The Bahatian

The first time I saw her was that Sunday I had stopped by this club to wind down for the weekend, and catch an English Premier League match on the giant screen. She looked very gorgeous, no wonder she was receiving generous tips from male patrons who could not help keep their eyes off her voluptuous bums each time she passed to take or serve a customer's order. Perhaps the reason those who invest in pub businesses hires good looking ladies is because of the magnetic attraction they have on men, no wonder you’ll find males making repeat customers to simply drool after the petite skirt wearers, and do their wallets damage in the process.

Before Kenya’s migration to digital television content, there is no doubt many were content watching at least a maximum of six free to air television stations on their box TV sets. Those were the days some brands of basic mobile phones could access analogue television stations, unlike today where you need to download apps to stream the same on your smartphone.   Prior to the enforced 2015 switch off of analogue signals, many, including yours truly, found it convenient to wind down for weekends at social places to catch part of the entertaining English Premier League matches. For others, yours truly included, invested in pay setup boxes, with GOtv being an option over others in the market. What informed the choice for same was how Multichioice, which owns DSTV and GOtv, tempted many football fanatics with a variety of entertaining European sports. 

For some, weekends presents that chance to wind down in style. It could be to hang bingeing with friends, or to taking that excursion that will see them arriving back at their work posts looking refreshed and reenergized. The introverts would rather be domiciled in the safety of their residences perhaps as couch potatoes, or for others, being hooked to their social media accounts ‘catching up’ what they may have missed during weekdays.     For quite long, my weekends have taken a predictable narrative. Each other weekend, I’m to be found in a social joint staring at the giant screen following a premium English Premier League match. Well, many a football fanatics would rather watch in company of friends and not in comfort of a sofa set, with the unwritten rule being a responsible man should be home and dry before or by the time of 9 O’clock news.

The state of many a river in Nakuru County is wanting. Whereas in the past the rivers were perennial, today many are seasonal or simply abstract channels in a Martian landscape. Human interference coupled by rapacious greed, more than weather change, is highly to blame as degradation of forest cover has led to this scenario where even natural springs have dried up. To say some rivers in Nakuru County are simply a memory of the past is to be economical with the truth.

Whenever I take nature walks, I’m at times amazed at the quick change of the once breathtaking sceneries. Where thick canopied trees once stood in forested areas have been rendered bare almost bereft of any vegetation, with exception of few shrubs here and there or food crops where the areas had been farmed. Taking  a hike the other day to Dundori hills within Dundori ward in Nakuru County left me surprised as there was not a single stream or rivulet to be seen for miles within the said hills.

Looking at the pile of one shilling coins accumulated over two years, an idea occurred to me. Why not take the whole lot to a blacksmith to be smelted and fashioned into an object that will grace my table stand?   But a contrary idea had me thinking otherwise. What if the authorities of the day caught me in the act and charged me with defacing a government property, nay, a national currency?   Even if the sophisticated safe breaker in Kenya had gained access to my house and pried the little simple safe box open, he no doubt would have got a heart attack wondering whether it was worth the effort seeing that, despite one shilling coins still in circulation, no one would gladly accept them!

It may sound stranger than fiction yet it is true. It is what would make for a rich plot in one of Nollywood or Bongowood movie that had witchcraft or elements of mysticism as a central theme. Yet these happenings, and rare sightings, bordering from weird to bizarre, and defying human or science logic, have from time to time been reported with the authentication of the same proving a hard sell.   Not long ago in a Nakuru County village, a woman was sent packing by unseen forces believed to have been sent by her co-wife. She happened to be the first wife of a now deceased prosperous businessman. He had built her a house on a small acreage of land compared to his second wife. He and the latter were living on a vast track of land in an imposing bungalow. As is known that no woman can stand the sight of the other one sharing her husband, the first w ife believed the second one, younger to be her own daughter, had taken her husband away.   This first wife would complai...