boyfulani

Some days ago, i went visiting mtaani and found that the video dens we frequented as kids are still in existence. Curiously though is that little has changed with time save for the DVD-cum-CD that now carry the full package, whose content i shall talk about hereafter.

Oh! Na bado ni ashu kwa ashu! (Ten bob yaani)…

Tena, the adage old is gold still holds here as the same old movies that kicked ass back in the day..akina Delta Force, Double Target, Fists of Vengeance, Shawshank Redemption, twololo!  I could not help but let the memory and nostalgia of our Bruce Lee-cum-Commando era flood back . 

Yaani, if you never visited any of this chums as a kid, man, you missed ’such a wholesome sin-ematic package’ that boosted our boyish adrenalin to levels no chick would….ha ha ha . And this is how it went down.

Movie za 18th (plus za Yesu)

These were the movies screened around the hood by some film company with a name like ‘Factual Films’ and came about at a certain time of the month. In our hood, 18th of every month was the D-day.(Un)fortunately for most of us homework, strict parents were the stumbling blocks. Kwanza i remember dad was very much against it (for violence) and what he described as one ’stupid’ story line–ati a fugitive cowboy with a gun crouched on a Rock slowly approaching his kill… never mind he watched them in his hey day. But you know boys. Somehow, i could sneak severally and catch the action just as Chuck Noris was landing in Vietnam…and the ‘translator’ was like

Basi ndio huyo Chuck Norris katika Balozi la Amerika kule Veitnam akitufuta mpendwa wake…

Well, as the excitement built up…that was as far as the fun stretched. First, there were those who had watched it and wanted to narrate the story as much as they could…and they spoilt the fun.  And did i tell you about a certain mayai ya Keno? Ha ha ha…this was the culmination of every movie evening…ROTTEN EGGS!!! Prior to the screening, boys would scour a certain Kenchic dumpsite and come laden with basket-fools of rotten mayais…and that was the beginning of the end as flying rotten eggs wreaked havoc. Woe unto u if one of them was to land on you—no one would sit next to you, plus, utaenda home kusema umetoana wapi na hiyo harufu???

Za Yesu

i must admit i gave every excuse to avoid any of these, but the church we frequented was known for militant crusades about town, plus a ‘Special Movie’ at the end. Dad, was a full full meba and that guaranteed we had to be dragged along.

Yes, i even watched the Passion of the Christ in Kiswahili, Ki Masaai..name it all!

‘Kaende Mpaka Che!’

If you happen to chomoka  (hail) from any hood that boasts of at least…’reasonable proximity’ to Kenya’s Center of Civilisation (Nai) or to at least have the tag ‘Born Tao’ { lol} then you probley know what this was all about. Well, for  those not in the know, Kaende nights were, to put it plainly, ‘Adults Only’ movies. And boys again…Now, these dens were usually made of mbaos and when during No Shows (Sato afternoons) they ’screened’ these Kaende Flicks. We would gather around huko nyuma and chungulia the shock of our lives…OMG! Curiosity really got the cat killed…and what’s more: our eyes not only got soiled..but thoroughly soiled, literally speaking- what with the earthen floor and a horny video den, ah, cashier not ready to offer ‘free kaende?

the Dj-shows

I saved this for the last coz i think it was the most exhila-wot? of those times. Lets face it, we hadn’t grown fast enough to decipher what those mzungus were saying, save for Commando’s ‘ Asta La Vista babe..ooh, oops, sorry…so the DeeJays, ah Veejays? came in handy. I remember growing up in Mushatha (ocha) and i watched Sarafina in Kyuk. There was Kinuthia, Kamau and the nemakuhia guy with a funny hairsyle called Irush, LoL. Now, in tao, Bruce Lee would tell guys to ‘uka haha na utige wana’ and if someone got a hit in the you-know-what area, the VJ would say ‘ameonwa foul Kasarani’…

And the movie marathon can go on…

Larry lifts the can to his lips and started drinking. He slurps loudly as he polishes off its contents, before crashing the can and flinging it to a nearby open sewer.
<i>For once, he thought not of global warming or the accumulating electronic waste around the country.</i> Instead his thoughts are running like cholera as he sizes the rusty green gate to the estate.

Ignoring the ponderous thought his mind has settled on, he bends low and pushes the smaller gate hewn from its rusty senior opening up to un-Wednesday-like afternoon aura: a septic musk of detergents, freshly washed clothes and general wetness strikes his nostrils. The afternoon looks prematurely dark here owing to the clothlines crisscrossing the little space left by the apartments, forming a skyline of dripping garments.

He re-adjusts his red and black tie, thick-as-a-coke bottle glasses, and ducks to the similarly wet pavement before his checked shirt drains in the estate’s artificial rain.

The welcoming scene has somehow disoriented his thoughts. They re-group and track his original mission consequently triggering a blood rush.
<i>102 beats that be</i>
He muses under his breathe. The only time his heart beat rushes past his usual 72.5, is when he dozes over unfinished cups of coffee…over-chewed toffee or whence he bought his trade mark Bata Toughees*

But now, there is a rhythm to it…

<i>N0 17.</i>

<i>N0 17.</i>
Like a convict counting down to execution hour…reciting, reciting..reciting excerpts from the desiderata and constantly saying the serenity’s prayer…

With each stride it continued to echo in his heart like an immortal voice did whisper it.

<i>It almost felt like the first time , but Larry was no Visiting Virgin!</i>

***

He lifted his nervous fingers ready to knock when he noticed that the Room Number had fallen off its hinges and was curiously hanging upside down.

Room N0 17 now read:
<b>LI 0N</b>

***
Myriads of emotions ambushed him as flashing floods of memories sank the last dyke that banished Fucking Sundays’.

For the celebration of my 200th post on boyfulani’s mass scan, i let you in on this storo i have not told too many times.  I know you shall identify yourself innit, ama?

When we were pure ‘ipiis’- uncircumcised lads- we had a lot going on in our messy lives ranging to dare devil antics to outrageous adventures. Well, one characteristics of a kipii (singular form of ipii) which is a despicable/demeaning word by itself where I come from is that they care nothing about anything/nothing , even the insult. In fact, in the Traditional African Society, they slept in the Gichegu (goat pen) with Billy goats (senges), stank like one… and are anything but appealing. They’re the shaggy boys that walk around disaster zones ; picking what they can, still jolly – even though their family house may have been blown by a blizzard or post election floods, landslide/marginal presidential triumphs, whatever, you get the picture. It’s the most hardening stage of men in my community, the cross over being a wee bit like the measure of a man. But that’s not my story now.

See, we had gone hunting for thiyas- antelopes- and had our dogs along to help in the quest. Then, huko ocha, there were tuffs of forests/thick thickets –before the tribe multiplied and families were fixed into one-eighth of a one-eighth. Now, the windmill of rumour around the village had blown past our ears that there was a sizeable antelope population in those forests.

We gathered around in whispers and brainstormed on the possibility of some mouth-watering antelope soup; the thought of juicy ribs was just irresistible considering ipiis always received the shorter end of anything…yaani ata ka-hen kaki-landishwa, si tuliwaga tunatupiwa ka-shingo..ama munecki !

Flanked by an army of several guitar dogs (very thin and starving) and a few Neanderthal bows and arrows, pangas…big sticks, we were a group of like seven lads ready for a kill. Along the way, now that we had missed lunch, we had to rely on wild berries, sneak into people’s farms and ‘mine’ sweet potatoes –which we ate raw by the way…and the journey was becoming longer than expected. The little hares crossing our paths were not our objective – but we had to settle for that in the end after the antelopes proved to be just a mirage…plus the sun was sinking fast.

[Nobody wanted to bare the wrath of his  nyina (mother)...kichapo ya mbwa – i think they assumed kihii ona ungukiringa atia gitikingekua ( a lad cant die even if u smudge them with a stone]

It was while roasting this ka-hare, skinned alive that I felt the raw sweet potatoes, arranged in my stomach like irregular rocks urging me to go for a ‘short’ call of nature…so, I excused myself…wait, among ipis, there is nothing gentlemanly as ‘excuse or sorry’…you just pluck yourself from the click and go do whatever you wanted…kwani?

I rushed to the next thicket nearby looked left then right and pulled down my tiny shorts(no undies, commando was the order of the day, tsk)  in preparation to carry on the ritual…and for like 10 or so minutes, nothing was really forthcoming…but I could still feel the king on his way, so I patiently waited when the mheshimiwa finally landed with…

his usual stink bombs and drama,  in the form of a hard rock substance, almost badly injuring my sphincter muscles. I felt relief come over me as I reached for some leaves nearby to destroy the evidence of this ‘act of nature’. No sooner had I let the leaf go than I pulled my shorts up and looked backwards to see the fruit of my prolonged labour….

ONLY TO REALISE than THERE WAS NOTHING!

I swear my heart must have missed a bit when my eyes frantically scoured the thicket ‘in search of an answer’ when stifled and urgent chuckles and shuffling leaves coming from a nearby thicket caught my ear…

There, holding his nose… and his hands holding a twig poking into the sausage like shit, was Doo-re*, the notorious of us all, flanked by several others, laughing their head offs.

……………………………..

I have never gotten this scared –embarrassed? Hmm, not really- but I think, this is what it really means to be scared shitless!

*Remind me when i return to the village tale to give one or two storos of this maafaka called doo-re

from behind these empty walls that seem to be closing on me, i remember them.

i dont know why but i just…remembered them.

those sundays when i was all young, innocent naive and life had not really defiled all my orifices and vices were unknown to me….

i’d wait, wait…hang around my boys, anxious, waiting…my face glistening with a fair layer of vaseline…

waiting for you to come from a date in town, with another guy.

and you always came to me, with a glow on your face, probably the after glow a humble fuck with a more moneyed dude…

i was broke, i had nothing to offer, but love you, and love you i did, coz ad still warm up to you with my nerdish jokes, make you feel like a queen, which you were…

i had never met another like you, never have.

time did roll and our love did grow to…into hating levels…

when my future looked all glim and bleak and i was no longer that fun guy:

out you went, for good.

and it finally sunk in…

it finally did…

Now, life has better prospects for me.  I can afford a date to wherever…any Fucking Sunday…

but where is the love?