Dan Okwiri
Penning🖊my journal. Bright & early it was 1963 the dawn of independence, a new Kenya had emerged and the mood was a fizzy sprite of optimism.
With independence boated many tidings, the white uppity quite rightly in fear of black rule packed bag & baggage, flogged off homes & assets in scamper. A new black class close to the big cheese in power rivered in to snap their place.
In all this melee there was one young man Kamau from Kiambu, like his father & most of his genre he had been a farm hand in the Thika to a white settler.
In 1963 the hand that rocked the cradle had shifted from the white hegemony to Kenyatta’s Gatundu, Kamau’s backyard. The euphoria amongst his kin so ecstatic that you could roast in its electricity. The sweetest meat is found closest the bone, one of his own at the helm.
Kamau, was clayish brown in complexion and lanky too. Working in the expansive coffee farm & milking Mr Smith’s teeming Holstein cows had moulded his muscle sinews firm in glowing handsome.
His gleaming glinty perfectly aligned teeth, and his curly lush hair made him a throbbing exotic attraction for flirt in skirt.
Mrs Smith the master’s wife relished him, and always pulled him from the farm chores to help out in the kitchen. He couldn’t figure out why for she already had a squad of maidens teeming in wait to help out.
He soon figured out his purpose when one day Mr Smith travelled to his homeland the United Kingdom. She called him out to help her fix a creaky chair & when he came into his master’s bedroom aghastly found her stark naked in Adams suit & her twinkling blue eyes darting him in invite.
The lassie master’s wife shut the door, and then stole his innocence. She had something else that was creaky for him to fix in bobbing pump. His life changed from that moment, her fondness for him became a fatal attraction.
She found him exotic, his lanky body firm, a totally dichotomy of contrary to her husband flaccid limbs. He made her feel woman. Mr & Mrs Smith were childless. She had been chided by her hubby that she didn’t have the seeds of life.
Deep down she bathed in sadness & knew her hubby had another woman & had sired outside. There’s always a shadow of sorrow to every sun.
Kamau picked a lot of the White folks culture & mannerisms in his soaking passionate sojourns with his elderly mzungu mistress. He began to speak just like her, took a liking for her diet and soon the only thing Kikuyu about him was his color.
She had up-styled his wardrobe, elevated him to her butler in waiting to fulfill other pressing duties of call. In his new role, he now strutted a bow tie to the chagrin of other native workers.
One day in the mid 1964’ in one of the errands for farm provisions he would come to hear that there was a politician called Tom Mboya who was organizing airlifts to take young Kenyans for an education to USA.
This thought thrilled him, an education in the white world would make him just like Mr Smith. He could even meet a younger white lassie like Mrs Smith and live with all the comforts just like her. He now had developed fondness for White ladies & dreaded returning to the life of his own country cousins.
With his impeccable Queens English young Kamau would soon make his way to meet Tom Mboya, at the time Minister of Planning & Economic Affairs.
Tom was affable, held no tribal discrimination which is Kenya’s bane decades after our 1963′ independence, was enchanted by his demeanor. An action oriented man he talked to William Scheinman his bosom American chum for a scholarship to a community college in USA.
Hardly 3 months after the encounter he was on a flight to his cherished white man’s land. USA changed his world in rose and Kamau like many Kenyans who went there was thirsty to mine its pearls. He studied hard in sweat, blood & tears.
Soon made it to a Ivy League University and by 1973 had a Doctorate degree. He was itching to come back home for he quite rightly knew that Africa is where real opportunities are.
USA was the white man’s land & there he would remain their disguised kitchen boy. In Kenya the white man was exiting in droves, he yearned for a slice of the cake.
Kamau had a special surprise for his folk, in his stay in California met a pretty freckled speckled blonde Amanda. She was a teacher, freckled just like his first puppy love Mrs Smith & he instantaneously butterflied in popping love.
They soon fruited two daughters birthed in the States. Bag & baggage and burning ambition Dr Kamau & Mrs Armanda Kamau jetted into Nairobi’s Embakasi Airport in the year 1973.
He had been away almost 8 years & with him his brood, Stefanie 7 years & Beverly 6 years young. Kenya had changed, the euphoria of independence had deflated depending on your lineage.
Tom Mboya his friend assassinated and a new class of courtiers from his own Kiambu ancestry had grown mega wealthy twiddling the strings of power.
Kamau was a man who had arrived to sun at the right time with a fancy education to his name. The only thing that was a drawback was he didn’t have one of his own Kikuyu blood for a wife, and this made feel ostracized. A lost son.
Kamau instantly got a top notch government job through lineage of his new royal Kiambu country cousins. Within 3 years in mint bought out a migrating white settler in the leafy Karen.
His 2 daughters were now riding horse in the Karen neighborhood with their ilk. Armanda a full time house wife whiled her time at the Ngong horse racing circuit at the Karen Country Golf Club had many maids in waiting tending her manicured gardens.
Only billionaires in USA could bliss like this, Kenya had the best weather in the world & it sheer daisies the whole year around. Kamau was battling his own internal demons.
He was a son of a Mumbi but betrayed his own by marrying a white woman, now dainty he had lost connection to his roots.
With the trappings of good living he had taken to a life in uppity, smoking pipe & reeking in scotch with an uppity English twang. His Kiambu King courtiers were urging him to be more like his own and introduced him to a home girl, one Wairimu.
It was the early 80s’ and life had really transformed. Mr Smith passed on in 1978. the year the founding President died and his love Mrs Smith followed him to the coffee grave in Thika, the year 1980.
Dr Kamau had kept close to them in mentor till the day they joined the gods. In 1980 she bequeathed the jeweled expansive 300 acre farm in Thika.
He moved in to Mr & Mrs Smith bedroom & now slept in her bed. Dr Kamau the once farmhand even had a white wife in residence, the windmill had turned the full hog.
The family would shuttle residences & while the weekends in Thika & weekdays in Karen. With Mrs Smith gone, everything has its season in mission.
Dr Kamau soon completely changed in demeanor & began to misdeed, hated what he once he cherished once he was in Mrs Smith’s bed.
He loathed his wife & even seemed to disdain his mixed offspring. Started socializing more in Kikuyu bars with his new found whirlwind love Wairimu.
He had taken a liking for Mugithi his native jig in gig. Started sleeping out of his marital bed to the dreary sobs of Armanda. He never had never butterflied an African woman opening him to a new world of excitement, his cat was out of the bag.
Kamau was getting excruciating more violent as each day progressed & beating Armada in living daylight, truth out he wanted her out. Stefanie & Beverly were tormented in horror as they watched mum growing increasingly fragile in scar.
It was the late 90s” and Beverly had relocated to mum’s homeland. At this point Stefanie was a prominent doctor had moved her mum out their childhood Karen home to an apartment in Kilimani.
The doctors in Nairobi hospital said she had cancer & pretty much had only 6 months before becoming food for the worms.
Disenchanted in grim waters, Stefanie jetted her to die in the land of her birth as per her final death wish. Estranged, mum was now divorced. Her dream in total disillusioned.
Wairimu was now living in her house in Karen, everything about Kenya a living nightmare. Dr Kamau was not even there to bid his ex-wife farewell. She had come to Africa just cause of him. Now it had come to this.
Beverly received frail at San Francisco Airport in California, a pale shadow of a once perky lady, even the freckles seemed burnt out. The doctor put this now bitter pesky lady into chemotherapy. She was now living with daughter & sobbed drown in hopelessness.
One day as Beverly was walking her mum out of hospital after chemo, in the hospital entrance her mum met a white elderly man. They eyes locked in a blaze and suddenly they armed clasping swaying grasping bosom hug that dripped in tears that bubbled on for 2 minutes.
“Armanda, haven’t seen in you decades. You’re just as beautiful as I saw you since we were together in school. You look frail though, what’s wrong my lady beautiful? Beverly was astounded, this bloke hadn’t even noticed that her mum was on her way to the grave.
“My chum, Andy you’re still chummy as you were in school. Been sick, am doing chemo, been told have 2 months left to bask the sun before I food the worms.” “Nonsense, won’t hear of that you will be well.”
“What are you up to dear?” Armanda asked volleyball. “
Never got married, was love bitten since the day you rejected me for your exotic African bloke.”
“Andy, didn’t know you loved me in sea.” She smashed in volley truce.
“Was shy, couldn’t man enough to fork out my feelings. Paid for it in sea wallowing in misery. Lonely chilling ice in the fridge.” Any sighed.
“Am divorced too, my love in the Kenyan exotic beach ended in thunderstorm, am back home in fridge. Call on me, am living in 31 Baystreet Ave at my daughters. Welcome anytime.”
“I actually live a block away, am retired now. Will roll by.” The next few months Andy came everyday picked Armanda and walked stroll in park.”
Beverly watched her mum gradually transform from pesky to perky woman she once knew. Andy was a good dose of medicine for her mum.
Her smile was kicking back & she was getting a tinge stronger every passing day. Interesting she was responding in orange glee to chemo. Six months later Beverly got a shocker, mum leashed out.
“Thank you my daughter. You have have tended me well & it’s time I move in with my childhood live. Made my mistakes, but this time I am sticking with whom I know. No more experiments.”.
Armanda would conquered cancer and would live in bliss with Andy. They were married for 10 years, died in the year 2000. Andy passed in 2003. Dr Kamau died too in 2013, he bequeathed his wealth to Wairimu.
He birthed a brood of three. Sadly they have mismanaged the wealth he left behind.
Wairimu entangled herself with a young gold digger. He salted her wealth in Ponzi schemes. The Karen home sold, she lives in Thika, most of the land there sold too.
Stefanie & Beverly excelled & are part of top cream in the land. Beverly opted to remain single till she joins the gods.@
I remain a life long friend to Beverly, & she was a friend to one Tom’s chips off the old block. This Wuod Baba has seen in sea.
Bright & early life is a bowl of cheery roses, but don’t forget roses have thorns too. What is new, under the sun? Don’t know…
*** A true story of the independence Kikuyu uppity in Jomo Kenyatta era***
#okwiri🖊my journal, my thoughts…A bewitching love story of 60s’ genre.
** My book “I cleansed the tears” available at Nuria Book store Nairobi.
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