This Man Kisinga…

I know you may have come across a fellow by the name Kisinga in Mwangi Gicheru’s Across the Bridge. Gicheru’s Kisinga is a gangster with a dirty mind and a dirty conscience if not with a dirty body as well. He dreams of anything 'big' including sleeping with Swedish girls he has seen in movies only to wake up soaked in the 'wetness of manhood'.  
  

Anyway should you want to know more about Gicheru’s Kisinga you will read Across the Bridge. So that tells you I wish to tell you about another Kisinga.

The Kisinga I want to tell you about is a very clean and smart fellow. A father of seven, Kisinga is a Mkamba of Diaspora who left kambaland soon after independence when Mzee asked Kenyans to "go thee unto the whole country and plow idle productive land". He ended up at the foot of the Shimba Hills in what is now Kwale County where he would bring up his family.  
   

Of course I am aware the word ‘idle’ on matters of land ownership is a post-colonial as it is a conflict sensitive word. The colonial theory was based on reports by the so called explorers that there was a far off region which was unoccupied and underutilized if not unutilized. If at all there were a people who sat on that region, taking it away from them was justifiable because the reports alleged they were uncivilized savages. Daniel Defoe in Robinson Crusoe and Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness expertly exhibit this.

So I don’t want to ignite such feelings to the effect that the Coast region was idle so it could be occupied by ‘outsiders’. Well, at least not at this time when the Mombasa Republic Council (MRC) is fighting for secession. What I intend to say is this…the likes of my Kisinga as a people in exodus wandered for some time before they finally found what to them was in a way land of milk and honey among a people who were hospitable. 

In the days when my Kisinga was settling down it is said there were so many carnivores from the hills of shimba that would attack their livestock. That's why among the cosmogenic myths in the land of my Kisinga is one that says the name ‘Shimba Hills’ depicts two lions that made life unbearable those early days. It says when the whites asked the indigenous community the name of their land they thought they had been asked about their troubles, so they talked of simba airi’, (simba for lion[s] and airi for two) hence reporting the case of two notorious lions that made life unimaginable in that epoch. Just to rub in the volatility of the lions the myth further says utensils would fall down from rafters if one of these two lions roared irrespective of how far they were. Sheep, cattle and goats would let loose their sphincter muscles unknowingly while dogs would screech with their tails between their hind thighs.

Indeed it is partly because of this, or so it is ‘cosmogenically explained’, that the indigenous community sold their land in give-away prices. 

In short there are so many stories that my Kisinga told us, about their original land and about this land they later settled in. I remember one story about a community they called Akavi and which they constantly fought with in their land of origin. Take Akavi as strangers. See them as enemies if you like and if we have to go to the extremes. Akavi my Kisinga said were people who crossed their land with large flocks of livestock looking for pastures. In the event the community of my Kisinga would stage resistance and there would be exchange of arrows from their side which the Akavi would reciprocate with spears. A song was composed by the community of my Kisinga to give them courage for such an encounter. It was literally a war song and it wound sound the alarm that the Akavi have been spotted. It goes: mukamba kwata uta ulumie Akavi nimeukila (you mkamba hold tight your bow, and indeed your arrow, for the Akavi are just about to cross).

Although my Kisinga told us several times of their victories I have thought time and again his was an exaggeration. I have felt they are the ones who lost many a times. It’s because if this I have argued psychoanalytically that the community of my Kisinga who are good at carving, hitherto do naked sculptures of the Akavi as a revenge tactic. I have argued, as they carve these sculptures, the way they keep on taking away unwanted wood with the adze to make the fine product of a old Akavi elder seated on a stool, is the very way they are hitting back at the many times they were speared without giving an equal match.

Anyway, I should stick to this fellow – my Kisinga. A very joyful man, he was at his best after a drinking spree, although he would drink responsibility out of him. I remember one day he made me walk him around from one drinking spot to another on a Christmas day. It happened that our mother had not sent us new outfits for Christmas. Ashamed and disgusted to see our age mates in new clothing, my siblings and I refused to go to church. That Christmas our mum had also forgotten to send us necessary shopping for the festivities. So when my Kisinga proposed I should go out with him so I can bring back home a packet or two of wheat flour for chapatti, the idea sounded angelic. I ended up being his page boy the whole day. I don’t remember much but I remember I came back home in the evening carrying a container of mnazi, the local brew in coast.

As it is my Kisinga just made us laugh about all this – missing a special meal on Christmas. Many a day he made us laugh even while we felt offended by him. He was a good story teller. He was also a good dancer. There is a day he cheated a young man that he would give him one of his daughters had he bought him enough mnazi. The young man listened to him and even after buying him the beer he escorted him home. On reaching at his compound he turned against the young man and asked him to leave as fast as he could before he descends on him. That young man still narrates that story to date. 

My Kisinga was a weird fellow. Or let us just say he was the best grandfather in the world. How on earth could he teach us how to flirt with women? And his style - “if you meet a girl” he would advise us, “ask her to join you in a task of pounding maize. Ask her to provide a mortar. You provide a pestle in reciprocate. Caution her to be well prepared as the task ought to take nine months.” Oooh my, that was my Kisinga for you. Asked today though I would say I now know better the politics of pounding maize that ought to be ready in nine months. 

My Kisinga was a healthy guy. He had a good appetite. He liked eggs and would take them raw in black tea. The last time I saw him he would wake up early in the morning and go the stream to bath without winking. He was very energetic and daring. A story goes that he once dared a District Commissioner (D.C)in to a battle. He asked the D.C to take off his kofia – the hat administrators put on – if he wanted to see him best. The D.C was leading a delegation from his office on a hunt for illegal brew in my Kisinga’s village. My nanny it is said was a brewer then. The D.C cowed so is it said. 

It’s some time since I saw and talked to my Kisinga since we don’t stay together any more. We only meet in dreams for we are far apart. His relevance in my life attempts to wane yet there is this one lesson he taught us that won’t go. That during the days of your life do your best to smile, do your best to be happy, do your best to avoid worries for the more you worry the more life becomes scary.

I have lived by this adage. Many a times I wake up weighing heavy with a dampened hope but I shake off my scares and stand up for the day’s chores. I wish this spirit to you too, rather, I know you have done this not once not twice. 

It’s the reason then I conclude by sharing this verse that appears in a poem I wrote a while back as a dedication to him:  

                           My grandfather is in bed

                           For him that we made

                           Within the homestead

                           My grandfather is dead.

Whaooh…now you know this my Kisinga. He passed on in 1999 and this is a mere dedication in his memory.