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From Shifting Sands to Deeper Dimensions (Part 2)
By Moraa Gitaa (Kenya)
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Dedicated to my departed friends; Rosemary, Anita, Faith and Lorna. God Speed.
******************
Myra picked me up at Malindi airstrip. She introduced me to her two friends who were also her
partners; one was Italian, the other German.
As I tried to strike up a conversation with the foreigners, they seemed wary. Later I was to find out
why they shunned strangers. I found myself thinking ‘’These white people perplex me! Don’t they
know that it is un-African, rude and insulting to have one-word answers to rhetorical questions?”
We drove to their cottages in Watamu, a beach resort ten kilometers from Malindi.
The electronic gates opened to allow us in. The spacious grounds were impressive. Maisonettes
and bungalows, some unoccupied, dotted the grounds at intervals.
Was that why Indigenous beach hotel owners were complaining that foreigners given
tax concessions by the government were poaching their clientele by offering cheaper rates?
I was given a cottage all to myself.
A private beach plot; a large, free-form swimming pool; Jacuzzi, sauna,
Mnet-Dstv. I was going to start by spoiling myself on Movie Magic!
We went down to the beach for a swim and later to the market.
Antonio, the Italian insisted that he wanted to buy Kungu Manga to try it out later. Kungu Manga
is Swahili for Nutmeg. The coastal people consider the nut to be an aphrodisiac. I wondered why
he kept looking pointedly at me. Was this a taste of things to come for the few days I was going to
be here? I knew I would have to put him in his place sooner rather than later and set the record
straight!
That evening we sat down for a quiet dinner and got into a lively, intelligent discussion.
The topic turned to the thousands of educated Kenyans who were jobless, yet illegal immigrants
in a lucrative crooked scheme, were getting work permits in our country and were then referred to
as ‘expatriates’ when some could hardly spell their names, and more often than not turned out to
be suave con men, especially in the banking industry!
Antonio and Kahn the German came across as jaded cynics.
After dinner I excused myself and went to rest in my cottage for half an hour.
I then decided to go down to the beach again.
I passed by the mansion, heard shouting and wondered what was happening. I didn’t mean to
eavesdrop, but I couldn’t avoid hearing some of Myra’s screamed words which reached my
ears. ‘How could you?!’ She shouted, ‘I thought we agreed. No ex-spouses! No ex-lovers and
certainly no excuses!’
I heard Kahn’s muted voice in the background:
‘…don’t start blowing hot and cold with me!’
A door slammed, followed by sounds of breaking glass.
I covered my ears walking hurriedly away, memories crowding my mind. Memories of the day I
broke up with my daughter’s dad.
Though he’d been jobless for close to two years and I paid for everything including the rent, my
younger sister’s college tuition and our daughter’s baby class fees, his disappearing and re-
appearing acts were nerve-wrecking. I remember refusing to sleep with him after a particularly
bad disappearing stint of three months, I didn’t know where he’d been, and he refused to go for
HIV testing. He tried to forcefully make love and I refused. I remember holding the knife that night.
“Are you going to stab me?” He’d demanded.
“It’s your prerogative. You rape, me I stab you. You don’t rape me, I don’t stab you.”
I answered clutching the knife in my puny hand. “I don’t want to be another Aids statistic. You’ve
seen the demographics on HIV. I have to take care of my baby. Try and force me into having sex
with you and you will regret it coz tomorrow you’ll be in the local dailies headlines as another
tragic victim of domestic violence!.”
When he looked into my eyes and realized that I meant it, he left me alone. I walked out that night
never to look back.
I shook my head trying to clear the cobwebs from my mind and strolled down to the beach.
I stayed there till late night when Myra came looking for me.
“You had a fight with Kahn. What happened earlier? I thought you two are tight?’
I paused then added, ‘I heard snippets of your shouting match with him. Though I didn’t mean
to eavesdrop.’
‘I was mad because when you left the dinner table, Antonio’s girlfriend came over with one of
Kahn’s ex’s and I was pissed off. I was not amused.’ Myra explained.
‘I’ve noticed that you stay up at the main house with him. So you’re now shacking up with your
partner?’ I asked.
‘Please don’t use that derogatory term and tone with Kahn. I love him and he loves me.’
‘Ok. Ok. Sorry Myra’ I replied, ‘But you are my friend and I’m concerned. I’ve noticed you’re really
tight with this jamaa (Swahili slang for dude)Kwani you’ve decided to hook up with this dude for
real? ‘I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want to be a spoilsport or katsia (Swahili Slang
for cut short) you, but why don’t you legalize it. Get married or something?’
I’d tried to shake off the habit of mixing Swahili slang with English but it had become a sort of
Kenyan culture.
‘Kahn won’t hear of it. But I’m working on It,’ She said dejectedly.
‘Myra, doesn’t that tell you something? HIV positive or not?’ I insisted.
‘Please!’ she interjected ‘Why parry with semantics? Me. Him. Hurting me. Hurting him. It doesn’t
really matter. You’re here, so we can have some fun. Let’s just drop it.’
‘If you say so.’
We ran down to the water’s edge like the two small little girls we used to be.
Little did I know that tonight and the day after was going to bring forth more drama and
shenanigans…
*********
We decided to have a night cap before calling it quits.
We were soon into dissecting Kenyan banks and how influential personalities
acquired loans by only a shake of the hand across a Bank Chairperson’s desk and a
nod from the powers that be. Or a mere phone call.
And no collateral as demanded from the less endowed wananchi. (Citizens)
Antonio and Kahn shifted to discussing about how they were getting exaggerated
electricity bills of a million Kenya Shillings, which they had refused to settle and The Kenya Power
and Lightening Company was threatening them with disconnection.
I knew there had to be a clincher somewhere and then it came.
A former Councilor from the province had offered to help if they parted with two hundred and fifty
thousand shillings. He claimed that it was possible for him to see that the high billing
stops and the million shilling bills disappear. I was mortified. We were in the new millennium and I
thought Kenyans were rising to the occasion of collective responsibility.
I asked Myra if what I was hearing was true. She said it was and that the quarter of a million
was ready for the councilor to pick up the following afternoon.
I wondered what happened to patriotism.
They were looking at me as if I’d gone crazy. It appeared as if they’d taken bribing, commonly
referred to as TKK (Toa kitu kidogo – Swahili for ‘Give out something small’) for granted. They
would grease any outstretched palms with money to get favors like doing away with protocol and
red tape or landing a Government contract.
They argued that they found the culture entrenched in the country.
I told them that it takes two to tango. If they stop offering bribes there would be no takers.
I wondered aloud if they knew that a charge existed in our laws about bribing Government
officials, laughing cynically they told me to wait for tomorrow and see for myself!
I asked Myra what happened to her believe in the Kikuyu proverb‘Kagutui ka mucii
gatiha kagwo ageni” which translates to “The oilskin of the homestead is not
for rubbing onto the palms of guests”
For all I could and see and hear the lamentations of the righteous are all but echoes…
The Councilor arrived.
We all had lunch together. The show began thereafter. I’d been praying that the Councilor would
not compromise his dignity and integrity by taking the money.
After lunch they didn’t even retire to the day room, as if they wanted me to witness the unfolding
scenario first hand. Amidst the discussions on Government rhetoric on various socio-economic
issues, Antonio brought out an attaché case. The money was counted and given to the councilor.
I almost threw up in disgust at the gleeful look in his eyes.
Kahn impaled me with his gloating eyes as if to say ‘We told you so…’
I wondered. If leaders we put in the frontline betrayed us…it meant that the
culture was deeply embedded, an appendage abetting criminals.
I pushed back my chair, almost stumbling on the carpet, Myra looked at me with
eyes which spoke volumes albeit silently; ‘Grow up and get real. Stop being so naïve.’ She
seemed to be saying.
Later….
While changing for dinner, I was determined to thrash it out with Myra concerning her financial
situation, I wouldn’t let her browbeat me. These cottages couldn’t be the source of all this money.
Kabum…kadum…kabum…every person with their cross…My father’s voice echoed.
Kahn and Antonio just laughed and told me to go to the kitchen and cook what I
wanted. I wondered - can they be having some maize-meal flour and kale?
In the kitchen I donned an apron and started rummaging in the cabinets and deep
freezers. God knew why he took me to that kitchen, to touch someone’s life – and he used my
love of sukumawiki to do it!
I interact well with all types of characters, so naturally the cook - a Giriama - One of the nine
coastal sub-tribes of Mijikenda (Meaning nine tribes) girl of around seventeen took to me.
She was surprised; What was a guest of the high and mighty doing in the kitchen?
And wonders of wonders – I was speaking Swahili! That spelled instant affinity with the locals.
It’s a shame that we’ve sunk to an all time low, so called elitist groups hardly speak Swahili and
frown upon those who converse in their tribal dialects.
I’d gathered from her that the girl’s family were squatters they’d employed so as to help them eke
out a living. She’d also taught Rehema how to cook but as I engaged the girl in small talk, she
introduced a whole new perspective to Myra’s version – and small talk indeed it turned out to be!
I got a chicken from the freezer. No sukumawiki, but at least they had spinach.
No maize-meal flour too, but the girl told me that we could go up to the road side kiosk and get a
packet as the shopping centre was now closed.
I went back to the dining room and told Myra that I was going out for maize-Meal, she
told me to borrow her BMW. The wheels housed in their garage left me agape!
The time jump sneaks into my conscious again…I remember how we we’d till the shamba and
hoe out weeds from in-between rows of sweet potatoes and beanstalks…make hideous
scarecrows from waste paper and bamboo sticks to scare away the monkeys…how she was
more adept at expertly spinning huge mounds of ugali using the wooden cooking stick on
the hearten three-stone fireplace…
Down to earth again as the Maasai Moran night guard and Bibi the Doberman accompanied us.
As we drove up the road, Rehema showed me where they lived. The slums were squalid,
dilapidated clusters of mud and coconut thatch huts. No proper sanitation, no tapped water and
no electricity!
No wonder for the days I’d been here she appeared downcast.
She started explaining their circumstances as a by the way conversation, that the beach plot
where the investors have built cottages was grabbed from her father. (The ugly monster that is
land grabbing by fat cats rears its head again.) I thought I heard wrong, but she continued.
Her narration was heart-wrenching. Her family had been helpless with no steady source of
income and had stood by, hapless onlookers, as the local chief colluded with land adjudicators to
ensure their ancestral land was grabbed.
To add salt to injury the investors employed Rehema and her siblings for one thousand Kenya
shillings per month doing manual labour on the rounds and as house-helps.
Her brothers and male relatives spent the little money they earned drinking Mnazi (coconut palm
wine) in obscure and nondescript drinking dens.
Back at the house over dinner I discussed the land issue with Myra and we got into a heated
argument, my view was that the issue should be settled soon as it was highly volatile, even now
Kenyans are like sitting ducks on a ticking time bomb!
Examples abound of how during the Kenyatta era, the first family grabbed large tracts of prime
land and beach plots in the Coast rendering indigenous owners squatters to wallow in abject
penury. No wonder people say generations of the Kenyatta (Jomo Kenyatta - First President of
Kenya) family will never identify with the word poverty.
The volatile issue evokes bitter memories and fingers are still pointed at the family.
Antonio and Kahn didn’t want to hear anything about it. All they could say was that Rehema’s
family had been unable to clear a debt on land rates they owed the local council and their land
had been sold because it had been allocated to them by the Government and that as they failed
to develop it within the Government deadline, it had been re-possessed and sold off.
To the highest bidder perhaps?
I wondered how much of their millions had ended up in the pockets of the local chief and his
cronies? Where could people like Rehema go to for help if people meant to help them colluded to
rob them?
Never mind that Rehema’s family had a land title deed. A tattered and yellowed piece of paper
dated 1920 and which reads in part ‘’COLONY AND PROTECTORATE OF KENYA. THE
REGISTRATION OF TITLES ORDINANCE 1920’’
My heart bled.
Sunday morning….
This is where I started my story of three years back…
I’m back at the mansion from my morning stroll on the beach…
‘Why do you want to leave so soon? I thought you’ve two more days?’ Myra asked.
‘I miss my baby. I can’t wait to get back.’ I replied.
‘Have you thought about my proposal?’ She continued.
I still couldn’t believe it. Such a wild proposition!
I’d tried to blank out the conversation from my head, though I’d been the instigator. I’d wanted to
know where all the money came from.
To be a drug mule? I couldn’t traffic narcotics!
‘Myra, I can’t. We’ve heard of people dying when these pellets burst in their stomachs.’ I said.
‘I’ll promise you one thing. You don’t have to swallow any pellets. We can arrange for you
to have a suitcase with a false bottom. You don’t have to worry about getting caught. We’ve
our network and your luggage won’t have to go through security check.’ She countered.
‘I won’t exactly be FedEx!‘ I replied sarcastically, came to my senses and continued
‘Myra, do you ever stop to think of what these drugs have done to our youth?’ I tried again.
‘Listen to you! Will you please stop being silly? Stop focusing on other people and start
thinking about yourself and your child for a change. You don’t have a job. How are you going to
pay your rent? What ever you call it, bakes, quid, mullah, chapaa, bread, pesa, color! Money
makes the world go round! And you don’t have any! How are you going to survive? You’ll earn
lots of bakes, more than a million shillings just for this single run. You better think twice and
please don’t start on me with that stuff about poetic justice! If you continue behaving this way
you’ll remain poor in Kenya for the rest of your life!’ She added melodramatically.
I stared at her. I was transfixed as if watching scenes from 24 and Alias.
My dad’s voice chose that moment to intervene…Kila mtu atabeba mzigo wake…
Time jump intervention again! Who was this stranger in my friend’s skin?
My mind wandered back and I saw ourselves pounding millet in the pestle and mortar before later
grinding it finely using the hollow mother stone and baby stone. The songs of the stones and
songs of grains lulling us almost to sleep. Collecting firewood and later storing it in the ceiling
store made of rafters my people call ‘Irongo.’
Back to the present…
‘It’s dangerous. My baby needs me. I can’t risk jail. And don’t re-assure me that
like Michael Schofield you’ll re-enact Prison break and get me out!’ I retorted.
‘You aren’t listening my friend. You are a beautiful, young, smart, talented and ingenious
Kenyan. No one will suspect you. You’ll look like a sales executive when you walk
through that airport security.’
I couldn’t believe this was the Myra I knewtalking! With her First Class Honors Degree in
Humanities. Was her preferred Major coming in handy? Or a case of a country’s jobless
graduates?
‘Anyway what’s your take on this?’ I asked her. ‘You know I’ve always been against anything
dishonest to a fault, and maybe that’s my undoing, but I can’t start now.’
‘’I’ve to leave. Please drop me at the bus station.’ I requested shakily before temptation
got the better of me.
‘No need to take the bus. I’ll drive you to the airport. One of our friends owns a
private charter. He’ll fly you to Mombasa, he owes us a big foreign currency favor.”
I smiled indulgently. ‘Don’t tell me Kahn and Antonio are also into Money laundering?’
I was joking, but when she dropped her eyes without answering it made me wonder.
Sighing listlessly I ran a hand through my hair. ‘No thanks. Today I don’t wanna fly. I need the
forty minute ride so I could think.’
Kahn and Antonio were not there, I’d already told them I was leaving this morning.
At the terminus Myra offered me an envelope. ‘Open it’ She urged.
When I did I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The money was going to pay my rent and daughter’s tuition twenty times over.
Was she tightening the noose round my neck in a last ditch effort to change my mind?
‘I can’t take this. I have a question though. When you met me on Nyerere Ave, it wasn’t a
coincidence was it? Had you been targeting me?’
I had this leaden heavy weight in my chest. It was pushing its way into my throat. I thought it was
my breaking heart, I tried to swallow it back into its rightful place but realized it was tears as they
spilled over.
I remembered my mama. She always tells me ‘Noita omonto botuko, Getutu nkere maiso’ a
proverb my people use which translates to ‘Commit a cold blooded murder in the night, but the
thicket has seen you.’
At that moment I felt a subtle shift in my resolve not to get involved. It was blood money. Drug
money that was destroying many families. Was I at crossroads? Where was I going to get
rent? Was I cutting my nose to spite my face?
‘My dear, to be honest, I knew of your problems and this is my way of bailing you out.
We’ve come a long way together. Please just take it. Otherwise what are you going to do about
the tuition?’ Myra asked.
‘I don’t know. Maybe if I could just have one hundred shillings for my fare?’ I had instilled much
faith in my strength of character. I wasn’t going to start compromising that judgment now.
This much I knew. My honesty, integrity, dignity and pride.
No matter what else you take from me, that much remains intact. Soon I was on my way.
I always enjoy the scenery of the Arabuko Sokoke (the few remaining Tropical Rain Forests in
Malindi and Kilifi districts along Kenya’s coast) but today I didn’t seem to notice it. I was
preoccupied with my own thoughts.
I reached Mombasa at half past ten.
I passed by the College where my sister was studying and told her that I’ll pick up her niece as I
was back in town. I saw the questions lingering in her eyes, weighing on her mind. It had been
that way for a while now, she’d been suspecting something was amiss, but could not come right
out with it. Maybe it was time I explained to her that I was going to take drastic steps which may
seem draconian to her, to cut down on finances, her college tuition for one.
Once home, I locked myself in my room. I had five hours before I could pick my baby from
Kindergarten. I stayed on my knees seeking divine intervention, otherwise how could I pull
through? Tears streamed down my cheeks. Was I going to be able to move from shifting sands of
doubt and insecurity to deeper dimensions of Kenyan’s known incredible resilience?
I guessed I’d rather be at peace with myself than risk repercussions, after all Swahili sages
said, ‘Dunia duara…’ ‘What goes round comes around…’
And usually full circle, if not to you, then to your offspring or future generations.
*********
…I tumble down the years from the time-wrap and into the present like in a sci-fi movie.
I’m shivering and I’m on the beach. Myra, we’ve just scattered your ashes abroad.
God-speed my beloved.
No more talks and walks with you on sandy beaches at Casuarina’s Deck or Italian Gellati ice-
cream at Yul’s Aquadrome, no sumptuous lobsters above The Mooring’s floating boat.
No dancing at Yama’s the beach pub, the feel of the fine sand on our naked feet and different
changing colors of the ocean reflecting our moods. No more Mombasa Sports Club’s manicured
lawns and a book to read as we await the live band’s strains of Malaika, jambo Kenya and
hakuna matata.
Nothing could ever replace the magic of a starlit African skyline as we made silent wishes on a
shooting star…
**********
In the morning I tremble when I read this manuscript. A rhapsody of realities.
********************
