My gal

She's the full package
Her cleavage is of high voltage
as dutiful as she's beautiful
Without flaw like a princess's floor

Her smile the best in our clime
Her humour like ship on a busy harbour
I'll be forever her bondman
And she'll always be my African woman

If the beautiful ones are nothing yet born
Then Esther ma love is not just a broad
But an angel lowered by God
To liven ma cottage and to spur ma lineage

©MzeeVaraq2013

posted from Bloggeroid

Here's my duly filled wealth declaration form

They say the past has a way of catching up with people. You only have to live in Kenya today to understand the ramifications of that short statement. Interviews for public jobs nowadays are done in the full glare of the cameras with the public given a chance to ‘vet’ your ‘suitability’ for office. This is a break from the past where you could just call someone aside and lengthen the size of his tummy, literally through a process called kupeana chai. Am not of course saying that process would pass the integrity test but I prefer it to what we have today where you have to cook tea for a hundred rats. I didn’t use pigs deliberately; I hear they have ears nowadays. 

You must be wondering where I am going on with this. Think no more. As I might have mentioned here before I have political ambitions and what better time to open my closet for public scrutiny than now. I am torn between following the spirit of good governance and not being considerate to poor you. I think it would be very insensitive to flaunt my financial muscle when thousands of jobless and attachmentless students are going through a deep recession that only Cheboi, he of HELB can make go away and that as you might be aware may have to await our dear Mugenda to summon us to school. So if you see idlers posting on social media especially Mukuru Kwa Zuckeberg (MKZ, facebook you dummy, twirra has no such posts) how much they miss school be aware that they don’t miss OML or AZ for that matter. They probably miss some chums in their pocket and the possibility of getting aware with literally any cash related lie.

“Daddy, tunaenda trip Somalia, c unitumie fare, upkeep, yellow fever vaccine, Ebola vaccine, Guangdou disease vaccine etc…”

Don’t ask me what the latter disease is, I don’t know if it really exists, but with the recent shift in health patterns attributed to globalization anything is a disease.

If you’ve been a trustworthy and a model son you can sit pretty and wait for an MPESA message on your phone. After all they said honesty in the early years pays now. There’s of course the probability that the guardian may want to know what that vaccine is for, you can always say he heard wrong and you meant HINI vaccine or anything and I would bet my hockey stick that the conversation wouldn’t go further. You just have to make sure there’s no evidence or transcript of the conversation, that’s why as hard as it may be to lie on a straight face, it’s more important you don’t text or voicemail etc. Unless of course your main aim is not to get some more cash for the students Annex or Comfy or Barrack’s inn but to take my dear hockey stick away.

I think am getting lost here, yes I was declaring my wealth without really rubbing it in. this version is thus a sensitive sample of what i have accrued so far.

The church vote is crucial for any elections and thus I will confess I own a Bible and a Hymn book…….in my android device. 

I also own a pool table, recording studio, a cyber café …….also in my android device. Add to the list a few pairs of suits and oh, and a lion. This two are very integral part of that list in that its strange hasoras will not vote for their fellow hasoras so you must never be seen as a one suit guy never mind that you have the heart of Mahatma Gandhi, the eloquence of Barrack Obama, the connection of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the looks of David Beckam. That’s why while not declaring the number of my suits; I wish to state categorically that they qualify as several, though all navy blue. So if you spot me with the same suit four days in arrow please don’t think of me as ‘yule jama wa suti moja’

When I mentioned that I possess a lion, I should have probably specified what am talking about. I don’t mean Mutula’s lions. I mean what in my father tongue we refer to as simba. Now in Jakanese, simba is simply a young man’s heart where he is by law allowed to hold interviews for suitable wives. That simple structure is his official palace where he is king and his words are law. The only thing currently missing from my lion is one nyakisumo. Now as you might be aware nyakisumo is a special girl. She can cook and clean, very well, I must add. Those are of course the key factors to look into primarily in the choice of a life mate. The problem with nyakisumo is that she is pursuing a high profile course in the university and thus does not fully agree with the culture of our people. See a real Luo man should not compromise on the number of first ladies he has.

Lions of some prominent Luopeans 

Dr Jarunda"s lion

mzee varaq's lion

obeez outside his lion in USA(Ugenya,Siaya,Alego)

Not just for the sake of following in the footsteps of the great men in my lineage but logically speaking a high number of wives ensure political mileage. If nobody else will vote for you, your wives will. Unless yours is Delilah. What will I for example tell my grandfather Jaduon’g Bernadus Okombo Alwanda when he hears that I let his lineage down and acquiscened to nyakisumo’s illogical, barbaric and selfish agenda? She doesn’t even seem interested in giving me baby one of fifteen yet. He used to tell us of how men with one wives used to sit behind the circle when realer men drunk kuon’g. This was their version of Heineken. since there were no bottles then, they used to serve from a common pot .the people with decimal number of wives used to sit at the back lest they get the bad news of the passing of their ‘yours truly and kick the pot with all its content and ruin the party for their fellow elders. A person with twenty wives will for example continue drinking at ease knowing that when he got home the other nineteen will still be clamoring for his attention. 

Anyway for the sake of this wealth declaration form I will state that I have one dear source of heat, Nyakisumo, and no kids outside, yet. When I die and children start showing up please don’t be harsh on them or my memory for that matter. In case you wondering why I listed her here, women are property, and she goes into my wealth declaration sheet as property number seven.

As regards any locomotive, I still don’t possess any four wheel or two wheeled agent of locomotion. My simple reason would be am still waiting for the people who manufacture such basic stuff to upgrade to something truly revolutionary before I acquire one. Anyway when am your leader I will have no option but to just settle for anything. After all I can’t embarrass my people, now can I?

Well I used to own a dog but since that story of bestiality in the coast I think it’s probably a good idea we part as friends. I mean I saw how that cannibal looks at nyakisumo and it’s only fair to our friendship that we end it now. So let my wealth declaration form show that I used to have a dog, loved and cared for it till they started that kuzoeana thing.

While I was mentioning my suit I should have spoken of my Mark Vacheroni shirt. My good friend Sad News aka Mguyz Msoft, reigning Mr. KU will probably tell you it is not just a shirt has passed here bwana, it’s a big deal. Actually where I bought it from the guy assured me that they were only two in the republic .So I took the one for myself and the other for Mzee Default. That however, we were soon to learn could not have been further from the truth. Anyway for the sake of this piece I should probably have it here as item number nine.

There may be one or two meager things that I haven’t mentioned so far e.g. a woofer, a well thriving jersey business among others. Let the record show that this was not to deny you the good people an opportunity to scrutinize the discrepancies between my remuneration entitlements at my places of work and the wealth accrued over the years  but a desire to kill the size of the prose. I am still committed to the principles of truth, justice, transparency and accountability.

As always

Mzee Varaq …Getting you Heard (not a bad slogan right?)

Down,down the memory lane

There are those people you meet at a crucial stage of your life that you’ll probably never get to meet again. People who imparted majorly on a certain stage of your life that in pursuit of higher education or ‘greener pastures’ you didn’t hesitate to shake off. Others though you just had to let go to create room for other more exciting or necessary individuals.

Is Mzee Varaq suddenly turning philosophical? Maybe. Yesterday I met my long lost friend Dan Robert. We happened to have gone through St Josephs Combined Academy together just a year past the new millennium. We happened to be among the first students when the school was started in 2001. We broke into pearls of laughter when we remembered our lunch for the first week was mkate and soda madiaba madiaba. That was not just ‘food has passed here’. It was a big deal then.

Back then it dint have a postmodern hall like I hear it has today, Friday entertainment wasn’t digital but consisted of senior girls singing beautiful praise songs with amazing voices and the library want the huge structure it is today but just a tiny shelf in the principal’s, sorry head teacher’s office.

I hear now it is a national outfit that receives students, sorry pupils, from even abroad. Don’t get ahead of yourself. By abroad here I don’t mean Yunaired states or Cambodia, that’s not totally impossible though, I mean our local USA, Ugenya Siaya, and Alego. Which is still abroad after all it meets the bare requirements of the oxford definition of abroad-

v  the presence of an international airport

v  Presence of an international lake

v  Presence of a parallel national government headed by a de facto supreme leader, baba

v  Parallel constitution ,flag and national anthem

v  A national army- K’Ogalo Defense Forces

Sorry I got a little off track. He reminded me of my favorite cooks Kokal and Fuony. Even back then the supreme position of arega in life was undisputed. Kokal was my favorite because he knew who the ‘wazito’ were. Oh yea, David Bradley was mzito even then .In case I lost you back then he wasn’t mzee Varaq .That’s a long story I might blog about it next time, maybe. Now about Kokal, he could serve his people in larger plates. Sometimes he could ask us to remain behind after the others had served for refilling. In exchange for this measure of generosity, we gave him bars of soap etc that remained after a hard semester, sorry again, a hard term’s work. Being that cleanliness was not my forte then; they used to be quite a stack and in certain cases homemade mandas or chapat to show appreciation.

Too bad the administration got wind of this unholy alliance and Kokal had to pay the ultimate price. In his place they brought Fuony, an excellent chef who had interesting stories to narrate to an attentive audience. He said he used to cook for Jimmy-that senator from Siaya county of Nyanza republic. Our brain not fully developed then we couldn’t ask him why he stooped to our level then. Instead with gusto, listened to how he had been to Israel and Canada among other nations of the world. He looked the part, he was immaculately dressed for a cook and his huge size further lent his story some credibility. With a man like Fuony it was difficult to buy his friendship with a bar of soap. So we bid our time until we had something to trade. Everybody it seems has a price, it’s just important to figure out what it is.

Well now Fuony is the mayor of my town and every time I look at him am reminded that this nation is a nation of endless possibilities. You just need hunger, drive and with a little bit of luck you’ll get there.

I’m highly nostalgic when I remember the special days that were Friday for omena and Sunday evening for rice. I can’t really remember the rest of the meal but I’m sure my friends Dan, Eddy, Oduori, Isaac not Hassan Njoroge, might remember.

However, the school wasn’t of people getting their way all the time as might have erroneously been implied. There were hard moments, moments that you just look back to and wonder, “did I really pass through that?” I remember the head teacher then, I hear he’s still the guy at the hem waking us up at four am to go and learn the reasons for the failure of the Samori Toure’s resistance or the path that was followed by the long distance traders across the Sahara from Gao, Timbuktu, Jen, Wallata before the normal classes begun at five. For that we called him Timbuktu and later it was shenglized to Ambuko. It’s strange that I remember my class seven GHC up to now though I can’t recall much of the Immunology I did last semester. Chinua Achebe might have responded by saying how the standard seven of those days was better than the Cambridge of today.

The memory that is likely to be etched in my mind the longest is that of ‘kupanda pikipiki’. Now kupanda pikipiki doesn’t mean what your Swahili teachers have taught you all along. It means to climb into a locker to receive the best of the best (viboko).Back then any reason was sufficient, be it getting to class late, getting 96% instead of clearing everything in mathematics, not paying attention, walking aimlessly to another class, not spreading bed etc. You won’t even think about looking at a girl twice or writing those funny funny letters, even imagining it was capital offence. The school always knew, never mind that you just held hands briefly in the comfort of the dark behind the school canteen. Back then the phrase even walls have ears was truest. They might have even had eyes. Woe unto you if your letter of immorality and gross decency was discovered like it happened to someone I know.

I remember there was this time my name was called in the assembly in connection to gross indiscipline. You can’t believe what I did, I said am a jatieko. Now jatieko simply means finisher. To the administration that was a crude, insensitive remark and it got me a date with the motorcycle. For that I will always remember a young lady by the name of Cyprian. I think I spent the rest of my life there resenting her but hey, it wasn’t her fault .She was just being a good girl reporting a bad guy.

But it wasn’t all gloom and routine. There were moments when we had to beat steel cans and metallic chairs to chase away Nyawawa that were believed to transverse the skies at night sometimes calling people by names. For this reason nobody answered when they were called at night lest you be Nyawawa’s forced visitor forever. Looking back I think those little boys and girls were just scared to be out of the safety their home probably for the first time.

alumni in a reunion party

Back then I wasn’t the hockey maestro you see in your sports newspapers now, I was more like David the drama king. I remember being the lead character in the play, The New Era and also narrating the oral narrative, the painter alongside Bob Bobilaz whom I have not seen or talked to since 2004 …..Too bad I had to sacrifice that ambition for other important use of my time. Who knows I could have been the one asking the president to tweet me yawa…..

All in all, that childhood innocence, the innocent friendships that we built, is all I look back to most and thank this school for.

N oh if you were wondering why my kiswahili is that good,u just have to ask John Juma,yea the one you know,he taught us misemo ya kutumua katika maandishi mufti ya insha faridi