The dime

The bus, Malindi bus was horsing at over 90km/h. And i was on the front seat, next to the driver's. When I was young, I loved to sit on the bonnet whenever my mum or grandma took me to her farm which was about ten kilometers from Malindi town. An area known as Vihingoni. I loved the view and when our bus overtook another.

Today, i was in the front seat but not so much paying attention to the view. I realized we had just passed Mavueni after sinking into a lake of thoughts. I saw and engaged a beautiful Giriama girl at the shamba during December holiday. Its April now, another school holiday in which I was supposed to spend more time with books since it was my final year in secondary school. But here i am, going for the girl that stole my heart. Its for love. I remembered the times when all we had to do to win a girl is buy her a soda. Good old days.

We had crossed Kilifi bridge and were now in Tezo. And I returned back to my thoughts. Why is it that these days girls ask what you do? They ask about your job and want to know how much you make? The romantics say love does not need money. Yet our girls nowadays have to peek at your pocket before accepting you. Some will justify that attitude by, “what are you going to offer me? Am I going to eat love?” But think about it, I'm currently walking on the ground. I am not dead. So even if I don't have a job, I must be getting food and I'm eating. Otherwise I will die of hunger. So in love, we will share what I get everyday.

Two times in my life love left me because I was about to loose my job. But I manage to survive in my state of joblessness. And its not only the girls, even elders in families ask what you do and demand goodies either in dowry or wedding parties to make sure your pocket coughs. And when they learn that you have no job or business, forget about taking their daughter.

A little escape from my deep thoughts and i realized we were passing Matsangoni now. My one month contact with Furaha, the girl i loved never did I experience demands or buying things for her. I saw her dancing to a traditional Giriama song during my aunt's wedding. It was a funny dance. Men were lined up opposite to the ladies. One would dance and show his or her clever moves then goes to stop in front of another in the opposite line. The chosen one from the opposite line will have to come dance in the middle and then choose too. Men had only a black material tied to their waists, while the girls had striped thin materials cut out from pieces of clothes and fasted on a rope around their waists. They call it "Hando.", and they were bare chested.

She saw me staring at her during the dance. And after, i followed her to where she was resting and greeted. I like you pretty girl, I started with with the fourth step. She smiled but did not answer. What's your name? Furaha, she replied. And the name accents her nature. The smile on her face accessorized her beauty. A fair colored not so tall average body girl who would make runway models envious of her beauty. We did not talk much and agreed to meet Tomorrow. She didn't live far from our farm.

The following day after breakfast, she came to me. We took a route between the Potato plants and Neem trees and finally found ourselves in a nice spot. It had a beautiful scenery where a stream flows beneath. We sat down under a cashew tree and we continued our yesterday's conversation. We were of the same age. She liked me too. Her eyes had given her away since yesterday. For her i was ready to quit school and start a life with together here in the shamba. She objected, and she reminded me that she did not ask for that. She said it was not a good idea to elope with her to Mombasa since i was still a student and had no job. However, she said she will wait for me. Go finish school and get a job as a clerk then come and take me, she said. Why clerk? Why not Doctor or an Engineer? She said because she has seen a guy in the neighboring village, Kakuyuni, who worked in Malindi as a clerk and his clothes are neat. Clean and ironed. The guy speaks English and he has rented his own room. I smiled when i listened to her explanation and did not argue further.

We continued seeing each other everyday under the cashew tree. We joked, talked about the future together and tickled each other when we had nothing to say. I had fallen fully for her. Days ran fast and without notice, only two days remained for my holiday to be over. On that morning, we walked silently holding each other's hands. We arrived at our usual hideout. Water was slowly going downstream. There was the moderate forest silence where the mild strength of the wind is heard through the dance of tree branches and flying leaves. We sat down on the grass that circumference the cashew tree. The air we inhaled was frivolus, and the scene was exotic. I pulled Furaha closer to my ribs. And as my neck turned, her eyes met mine. I tried to look beyond, inside the eyes to see what she was thinking. Her face had changed from smile to a plain one. She looked back at my eyes intensely. She seemed to be searching for the same answers as i. There were minor reverberations in my body. I kissed her cheek, then pressed harder to her body. I could sense her blood was boiling inside. Her lips began to tremble, then her whole body. Being a gentleman, i withdrew and stood up. But she rose up hurriedly, cuffed my neck and locked me in a very strong embrace. I understood from this that she had never, it will be her first time, so she was scared a bit.

I took her lips in a slow, sensuous smooch. Giving her a preview of how gentle i will be. My hand engaged in a brief adventure of dexterity and found out she had no lace. I controlled my powerful thirst. Nothing could go wrong to jeopardize my union with the woman that i loved more than life. I raised her leg up a comfortable angle as her back she supported with the cashew trunk. I looked into her eyes, and she dropped them. She was breathing heavily on my chest. I gently knocked, paved my way, and was home. Love fire was burning and i continued fueling it with kisses here and there. I felt I wanted to be here forever. As I looked at Furaha's face, she seemed lost in a wonderland. The flinching had stopped and she pressed her bosom harder on my chest. Passion escalated. Vigor increased in the rhythm. And i kept her leg on a tight grip as i pounded in her with fairish force. It was time for the Corona gear, and this needed animal bravado. The shooting stars exit fast from my bank upstream to her's. I felt exhausted, but i held her close still. I released her leg down, and we sat again under the cashew, holding each other.

I smiled to myself when these memories came. But we were already in Malindi and the bus had stopped. I took another Matatu and in half an hour I was at the shamba in Vihingoni. I greeted my family there and we ate and talked for about half an hour, before asking about Furaha. My uncle Omari looked at me sadly then began explaining; Furaha was married. A guy from Kakuyuni by the name of Kenga brought Fifteen cows and thirty goats to Furaha's father. Furaha resisted the offer but the father forced her to. Her stubbornness led her to escape one day. But she was captured and punished thoroughly with fists and canes by her brothers and uncles. She didn't have any choice, i'm sorry Jomba.

Territory wars

Four thirty in the afternoon was the time. I stopped my truck at where seemed to be a battlefield. The sun was still scorching, as is the norm in Arabian desert summers. Four resident dogs were barking off a pack of eight traveling outlaws. The home group was outnumbered, maybe some were out hunting. Two of them seem to be less than a year old. Not puppies, but not adults yet. I don't understand dog language but I assumed the juveniles were seconding their parent's threats to the visiting ones that “The others will soon come, you better run for your safety.” They barked as they went up and down on a raised ground, probably collected sand and arranged by the desert dweller whose land belonged to.

The stray dogs didn't seem to be scared by the threats. They knew their strength in numbers, and probably the weakness of their neighbors to cross over to their territory. They advanced carefully making the resident pack uneasy and their barking intensified. The alpha male from the rogue pack continued further, he had to show his pack that he was fearless and he was the leader. He went closer to the weaker resident dogs, raised one of his rear legs, and urinated. This was the height of uchokozi. You are only allowed to do that to mark your territory in the dog world.

I was watching all this drama across the wind screen of my truck. Lately I had developed an interest in the life of dogs. I had downloaded numerous documentaries on YouTube about Coyotes, wild dogs, fox, and wolves. The constitution and laws in these different species are almost the same. As a child, I didn't like them. Once on my rounds looking for mangoes around Port-Reitz area I was chased by two until I reached a group of people sitting. Six years ago, a guy who gave a lift in his car dropped me off at a crossroad in a desert, five kilometers away from town. And after walking about a kilometer, I met carcass eating desert dogs who immediately started following the second they saw me. My heart was in my mouth. But luckily, another car appeared from behind and saved me.

There are around three dog families in our current camp. I like puppies, I find them adorable. I have learnt to live with them. The only reason I don't touch them is because I will have to wash myself seven times, one with sand, to consider myself clean again.

Somehow, when it comes to protecting women, man laws have similarities with dog's. I remember in our early adulthood when we would revel in strolling. My buddies Sebastian, Robert and i, in strange far estates to hunt for girls. Once we were stopped by Arab boys who didn't want our threat in their neighborhood and it almost grew to a war. We stood our ground. This land belongs to God, and nobody was going to intimidate us.

Wandering boys always seem to have bad intent. To seduce our girls, impregnate them, then escape. It remains to be a shame for the family, especially to men. And to the neighborhood boys, it's an insult. The message from alien boys is that we aren't men enough. They can seduce our girls and there's nothing we can do about it. They can beat us in our own own turf. They make us feel impotent.

There was a very good looking boy who came hunting in our area. He was what we called lover-boys back then. He was handsomely dressed, always seemed clean and smart and smiling all the time. His name was George, and he had managed to trap Mwanasha on his bait. Although he seemed good at heart, he didn't have the courtesy to take the girl out of our sight to exchange their love smiles and public romantic touches. This angered “The boys.” And one day, we had to embarrass him in front of the princess. We had canes cut out from a guava tree. A four man army approached the enemy and started questioning if they didn't have girls in their neighborhood. What are you trying to show us? What do you really want from her?....and before he could answer anything, Mwamburi had thrown the first strike. As he turned I whipped him right on his buttocks and he fled before the worst happened to him. We chased him for about two hundred meters then returned back. And that was the last we saw of him on our estate.

Being adults now, we don't go around strange backgrounds showing off our masculinity. We meet girls in functions, parties or over the internet. Most of our adulthood relationships are a result of being introduced by our friends.

A friend I schooled with invited me to her wedding. I employed the company of my cousin(May he rest in peace) who was living around Likoni because it's near and I expected him to know the area and routes very well. We started asking around, I think it was Bomani village. And after an hour we were right where the wedding was taking place.

After sitting on the far corner for about ten minutes, I thought it would be better for the bride to know that she invited me and I came. This turned out to be a naive and foolish idea. I had asked one man who sat beside me if it was possible to go inside and say hi to the bride. He asked, “Are you his former boyfriend or what?” I answered him that I was just a friend. He didn't seem to believe it. So he started lecturing:- The boys of today cant let go even if a girl is getting married. If she was your girl, that was in the past. Do you have to come even to her wedding leave alone wanting to meet her? What do you want to do with her?

I assured the man that I didn't have any ignoble motive and he gave me a very stern look as if to say, “i know what you are up to.” My cousin was impatient at this time and he whispered to me that we should better leave. The man told us to look at the guys preparing the stage and others involved in the wedding preparations. Those are his brothers and cousins, he said. When they see you here, they will whip your ass off. I knew he was trying to get me scared. I was by that time, but I didn't want to show it. I asked him why because I had done nothing wrong? But he kept on mounting threat after threat until my cousin stood up and said he would leave me there if I continued staying.

This man seemed to be far related to the wedding family, yet he took it upon himself to “guard” the bride from outside predators. I wasn't one, but he was determined to make me miss the wedding lunch. He began raising his voice and at one time he asked if I wanted him to call one the bride's brothers and I realized nothing good will come out of remaining here. I had better consider my safety. I told him good-bye, he replied good bye without looking at me and we marched off like rained on cats who cowardly take another route to escape confrontation with the guard dogs.