LIFE BY LOUIS: The return from a village Christmas

The period between Christmas and New Year is like a dark era in history that even world- renowned historians and archaeologists have failed to explain.

It is a week where things move in slow motion and everyone walks around looking dazed like they have just survived a massive earthquake and more aftershocks are on the way.

The situation is more severe for most of the married men who find themselves alone in this city during this dark period.

It always starts with a polite sojourn to the village over the Christmas holiday with the entire family to celebrate with the rural folks.

This is also an excuse to reduce the world population of goats as they are converted into stew and roast cuts that are consumed with large bowls of pounded food and escorted with copious amounts of adult beverages.

Urban-based men who have not been to the village for the preceding twelve months also take the opportunity to quarrel their brothers who have squeezed the land boundary one inch at a time and are now threatening to declare a total occupation of their ancestral land.

UNDECLARED LUGGAGE

Like most men are wont to do, you only pack a soccer jersey and an extra pair of jeans or side pocket pants for the 4-day stay in the village. Meanwhile your wife and kids pack two huge suitcases each plus other undeclared luggage that require to be checked into the carriage compartment of your tiny car. Inside that luggage you are likely to find the juice blender, hair drier, the kids bicycles and assorted toys.

You ignore this mass movement as one of those ladies things, and you all head off to the village for what you think will be a brief stay.

Finally it is  December 27 in the afternoon and the festivities are over. You have split the goats head to savour the delicacy of the goats grey matter inside and downed several cups of hooves soup.

It is going to 6pm and no one is in a hurry to move, therefore you send Junior to go and ask Mum what time they shall be ready to leave. She comes around with the khanga still tied around her waist and declares that they are not returning to the City until mid-January.

“Why did you not tell me this before?” you retort as you throw your few clothes into the car boot and zoom off to Nairobi alone. As you take the solemn journey into what seems to be an unknown and untested territory, you begin to understand why everyone else packed large suitcases except yourself.

EMPTY HOUSE

It is when you arrive into the empty house that you discover that you have no idea where to find basic necessities like food and toiletries in the house, and you suddenly realise that slow death by starvation is imminent.

You head to Man Njoro’s, a popular eatery in the neighbourhood which you have not visited for the last few months since you defaulted on a quarter meat you consumed when the month was at the red corner.

You count about twenty other men in various states of loneliness and starvation and you find solitude in this familiar company.

Njoro is upbeat. God has a unique way of providing him with willing customers at the most unlikely time of the year when the town is all deserted.

Several portions quarter meat boil in tens of small soot blackened sufurias from each of which Njoro occasionally dips his paws to grab several fatty morsels into his mouth in order to taste for salt.

As the customers commence on the customary half-hour wait for the meat to cook that always ends up translating into two hours, the men get acquainted with each other.

As they get to open up on their personal experiences and the reasons why they are where they are, they finally crack the mystery. This act of being left alone in the City is a deliberate effort by wives to test the resilience of their husbands. It is also meant to test their overall resistance to starvation from food and other basic needs. It is a mock shooting of the Survivor Series that the wives do with their husbands as the main actors just for the fun of it.

This is soon proven to be true. As the men order a round of adult beverages in order to allow Njoro two more hours of lying that the meat is almost ready, the dreaded calls from Mama Watoto start coming in.

You can easily tell that these are marriage life-threatening calls going by the looks on a man’s face as he composes himself to pick the call.

As each of those calls arrive, we motion to Njoro to lower the music volume and we all go quiet and watch with brotherly silence and love as the next victim is slaughtered.

KNOWS THE DRILL

Njoro knows the drill too, and he admonishes the noisy Alcoholic Beverages Service Assistants to lower their voices because some customers are receiving important business calls. He knows too well that if those shrieking voices are heard by Mama Watoto on the other end then his customers will be in deep trouble.

“Hey Babes, I was just checking on you. Junior has refused to eat supper and it is raining here. I am missing you. Have you eaten? Can you please check if I left my black hairband in the bathroom? What are you watching on the television? What is that noise in the background? Is that kitchen tap still leaking?”.

We exchange meaningful glances as Kelvin lies that he is at home and he has just cooked ugali with tomatoes and onions.

He also asserts that the black hairband is intact in the bathroom and there is no water and electricity and thus no television and no leaking taps.

Dennis is looking shaky and we fear he is going to mess up when his phone rings, so we advise him to put his phone on loud-speaker and we help him with answers.

He is being instructed by his Mama Watoto to return an iron box that she had borrowed from the neighbours. I quickly motion to him to say he is already in bed and he shall return it the following day. We all heave a sigh of relief as he is given a virtual kiss and told to sleep well.  He orders another bottle of our favourite beverage to thank us for saving him from inevitable misery of everlasting consequence.

Mutuku is in company of a female friend and he has already consumed more than his normal share of beverages so we know he cannot answer the questions convincingly. Our panel of experts advised him to put off his phone, he can explain that the phone's battery had died when he is in a better state.

As we leave Njoro's place well past 2am, we give each other encouraging bear hugs and promise to link up the following day.

I tip toe to 8^th Floor just when the roosters are crowing themselves hoarse. I know that if my nosy neighbour sees me checking in at this ungodly hour, she will broadcast as breaking news that I am a hotbed of drunkenness and destroying my home when my family wife is away. I have no intention of answering hard questions in January.

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