makmende memories,remember august?

This is a note by my friend Arnold Gitata, one of Kenya’s best kept secrets,a writing diamond.

The last day of school, packets of junkfood being passed around. Scores being settled ( ma-wanted) the only way we knew how; Sema ng’we..cross this line..
Teachers passing out report forms to students already adepts in forgery.
the bell-ringer strolls out of his class to do his duty. Even before his well-stroked bell has earned its first chorus, classes are half empty. This is waaay before holiday tuitioning.
We stream out of the gates, passing by the heavy-set woman who sells a myriad of goodies throughout your school life. Kashata, Mabuyu, Sukari Nguru, Cools..the list was endless. Sh 1 buys you a maembe with free pili-pili. Sh 2 buys one for your boys to share..
Girls?? Lets Get them!! Its amazing how they put up a fight.
The holidays are in. Ah, life is sweet. We know what we are going to do the whole ‘summer’: Lets get our bikes ( dont have one? no probs, your cohorts will give you ‘raos’,which they will prompt you to remember if ever they need anything from you). Watch out for that gang; they jack yours if they get you.
Lets play shake, or three sticks. Lets hide and seek (or Mkebe, hide-and-seek on steroids). soccer on narrow streets and dusty fields.
Thirsty? drink straight from the tap. We never got hungry, though.
Need sweets? Okay, you distract the shop-keeper, I’l get them from behind.
And then, we would steal kisses from the enemy. And they would be delighted (i think).
We had girlfriends who never knew..and were boyfriends to girls we never knew. We would literally call shotgun on everything (though we must have used another phrase).
Running wild on the streets, being chased by rabid dogs and more rabid parents.
Dusk would fall. The mbotches start coming out to call the young-uns in for their bath ( ever so loudly). The elder ones stayed out, defying parents only long enough to discover their pals have been sneaking home one-by-one.
Sneaking down the stairs, way past bed-time to watch adult programmes ( not to be confused by today’s definition of adult movies). and then, KBC would shut-down, but not before a prayer and the national anthem.
Tomorrow is sato. Then KTN changed all that..tomorrow is Tranformers. Sunday was church (or sunday-skul), followed by Saber-Rider (and-the-staaarrr-sheerriiffs)..

The Story of Edgar Nyorora

The story of Edgar Nyorora

Once upon a time not too many decades past, I was a young boy, a young boy was I.

If you lived in that period then you know what I’m talkin about; apart from the huge monster estate football matches, it was when geared bikes had just come to Kenya and everyones dream was to own a comerella.

Remember the tiny hero blackie, the bmx, chopper, hunter,the huffie?and boys took off from home and rode all day and came back home caked in dust.

One little memory you may have forgotten about…
Edgar Nyorora.

Edgar,as I recall him, was a short, plump ,stumpy boy. Edgar always had this huge grin on his face. And he had a he’ll of a mouth on him. Boy was a talker. He could cheat you out of your soul.

Now this story doesn’t sound so amazing if u do not take into account that I was in standard three and my peers party to this tale were either a year above or below this.

Edgar took our hunger and passion for the road a notch higher. This little guy was my agemate. But the dude had the makings of a lawyer way before he could even petition the Chief Justice.

Edgar convinced each and every child in the neighbourhood that he had a friend called Hermann, who lived in a neighrbouring( in a “novaa” manner,) estate.
Hermann also happened to be stinking stinking rich. So rich that he had kiddie size models of every luxury and sports car at his place.

He told us stories of how they would go racing on the highway speeding under lorries coz the cars were small and low.

How the two of them had so much fun driving and cruising the day away.
(Now that I think of it, much of his story stunk of Mc gyver and Mc cormick…hmmmm…)
He then told us that we each had a choice to pick our cars and Hermann would place the order.

I chose a black Beemer, an uncle of mine drove the sickest black beemer at the time and I imagined how cool it would be to upstage him with me arriving at a family function with it.

Others chose Mercs, Porches, Lamborghini, name it, Hermann had it.

So each day after a laborious day of biking, Edgar would tell us his tales of how he spent his day driving. He said he had placed the order on the cars and we should be patient and wait on our custom vehicles to be built.

And finally D day came. THE day we were to go pick our vehicles.

Picture this. An army of five, six, seven year old boys walking six kilometres from their neighbourhood, the View, towards a place called Poly, as it was close to a Polytechnic.

Yes, walking. And where were our bikes that day you ask? Dear reader. If you are going to pick your car, do you go to where it is with your bike? Besides Edgar had already dangled his keys at us, saying he had left his car being serviced.
And so we walked and got to Poly.

We finally got to meet Hermann. Short and plump like Edgar he was, but with lighter skin. He was broody and quiet. I am not quite sure whether the broodiness was his nature or it was caused by the crowd arriving for their vehicles.

Edgar pulled him to the side and asked him about the whereabouts of our cars. They walked off and into Hermanns home.

I cannot quite remember what happened after this, or whether or not there were confrontations, (and if you were there this day please do tell what you recall,)but I remember there were no vehicles.

Dreams of driving were mercilessly dashed that day. ( Huge sigh) We all walked back home sad, some angry. I’m not sure what Edgar said to wriggle out of that one, because the very next day we were all playing together again.

I still haven’t gotten my black beemer yet, but I will soon.

The Story of Edgar Nyorora

The story of Edgar Nyorora

Once upon a time not too many decades past, I was a young boy, a young boy was I.

If you lived in that period then you know what I’m talkin about; apart from the huge monster estate football matches, it was when geared bikes had just come to Kenya and everyones dream was to own a comerella.

Remember the tiny hero blackie, the bmx, chopper, hunter,the huffie?and boys took off from home and rode all day and came back home caked in dust.

One little memory you may have forgotten about…
Edgar Nyorora.

Edgar,as I recall him, was a short, plump ,stumpy boy. Edgar always had this huge grin on his face. And he had a he’ll of a mouth on him. Boy was a talker. He could cheat you out of your soul.

Now this story doesn’t sound so amazing if u do not take into account that I was in standard three and my peers party to this tale were either a year above or below this.

Edgar took our hunger and passion for the road a notch higher. This little guy was my agemate. But the dude had the makings of a lawyer way before he could even petition the Chief Justice.

Edgar convinced each and every child in the neighbourhood that he had a friend called Hermann, who lived in a neighrbouring( in a “novaa” manner,) estate.
Hermann also happened to be stinking stinking rich. So rich that he had kiddie size models of every luxury and sports car at his place.

He told us stories of how they would go racing on the highway speeding under lorries coz the cars were small and low.

How the two of them had so much fun driving and cruising the day away.
(Now that I think of it, much of his story stunk of Mc gyver and Mc cormick…hmmmm…)
He then told us that we each had a choice to pick our cars and Hermann would place the order.

I chose a black Beemer, an uncle of mine drove the sickest black beemer at the time and I imagined how cool it would be to upstage him with me arriving at a family function with it.

Others chose Mercs, Porches, Lamborghini, name it, Hermann had it.

So each day after a laborious day of biking, Edgar would tell us his tales of how he spent his day driving. He said he had placed the order on the cars and we should be patient and wait on our custom vehicles to be built.

And finally D day came. THE day we were to go pick our vehicles.

Picture this. An army of five, six, seven year old boys walking six kilometres from their neighbourhood, the View, towards a place called Poly, as it was close to a Polytechnic.

Yes, walking. And where were our bikes that day you ask? Dear reader. If you are going to pick your car, do you go to where it is with your bike? Besides Edgar had already dangled his keys at us, saying he had left his car being serviced.
And so we walked and got to Poly.

We finally got to meet Hermann. Short and plump like Edgar he was, but with lighter skin. He was broody and quiet. I am not quite sure whether the broodiness was his nature or it was caused by the crowd arriving for their vehicles.

Edgar pulled him to the side and asked him about the whereabouts of our cars. They walked off and into Hermanns home.

I cannot quite remember what happened after this, or whether or not there were confrontations, (and if you were there this day please do tell what you recall,)but I remember there were no vehicles.

Dreams of driving were mercilessly dashed that day. ( Huge sigh) We all walked back home sad, some angry. I’m not sure what Edgar said to wriggle out of that one, because the very next day we were all playing together again.

I still haven’t gotten my black beemer yet, but I will soon.