Dear Friends & Family.
It’s January 20th again, only this time it’s 46 years since I was born in Nairobi.
I am humbled by your outpouring happy birthday wishes for me. Hoping that by now you all know that I am of Bahá’í Faith, I thank God through his last messeger Bahá’u’lláh for your friendship.
I feel empowered to tell a real life a story. To wit:
One day, when I was just but a lad, I was a Cub in the Kenya Boyscout Troupe. My father, Ndinya, had struggled and for the first time, bought me the beautiful uniforms I had only imagined. Actually, he did not buy them as I later learnt. My mother Esther gave the money from her Chang’aa peddling kitty. She just did not want me to know how she was able to afford them, lest I bragged about her in school and the City Kanjo (Askaris) or Ogul Mama (Police) busted her.
And so, on this particular week, I made it to all marching practices in preparation to make it with my troupe to Uhuru Park for the parade that would march past Mzee Jomo Kenyatta during the celebration of one of Kenya’s National Holidays.
It was not to be, or so I thought. Mr. PatricK Shaw, the Nairobi-Crime Buster was the Boy Scout Patron then and he insisted that I had not attained the height to participate in the March-Past-Parade. Instead he ordered that I curry the little yellow triangular flag. You see, whoever carried this flag was obliged to stand right in front of the presidential dias to cue the Drum Major to yelp, “Eeeyes Right!” in order for the troupe to look at the president. The GSU, the Fanya Fujo Uone, The Navy, The Airforce and even the K9 contigent had thier own yellow triangular flag bearer. There, infront on Jomo, I stood with them, shoulder to shoulder.
It was hot and I had not a penny for water. Yet there was this ice-cream hawker who would not even look my way without me having a sumuni in my hand.
On this day, there were about thirty to fifty thousand wanainchi spectators at the Uhuru Park hill, jam-packed and anxious to see Jomo deliver his speech and even haul some insults at some of us in his mother tongue. As we waited patiently for our troups to arrive, all hell broke loose. whooosh! A swam of African killer-bees appeared from nowhere. There was a stampede, much worse than that of the wildebeest when the leader of the pack decides to jump into the Grometi River to cross over to the Maasai Mara.
The strong trampled on the weak. Everyone in the crowd attempted to flee to freedom. You see, some believed there was something occurring, something scary, something to do with life and death, like a coup de tat. Some people did not know what had happened and died without ever knowing. I saw dead people. Many were taken to the national hospital, named after the very president they had gone to listen to.
It all happened so quickly. I was left standing. Transfixed! Perhaps because I was too frightened to move, but mostly because Mr. Patrick Shaw had warned against fidgeting when you were at ‘Attention’ and currying the yellow triangular flag for the troupe. I was scared of Mr. Patric Shaw you see. I had never seen a white man up close, and I mean a big fat white man. You’d be scared of him too if you remember him. He killed Arudhi of the Gor Mahia fame. Really, was it not him who also shot dead Wakinyonga? He was a sharp shooter. He never missed and meant business.
Yet there was no reason to simply stand there. The President was whisked away meddlesome worries that it was an assassination attempt, and Daniel arap Moi was left begging wanainchi wakae hivyo hivyo.
Then my eyes stumbled on the ice-cream cart. It was alone! The hawker had run away. I was so thirsty, I could spit cotton. Several years later, at the Trafalgar Square in London, Nelson Mandela was to say “Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Make Poverty History. Make History in 2005. Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that generation. Let your greatness blossom.” He must have been talking of what went on in my mind as I looked at that ice-cream cart.
I commandeered the ice-cream cart. I ate Ice cream after ice-cream as I peddled the dry ice cart to my Muthurwa neighborhood. I made sure every child had an ice-cream in their hand. It was great. My Mother had gone to look for me at the Casualty Department at KNH. I regretted that when she got back home, my buddies & I had finished all the Sony Sugary stuff.
And so my friends here and in facebook, as you shower me with so many birthday wishes, I am reminded of the plenty ice-cream I once had. To this day, I keep asking whether I deserved the treat. I also wonder whether I deserve your friendship, and I am humbled that you regard me as such.
http://www.facebook.com/Joragem
http://joragem.blogspot.com/
—
Joram Ragem
wuod Ndinya, wuod Onam, wuod Amolo, wuod Owuoth, wuod Oganyo, wuod Mumbe, wuod Odongo, wuod Olwande, wuod Adhaya, wuod Ojuodhi, wuod Ragem! (Are you my relative?)