ever happened to teachers, said that the deal was so good that there will be no teachers’ strike for four years. That alone was good enough for me to know that we were upto something good.

With that information, I resolved to take a loan to progress with my house project. I could have waited for Fiolina to come but I thought that she would be pleasantly surprised to get back and find progress made on the house. With such progress, surely Fiolina would forgive me on any misdemeanors that I may have made in her absence.

I tried to take a loan from the sacco but they took me hivi hivi and I found the process of getting guarantors too long and complicated. Especially when you consider that they had my money.

I walked to a bank with my May payslip. Dressed in my all-time favourite, long-sleeved, double pocketed blue Kaunda suit, I asked to see the bank manager. I was not going to deal with just anyone in the bank. Based on my dressing alone, the manager ushered me to his office and closed the door behind him. He reviewed my payslip and asked me about my job prospects.

“You are the youngest Deputy HM I have ever met,” he said.

“And I will be the headmaster in a matter of months,” I told him. I also reminded him that teachers had been awarded a massive salary increment. He nodded although he also said he did not have the full details. He told me that I would get a loan and asked me to fill in the application forms. That was last Monday.

I went back home feeling on top of the world. The next day, I was called by the bank and asked a few questions about what I wanted the money for. I passed all the questions. That evening I received an SMS that my loan request had been approved. And on Friday at noon I received another SMS that my loan request of Sh217,000 had been disbursed.

What was more, I could move the money from my account directly to my phone. I tried to transfer Sh30,000 to my phone and it came in minutes. The balance was not what I expected but the SMS had mentioned something about processing fees. But that was not a major issue as long as Sh30,000 was in my account! I could not settle in school. Immediately, I called my fundi but he was busy and said that he could only make it from Monday.

In the meantime, I sent Fiolina Sh2,500, and gave my father Sh1,500. I gave my mother Sh1,000 and another Sh3,000 to keep for me. Since Pius was expected home in a weeks’ time, I sent him Sh13,000 to buy me a good phone.

There was no going to Hitler’s that evening. I walked to Cosmos.  It was important to thank the body that toils before I can embark on the real reason why I took a loan. Saphire, Juma, Kuya and Mr Kizito joined me at Cosmos. I ordered for several kilos of meat to be roasted as we quenched our thirst.

I am not so sure but if my memory serves me well, the money I had on my phone was not enough and I had to transfer more money form the bank. It was late at night, when we left Cosmos. While the others staggered home, I called a boda boda rider to take me home.

From tomorrow, we embark on phase two of constructing the house. By the time Fiolina comes college, the house will be ready for roofing!