Haidhuru

I always knew that I had frugal tendencies, but I always hoped that I was not a miser…Correction, I mean, I don’t mise (take that Msanii- Ha! What do you mean it’s not a word?). Ati what brought this on? Glad you asked. See my dad’s been visiting and he got a call from some relatives “back home”. So, my aunt (who is actually not my aunt- rather, my dad’s grandmother and hers were circumcised (or perhaps I should now say FGMed? *rolling eyes*) at the same time. Plus, they all grew up in the same location. That is, location as in geographical area and not administrative sub-division e.g. Loko 5 (Location 5)– which, as you all know, is a colonialistic invention.

So anyway, my aunt, who is technically not my aunt, but I’d better have called her that if I wanted to survive my childhood, tells my mum about a ka-shida. A small, tiny problem. Who is my mum?(lit) She calls up my dad who’s something of the extended family mediator to warn him to be ready for some round table-best believe that Jimmy Carter ain’t got nothing on him- Camp who? -mediations when he goes back home. See the thing is, it looks like my uncle, who by the way earns a pretty decent living has— are you ready for this?

By executive fiat abolished the use of bum roll in his house!!!!!

Wha?What?Whaaaattt? I kid you not. This is a true story. Maa swear!!!! Touching finger on the ground, licking it, pointing to the sky— you know the drill (KM, 2005)

And before you go labeling my uncle a Dan Savage target core audience (TAP, 06) with a fetish for um… ripe smelling people, he wasn’t really preventing people from wiping their bums. Nah, come on now! What do you take him for? What he’s done is that he got this “itinerant peddler” a.k.a marĩ marĩ for the rest of y’all to be supplying old newspaper—- which he then proceeds to cut into strips-thin ones!!! And hey presto! You’re saving the environment— but mos def not your bum. So not cha-cha-charming at all.

Wah, wah wah!!! Me and my dad laughed at this story until we cried. Literally. And we couldn’t stop laughing the entire weekend. We’d see paper napkins and we start screaming with laughter. Papa Mutumia spots a newspaper box and we’re off and I’m giggling and my dad is reaching for his handkerchief to wipe his eyes and….yeah. Friends literally disowned us.

Some quick background. This uncle has always been kinda penny pinching. Like, we’d go to his house and he used to have a basin of water in the sink for people to wash AND rinse their hands so that he could re-use the water for his vegetable garden. To me, all that meant growing up was that every time my aunt would offer me sukuma wiki or spinach for lunch, I’d politely demur for the obvious reasons. And, he also banished paring knives from his house, as “they encouraged waste”. Like, we were supposed to peel off the epidermis from sweet potatoes and scrub potatoes, as peeling was “wasting food”. After all, “Think of all the poor starving children in the North” he’d say. Ingalau, in his defense I say, it helped his children as my cousin was FIRST in biology practicals as when it came to dissecting- watch out! She’d gotten plenty practice at home after all. She’d slice those specimens so thinly with just a steady hand, unbreakable thumb nails and sharp eyes. Her onion skin specimens were ready for the glass slides without the use of a scalpel. *sigh*

Sidebar one:
Speaking of biology, my Second Form biology teacher used to call himself “Stephen” ati because his name- Kinyanjui directly translated into “Step Hen” *rolling eyes with a vengeance”. What does this have to do with the story? Nothing really, just thought I’d share it with you. Plus, did you also know that Beuttah— he of the freedom-fightingManchester-House-conference fame (or something like that) was actually called ‘Mbuthia’ but his mission school teacher could not pronounce the name and the mispronounciation stuck hence the “Beauttah’? No? See, you can learn something from my blog after all.

Moving right on like a herd of turtles. I mean, in the interests of fairness, I have to defend my uncle (who’s not really my uncle blah blah blah) as this should not have come as a surprise to my aunt. I mean, this is the same guy who used to buy Rosy toilet paper and since it was two-ply, he’d separate the sheets of bum roll and make it into one-ply. Which for you as the end-user (pun intended and quite unworthy I know *shrug*) effectively transforms it from being a blotting paper barrier between you and your susu/pee, into a sieve. FYI this one-ply ‘treat’ is not a free for all. No, we’re not recreating the scramble for Africa, ati stake your holdings and it’s yours. No!!!!! He’d ration the TP for you (usually after you’d gone to the bathroom, dropped your pants and then noticed that was bilas. Put your knickers back on, now squirming like crazy as you can now barely hold your pee as you’ve been to the bathroom after all! ). Then he’d lower the newspaper, peer at you from above his specs and…

Give you two perforations!!!!!!

Now, how? (KM, 2005-6). As for doing # 2? Sahau! He used to double the quantity and give you four pages/perforations of one-ply bum roll.

*sigh again*

Of course I tried to bitch about it to my mum after we came back home but she was her usual unsympathetic self. She just looked at me and told me “Shock and shame on you. Why are you trying to be doing #2 at someone else’s house? Eh? Kwani you’re those people who also take a dump in restaurants or Nairobi show? Eh? Let me hear that again(lit)”.

Errr… um… OK….

So, I feel very good about my frugality such as it is. If you come to my house, aki woiye, sorry… but I am NOT turning on the A/C when it’s 85 outside. I’ll open a window. And if you’re slightly uncomfortable, I’ll simply point out to you that I, Mutumia, have two ply bum roll in my house, that you are more than welcome to use in un-rationed quantities.