Everyone has that childhood part of their life when they thought they were a little genius. More than an elderly person who was so good at what they do. A person who's seen it all.
The Terrain:
At the Baba Dogo Stage, was a junction. This junction held the Route 25 matatu bus terminal, the Stage Bar; a bar more popular for it's nyama choma than the beer. Apparently the Maasais owning the place were so good at their trade that my dad, who owned a chain of butchers felt the weight of trying to compete with them. The best thing about it is that they were pretty good friends. I didn't understand that. I still have never.
Also at the junction was the Cussons (E.A) Limited Company's Gate B and the famous Baba Dogo Primary School. They sat on the opposite of each other.
From town, either on foot or driving, you'd either go straight to Glu Cola Estate or turn right to Kwa Mugure Village with Baba Dogo Primary on your left. Straight ahead on that route were a chain of companies ahead. They created another junction and on the left was KenAfric Industries. On the right, the road led you to Lucky Summer Estate.
While at the KenAfric Industries, right outside was the MYSA grounds, bordering Baba Dogo Primary School and Sacred Heart Catholic Church which hosted the nursery school I attended.
Opposite the gate was a shanty stall covered with corrugated iron sheets. There was man in it. A tall, brown, skinny Kikuyu with brown teeth and a heavy accent. His arms were strong and his palms dirty with rust, mud or dust and oil. He was a scrap metal dealer.
The Lads With the Big Idea:
Among my friends was Mzee Mzee. He was an age mate. A Luhya boy given that nick name by his own family because he didn't look anything like his age. He was dark plump and appeared like he was five years older. He had a hot sister though. She was a friend to my elder sister. I made sure we played and hanged out near wherever they were. I just wanted to see her. Crazy, right? I didn't see it that way. Anyway that was the man in me growing up!
Another one was Babu, my best childhood friend. He lived in the same plot as my eldest sister. We only hang out when it was serious game time. His family was the rich type that did not allow their children to play outside a five hundred metres radius. His mother loved me but did not allow his son to accompany me to those risky expeditions we undertook in the name of playing. She feared her son would come home dead.
She shuddered when she heard we had forced our way into Kasarani Sports Complex and that there was a kid from across the estate who had his balls torn by barricades as we jumped over the fence. He had come with peeps from his area so we didn't know him. In any case we were busy being chased by police on horses to even notice a fella had his balls torn. Apparently, he was beaten first then taken to hospital. She couldn't stand hearing how one of us had a cut on his feet after losing his shoe running away from watchmen at Nairobi Central Glass.
Babu loved to hear these stories. He in turn told me about recent cartoons he'd watched or fancy places they'd visited.
He was cheeky too though. He was there when we played 'cha baba na cha mama' (role playing a family life), 'kalongolongo' (being crazy chefs mostly using tins as utensils and stolen ingredients!) and other crazy games of our time. It was however very clear that I played the father and I got to choose who the mother was. Forget geography, I got to decide the length of, 'days and nights'. We interchanged this at times.
I feared his mother would kill us if she suspected we tried to hump girls and I was afraid after eating our dirty food Babu would go home, have a stomach upset, diarrhea and dehydrate to death.
That's about a mother's love anyway.
In school, since we were classmates, I was either top of the class or Babu was. Why wouldn't the mother love me? Such a great friend her son had.
It was with these kind of friends that we walked to town via Allisops jus to see double decker KBS buses. We would come back and make ours with wire, iron sheets or carton boxes. We were so creative we included flashlights and rode them at night. Some of us made easy money by selling them to parents whose kids didn't posses half our skills.
I lost contact with all of them after our family relocated from Nairobi to Machakos in April 28, 1999. The last time I saw Babu was in 2004 as a form one. I was at Lenana School and had gone to visit my sister over mid-term. We didn't say much to each other.
On one morning, it must have been a Saturday because there was no school to attend to. My friends and I needed money. I can't recall what it was for but it was so urgent that we convened a special meeting.
We sat and explored all possible moneymaking ideas. In the meeting was Mzee Mzee, my little brother, Geoffrey (Mzee Mzee's best friend), Deno, Muthomi (Deno's bid brother and myself.
After an half an hour of contemplation, we agreed on looking for scrap metal. This was seen as a lesser hustle that would give us quick bucks. Given our numbers, we were so quick to garner enough to get at least thirty shillings in our pockets.
We walked transversing the entire Glu Cola, passed through Kariadudu, crossed the bridge to Ngomongo and back.
Kariadudu and Ngomongo were neighborhoods with rogue gangs so we never stayed there long enough to lose what we'd already collected.
"These are enough, and we don't need that much money really." That was Deno. Tired as we were, we all agreed and were on our way to the dealer.
Greed:
Being young, any amount of money is overwhelming especially when it's twenty shillings or more.
So while we walked towards KenAfric, we estimated how many kilos our scrap would weigh and how much each of us would get.
As this transpired, we decided to put stones in the tins. This would make it heavier. A kilo went for five shillings then. We would get at least twenty five shillings each if a worked out well. We even started planning on what to spend our money on. We were gonna be rich, least to say, none of us had woken up with a dime on his name.
When we got at the rusty kiosk, the skinny man was not in the vicinity. Our hearts raced. There was a mixture of both anxiety and fear.
We looked around and there wasn't a soul. Funny enough, the door was ajar.
I got another idea. I blame it on the devil, the dark angel of greed. I started collecting a few pieces outside the kiosk and putting them in our bag.
"Mnafanya nini hapa?!" (What are you doing here). A deep voice asked from inside. He sounded sleepy.
"Tumeleta chuma." Deno said. (We've brought scrap metal). "Ngojeni kidogo," the voice retorted, "na msijaribu kugusa kitu hapo!" (Wait a little. Don't you dare touch a thing).
I don't know how long the man had been there watching us or how much he'd seen but when he emerged, his bloodshot eyes shifted from one boy to another.
Silence.
He picked his machine and grabbing the bag, he weighed it. It was a clean twenty three kilos. That was a hundred and fifteen shillings for all of us.
However, the unthinkable happened. The man poured all our contents down and started examining everything. We acted cool.
"Hizi mmetoa wapi?" (Where did you get these from?)
"Tumesakanya tu ma-place." (We looked for them all over the place). I answered.
"Hizi zote?" (All of these?). "Eeeh, ilikua kazi ngumu jo!" (Yeah, it was such a hustle) I said, confidently.
The rest of the squad had already taken steps back. Veins were already showing on the man's forehead. A glimpse of anger showed but he forced a smile as he approached us, pretending to look for something he'd misplaced.
Whack! A slap landed squarely on my face. We went missing. No money. No metals. Damnit!
We never talked about this to anyone.
Not even Babu got to know about it.
(Photo Courtesy: Sierra Leon Telegraph)
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