Welcome to my share of Jua Kali life

Anything can happen in this Jua Kali republic called Kenya. It is a Jua Kali republic and that is why a Kenyan who probably grew up on omena fish heads can walk to a safe that belongs to someone else on a Sunday afternoon.

The same Kenyan then persuades a whole Sh54 million in Clinton currency out of that safe and pockets it as if it is petty cash from a kiosk.

The same Kenyan from this Jua Kali republic then walks out as if he is taking a Sunday afternoon stroll, most probably humming something like Pesa Position. He then vanishes into thin air; the man simply becomes vapour!

That only happens in a Jua Kali republic like ours because everything is Jua Kali. Actually everyone becomes Jua Kali in this month of January which many Kenyans wish was banned from the calendar.

It is the month when car owners with Jua Kali wallets drive for only one week. They starve because the makers of cars decided that the alimentary canals of mobiles must be fed on petrol and not water. Petrol, of course, does not come from River Chania and not everyone can persuade money to walk out of a safe even if his children are feeding on hyacinth.

The only people who cease being Jua Kali and whose wallets do not need much panel-beating in this passion month of January are those belonging to the tribe called headmasters and headmistresses.

In normal circumstances, their cars run for four months in the whole year. Those headmastermobiles are close relatives of my own Whispermobile so they really need persuasion to move for six months of the year.

For those four months that the headmaster-mobiles run, they have to be persuaded to do so through petrol taken on credit, most times. Even in the course of those four months, they die and face resurrection through intensive care provided by Jua Kali mechanics.

A miracle, however, happens in the month of January and those headmastermobiles as well as headmistressmobiles get a new lease of life. They face total resurrection.

The resurrection comes because of an animal called KCPE. I hear the animal is supposed to sort out Jua Kali heads from factory-made ones. The factory-made heads are supposed to head for the place we called “Hai” in our days. Jua Kali heads are supposed to forget that they can find the door to high school.

Jua Kali heads

It happens that not all heads come from a district called Koibatek where heads that show KCPE dust are manufactured. If you have forgottten, the factory where good heads are made was recently moved to Koibatek and so the kids there gave KCPE a number of reasons why it should not joke with them.

It also happens that factories for Jua Kali heads were opened in other districts where it feared to show its head. The result is that at this moment headmasters of high schools there have graduated from tu-mwalimu to people of great substance.

They are men and women of great substance because many adults happen to be the parents of children whose heads have been declared Jua Kali by KCPE. When you have such a child, you have no choice but to persuade the headmaster or headmistress to assume that your Junior or Investment went to Koibatek.

You can only do so by persuading the headmastermobile to start moving again through donating something for its owner to fund a project of his or her choice.

This is to say that a high school chief does not need to go to a safe and persuade money out of it. Instead, a safe walks to him or her at this time and demands to be opened because there are many heads that have been declared to be of the Jua Kali type by KCPE.

Let me leave headteachers alone because I happen to be the father of two products with Jua Kali heads. This indeed makes me a Jua Kali father.

Such a father needs to be a friend of headmasters because that is the only way he can persuade them that his kids missed the Koibatek head factory by inches.

I should actually be more worried about other things that happen in this Jua Kali republic. Right now the thing to worry about is the fact that the month of January is coming to an end.

I should be celebrating the ending of the month because, like many Kenyans, I live a totally Jua Kali life every January because my wallet was turned Jua Kali by the events of December.
But instead of celebrating, I am feeling like a rabid dog without a vaccination certificate. This is because I don’t have a vaccination certificate otherwise known as a new generation Identity Card.

What happens to such a dog is that it is shot on sight. I am told that if I don’t get a vaccination certificate, I will eat rotten meat like a dog in Kamiti for months come the end of this month.
I have nothing against that vaccination certificate except that it is not a Jua Kali affair, so I am supposed to present my bald head in the sun for hours before I can be declared to belong to a new generation. The end result is that I will end up with a scrambled if not boiled brain before I can get that vaccination certificate.

Something else I cannot understand is what that vaccination certificate is supposed to do to my life. I have always been Whispers Son of the Soil and a new ID will not make me Whispers Son of the Lake.

Anyway, we are in a Jua Kali republic and that’s where a man must be made to feel like a canine because he does not have an item called a kipande.

Next time they will tell you to learn how to bark before you can be allowed to vote. We are still in a Jua Kali republic and that is why right now I don’t know whom to trust.

I don’t know whether to trust the thief who wants a share of my neck or the policeman who has enough bullets to shoot stray ones, but which all the same hit where it matters.
In a Jua KaIi republic, you duck in the next alley when you see a thief being chased by a policeman who looks like he has enough stray bullets to use.

The wrong reason

I have to duck because I don’t want to land in a coffin for the wrong reason. One wrong reason is to get shot by a policeman who was taught in Kiganjo that the leg is located in the same place as the heart. The same policeman in this Jua Kali republic will shoot that leg to stop you from escaping.

Since he thinks the leg is found where the heart is, you have no choice but to meet your maker. In the circumstances, you will find a picture of a very dead Son of the Soil in the newspapers. Alongside his past tense picture will be the picture of a pistol.

It will be said that the same Son of the Soil who cannot hold a cigarette straight because of hands that have been turned Jua Kali by alcoholic beverages, shot at the police and that was why he was shot dead. It will be said that the cops who shot him dead are lucky to be alive for they were almost wasted by bullets.

Since these days funeral announcements must say what turned you into past tense, it will be said that I was killed by a “tragic bullet bravely borne”.

Children in academies

I will not be put into a mortuary. That just sounds too Jua Kali. I will be put in a funeral parlour because that’s where bodies that are not Jua Kali are put.

The same owners of those bodies are said to be fathers of children in academies and not primary schools. Primary schools are Jua Kali but academies, even if they are thatched with grass, are supposed to be tough.

It is all about being in a Jua Kali republic. Anything goes.