The Bahatian

What spoilt the party for the Mathina village water cartel was the increasing awareness by the residents that something was wrong in matters water. Many of the peasants’ children, especially the highly educated, were woke ones, and this is the lot that gave elders a hard time with grating questions. And the newcomers - those who bought plots recently and settled in the area - too realized something was wrong. Some of them were filth rich individuals, who, tired of urban life, have come to seek the solace of countryside, or were retirees who had bought plots and build their dream homes. They could not understand the water politics and why individual water needs had to be dictated by few individuals in the water office for ages.

Mathina village comprises of nine clusters, better known as settlement schemes. Each cluster, which is a village in itself, has a maximum of two hundred homesteads, but the number is increasing as the once vast individual farmlands are disappearing after being subdivided into minuscule pieces and sold as plots. It is now assuming a cosmopolitan face with a burgeoning population.   There are ranges of hills to the east of the village with at least three perennial springs in two of the forested hills. Two spring waters form part of the tributaries that flows swiftly downhill to join a big river that was known as River D. I say known because presently River D is a dry seasonal channel – flowing during those three wet months before petering out. We shall see how the river died a slow death.

My first encounter with con artists was in 2015 along the Kenyatta Avenue in Nakuru town. At the time, the first governor of the fast growing town that is aspiring for a city status had not began removing hawkers along the corridors of the buildings and in the streets. To say the town back then was a hub of activities especially on the streets as hawkers jostled for customers is not an understatement.   Halfway along the Kenyatta Avenue was a guy selling movies, and was easily identified from far off by his trademark hairstyle that was a hybrid between a box and a trimmed umbrella tree. His name was Kigen, and as is with members of Nilotic tribe persuasion, he was black. His skin was a tone deep black like the bottom of the cooking pot.   As happens when a new customer makes a stop to sample goods on display or make a purchase, any business savvy individual will engage the customer not only to make a sale but net a loyal customer in the process. And that’s how I ended as a repeat c

This book reads like a political treatise that examines the state of affairs of an average sovereign African nation after the independence. Kasanga is a typical newly independent African nation and figuratively a baby learning to walk on its own.   Like most African states, independence didn’t come on a silver platter but was hard fought for. There is a similarity to George Orwell’s fable, ‘Animal Farm’ with the exception that this is a political satire whose grim facts anyone can well relate with. Readers can easily identify some scenarios and replicate them to local political occurrences. Kenya, for instance, came close to cusp of violent regime change th rough the 1982 abortive coup attempt. Bloody coups then were hallmarks of independent African nations where power hungry leaders installed themselves to power through the barrel of the gun.

It remains to be seen when coronavirus pandemic is declared contained worldwide, places of worship will be same as before. But given the way many Kenyans are religious to the core, there’s no doubt pews will overfill and aisles overflow as majority throngs the churches. There is also no denying that majority of worshippers do not attend churches because they have faith in God or other deities out there in the pantheon. From time immemorial, Africans have been deeply spiritual before the advent of white man and missionaries to the continent which, after successful brainwashing, saw the converts becoming too religious – and this is the scenario we’ve today.

The recent death of black American, George Floyd, under the hands of a white police officer has seen protests spreading across the world demanding for racial justice. And there is a witnessed pulling down of statues of mostly whites who were deemed as racists. And when it comes to reporting about Africa, many western writers and reporters portray a negative picture of the continent. To a westerner’s mindset, Africa is a continent bedeviled by internecine tribal wars, poverty, diseases and inept and corrupt governments.