My mom, Mayi Sarah, was naturally the head of the 'Beatings and Correctional' department in the family, at least for petty offences. But on this particular day, she assumed the role of a Public Prosecutor. This was as we had assembled around the table for supper that evening. In case I had known earlier that she had a prosecution file against me, I would have disappeared to spend the night at uncles Thomas’s home. The good gentleman lived not so far from home.
Mom walked in, picked her plate, put the lantern lamp in the middle of the room, cleared her voice and turned to papa; "Baba Maria Kijana wako amenza kufanya tabia mbaya na wamama, muulize condom ilikua inafanya nini kwa uniform ya shule....huyu mkatie shamba aoe. Mimi sitalisha wanaumme wa watu kwa hii nyumba ". My father put down his Daily Nation newspaper, lowered his reading glasses, reduced the volume of his national Panasonic Medium Wave Radio, sat upright, adjusted his reading glasses and looked at me the way Jewish soldiers looked at Christ before bullying that son of a carpenter to death.
I knew two things; One, my father in his mind was wondering how a class Seven kid, who hasn't learned to walk around well in inner-wears and still bed wets, has abruptly started purchasing those protection latexes which clearly aren't surgical gloves;
And two, mzee was going to oversee and facilitate my last day on planet earth by sending me straight to our maker. My three sisters, Maria, Agattah and Nasambu silently stood up and left the sitting room as if avoiding a world war but keen to give nursing and ambulance services. My brother sat there silently. I knew he wouldn't leave because I was going to mention him in my defense submissions as an accomplice to the crime.
The taste of Ugali and fish in my mouth changed to taste like sisal leaves, that's if you have ever chewed them. I couldn't hear clearly anymore though the world was now very silent. I felt objects around me going in circles. I could hear my own blood cells collide with each other. That's the first day I ever wished I never was born. I imagined how people were going to turn up to my funeral. The funeral of the boy who was found doing bad manners by his mother. A church elder's son.
My dad was adored in the village. Not for his possessions but how disciplined and organized he was. Many admired him as a Pentecostal church elder who valued education and good governance. No way one of his children was being accused of doing or planning to do bad manners. The evidence was enough, his son had a box of GoK condoms in the pockets of his school uniforms. This man was not going to let me throw his name down a pit latrine.
Deep down I knew I was very innocent and just a victim of circumstances but convincing an African parent in such a situation is like convincing Wajackoyah that bhang legalization can never be adopted in Kenya. "….Papa I can explain.." I struggled amidst tears, shaking hands and sweating armpits, "it was the Chief. He gave it to us yesterday…"
Let me explain explain;
In 1998, Seven hundred people died every day from Aids in Kenya, according to WHO data, yet President Daniel Arap Moi said he was embarrassed to talk about condoms and advised people to just avoid sex, but the international community was very serious about the little latex things that could save their lives. I think the president was embarrassed because it had come to such a point that the government had to allocate billions of shillings to import condoms, and it was no longer an issue of morals but a matter of life and death. This was according to the government's plans to import 300 million condoms, part of a campaign to control the rapid increase in Aids-related deaths.
Faced with more than 2 million HIV-positive Kenyans and half the beds in government hospitals occupied by Aids patients, Moi two years earlier had finally declared Aids a national emergency. Despite the Kiswahili condom jingle that urged Kenyans to 'Sema Nami' or 'Let's Talk' about AIDs, most of the pages upon pages of death notices in the daily newspapers referred only to a 'short', a 'long', or a 'mysterious' illness as the cause of the many Aids-related deaths. The Roman Catholic church and other Pentecostal Church elders, my father included, denounced the condom proposal. Therefore his own son being in possession of the rubber was an abomination, a crime, a sin and a taboo.
Adverts had been running frequently on radio duped; ' DJ Pinye ana yake, je Una yako?', and the campaign had unfortunately convinced this class Seven boy to find out what the government had been advising people to have. Leonard Mambo Mbotela had announced on radio that we all could pick free pieces from the chief's office. My desire was nothing rather than just seeing how this much advertised thing looked like. At my age, I had no girlfriend, I mean Rose Wangoi was my girlfriend at school, yes. Every little boy is fond of this playful girl that is furious to everyone else but him. A girl he easily borrows a sharpener and eraser from. So I had nothing else to do with the latex but maybe blow air inside to make a balloon. I therefore shared the idea with my brother and we decided to visit the chief's office after classes.
The chief's office was not far from home so we had no pressure about timing. Once there, we found an Administration Police officer on duty. We knew he wouldn't allow school children to dial the dispenser so we, with all the courage that can milk an ogre , approached him and claimed we had been sent by Antony. Antony was our herdsman, aged about twenty four by then. The officer didn't even speak a word but went ahead to press a button and boom!! Two silver sachets of labelled GoK MoH were in his hands. He handed them to us and we ran home. Being the elder, I took the responsibility to keep them not knowing that Mayi Sarah cleans our school uniforms every Wednesday evening.
That's how I qualified to be executed in public ladies and gentlemen. I knew I was never going to see Rose Wangoi again. Now this is me, and before me is my father, folding the sleeves of his shirt before taking off his wrist watch and closing the door.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have grown up thinking of words and phrases to describe what I went through that evening but honestly up to date, I haven't found energy nor suitable words to tell it. The beating was so serious that Mayi Sarah the prosecutor loudly withdrew the case against me but Papa couldn't stop. That night, I verbally swore several affidavits indemnifying the office of the head of the family that I'll never again touch a condom in my life, never ever to go to the chief's office and never to plan bad manners ever in my life.
If Rose Wangoi ever reads this, I'll be glad she'll have gotten an explanation of why I instantly stopped talking to her in school.
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