This above all: To thine own self be true!
The more I think upon it, the more I think that the one trait that all the people that I admire have in common is that they have the moral courage to hold on to their convictions. I think that if you trawl through history, today’s iconic figures (barring that person of the year who keeps getting kicked out of my public library for surfing for porn *sigh*), or even that guy who lives down that street that you give maximum-respect (po-po-po) to, or even bosses that while you don’t particularly like them, you respect the hell out of them; I’ve found that to a (wo)man, they all have the testicular fortitude to hold on to this central kernel of what they believe in and they are willing to face public ridicule and opposition to stand up for this concept. And the reason that I admire this trait that much is that I am a bit of a wuss when it comes to bucking conventionally held ideas.
Exhibit One
Case in point: I used to be a die-hard patriot. I loved the president. Like die-hard KANU. If you’d cut me, I’d have been bleeding in technicolor: The full red, blue and green KANU droplets a la Joe Kamotho. And while people knew that I had a soft spot for the ruling party, everybody was fine with my love for them until I opened my mouth this one time at the bar. So this time, we’re catching a few pints at the local and that was when it was mandatory to have a picture of the president in the bar. And mid-sip I looked up and saw Moi’s picture. And I just could not help but announce to the people that I was drinking with how “I really, really dig being a Kenyan as I pendad the prezzo.”
And I remember that we were catching pints that day with this chick whose major claim to fame was that when US sailors had docked into Mombasa, she walked (allegedly) into this bar and these 3 HOOOOTTT sizzling hunkas love proposed to her on the spot. Annnnddd one of them even followed it up with a letter with the requisite paperwork for a fiancée visa to the US (K1 visa for those of who you who were not wondering). But she was like “Fugga visa” as apparently, she fell for this albino Senegalese whose claim to fame was that he was the only person who’d ever trounced Shaka Zulu Assegai in pool at either Kimani Court Hotel or that pool joint that was on Kenyatta Avenue (near that theater where we all went to see “Breakin’: 56th Great week!!!” and my work used to be to harass my mum for money to “go and see Shabadoo & Boogaloo Shrimp before the movie stops showing”)…
So anyway, I’m sitting with this siren who I then blurt out to that I love the prezzo (not Prezzo who apparently according to some people, I’m not supposed to like ) and her and her Senegalese are like
Albino Senegalese: Oui, oui.. It is good to be ze patriot and to have l’amour for votre pays
Enamored Mutumia: Nah, y’all don’t get it. I don’t love ‘my president’, I loooorve Moi
Chick who spurned K1 visa: Yeah, we get it. You love Moi, I mean he’s not as bad as kina Amin, Barre or Nimeiri- but I wouldn’t go as far as saying that “I love him”
Mutumia: No you don’t understand… I want to “azzume the bozition” in a Mutumia-Moi collaboration (and this was pre-Raila he he he )
Senegalese & K1 visa chick: SILENCE
Exactly.
And I was so cowed by the disbelieving looks thrown my way that I back pedaled.
And I said that I was pretending.
When that didn’t work, I pretended that I was drunk.
When they pointed out that I hadn’t been drinking Kenbrew, I said that I figured Kenyans don’t like trend setters and they’re scared of people who think outside the box and are as a nation afraid to go down the road less traveled.
But they pointed out that the reason no one wanted to travel down that road was because it was “more disgusting than the roundabout for Githurai after the sewers have burst and it’s rained and the sun is now shining and gently simmering the effluence”
*note to tourists: Kenyans tend to be repulsed by the idea of coitus with sitting heads of state*
In my defense, I’m talking young Moi when he was doing that Malcolm X pose.
Annndd, since I’m being treated like a common criminal, I’ll defend myself from the left ,by saying that this was an inherited fetish that came after years of watching Kenyatta with walking stick and gout on black and white TV. Soon after Kenyatta passed away, the folks got a color TV and I was just awed by this full color president. Who is this man, I wondered, this gabion building, young, dapper, smoothé who passed by primary schools and gave love struck students Orbit Chewing Gum? This is the man who I was going to marry and our names, doodled on my Kasuku note book “Mutumia Moi” worked! Annnnddd he didn’t seem to have a wife andddd he was preventing soil erosion and over population and bringing about rural electrification!
OK let me tell the truth and shame the devil. I thought that he was hot.
*yeah, yeah y’all were too smart to fall for that Moi good-lookingness*
I mean, this was before his …. I mean… it could have been Stanley Oloitiptip or Al Hajj Nasir or….
Not buying it?
Forget y’all!
Have a cooperative February
You are one sick mama! Yes Moi looked somewhat palatable when he was young but jameni he was the President!
As for msimamo, I give mad props to those who keep theirs no matter what!
Lakini now you are an old timer ati…(near that theater where we all went to see “Breakin’: 56th Great week!!!” and my work used to be to harass my mum for money to “go and see Shabadoo & Boogaloo Shrimp before the movie stops showing”)
Ebu teach us young uns a lesson or two about life!
Comment by acolyte — February 22, 2007 @ 3:38 am
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!
I’m not too sure I can manage any more than that, from this my vantage point on the floor, where I have flung myself laughing!!
Lakini, he was kinda sorta (from far) good looking. Lakini the full dinyos? ALA!!! Oh the folly of youth!!!
Lakini, that ust’ve been one halluva soft lens, are you seeing the way his eyes are drawing you in, like “Paypee ret me ruv you!!”
Comment by Ms K — February 22, 2007 @ 3:42 am
Heh heh ditto Acolyte. Enyewe you go way back eh!! Ati Shabbadoo? Wewe!!!
Comment by Ms K — February 22, 2007 @ 3:46 am
LOL. Great piece. “Azzume the bozition” just cracked me up! And everyone only seems to remember him building gabions (in a flowered shirt to boot -at least that’s what I could make out on the hazy 14″ B/W National TV that occupied pride of place in the oversized wall unit) in the early days of his presidency. Surely he must have been doing other things, ama? Apart from going to church on Sundays of course.
My first time here but will definitely be coming back.
Comment by Patrick Gathara — February 22, 2007 @ 1:57 pm
My sister from another mother!!! First of all, good to read you again…next thanks for reminding me that time exists, in this non english speaking place a time magazine would be like winning the lottery for me! Then on to the point at hand….ur nuts!! plain nuts!! Mutumia Moi? hahahahaaa! can’t stop laughing at this and i have a feeling I won’t for like a week. the odds are not so good and the goods are a bit too odd for me…but hey whatever rubs your buddha! But good to see you’re finally shaming the devil and taking your stand…!
Comment by kipepeo — February 22, 2007 @ 3:44 pm
Mutumia /Moi and what position?
you always make me laugh but today you made me laugh like a Kariko and I was at work. Ati Mutumia ulikuwa unaumia moi kidole? (bite you finger at Moi) …. Some dreams should remain in the closet…
PS
I have been waiting forever for the rest of the alphabet !!!
Comment by ni mimi — February 22, 2007 @ 10:18 pm
oi when was this post put up?
Sasa love?
LOOOL. *dies*…Mutumia Moi. *smh*, tiga wana meni. Ok, now that you put it like that, ummm, he’s not too bad but eish…ummm, why please lawd did you plant an evil seed into my brain.
LOOOL@ Kenyatta with gout,mwehehhe and a walking stick…like this crazy old bat I was watching on Carte Blanche and she was telling people to “f*&K Off”. I don’t know why. She was so old. Those old people have mad insults.
I digress, have a good ‘un wa moi.
P.s eti Lena Moi, the wife kinda like ummm eti they were out clubbing halafu her she did not want to dance as in ‘blue’ so they broke up. Aiii, kwani she was a prude how?
Halafu…that Moi had tu-maundu fote (40 issues) tondu riiri, I hear he used to come at night and komonga our headmistress, then he goes komongas the one of Pango, then he goes to the one of kenya High,then Kotet then he malizias in Stato. Thats what I heard mimi, vile on his birthday we used to pelekea him a cake (read Kiss thuthas and preferably siphon out some Sh*t)so he can keep visiting and leaving a wad of notes for us to have chicken twice a week.
Hugses mami, HAve a good week.
Comment by KM — February 26, 2007 @ 3:53 am
boogaloo shrimp?! LOOOOL!!! I can’t even remember the last time I heard that!!!
Comment by m — February 26, 2007 @ 5:46 am
@KM, are you a busherian? Coz, we pelekaed cake to Moi on his birthday and sang him songs. I got into deep shit with my folks who were anti-govt when they spotted me on KBC news singing my heart out for him. I didn’t like Moi either, but I’d do any thing for a day out…
As for Mutumia, kweli kweli you have dudus in your head:) But that’s what we love about you. Me I couldn’t even look at the jamaa like that because my peoples were violently anti-moi. It would have been blasphemy!
Comment by wangaari — March 10, 2007 @ 11:16 am
LOL! Yaani I just had to comment on this one. Quite the cutie he was back then… Doesn’t hold a candle to one W. Ruto though
Comment by Rista — April 10, 2007 @ 4:46 pm
I could not agree much with your post. Brillant !
Comment by LPC — May 13, 2007 @ 4:09 pm
LOL! Now this is some funny ish. Ati building gabions? Kweli it din’t take that much to become a hero in the eyes of girls in Kenya circa 1985! You killed me with that Shabadoo movie reference. Clearly we are of the same rika … that’s if boys and girls can be of the same rika … I am not up-to-date on that technicality … but I digress
Comment by Blackknutz — October 8, 2007 @ 10:33 am