Something To Be Happy About

There was a certain mood in the air. Some kind of a festive attitude was everywhere and on most of the facial expressions on the people that I met. Though I could not for sure tell what it was, I could feel it in me as well. Something in the near wait, something good, something expectant, a coming soon though not new.

I like the sound of the flaccid snow softly breaking under my feet, later to melt into dirty water and run down the city’s drainage system. I often wonder how many litres of water came from the snow every winter. Must be an ocean of it. The white stuff from the skies covered every space and object on the ground plus all the roof tops and trees.

Beautiful at first, it eventually turns into an ugly dirty grey from all the stamping kneading it to a mixture with the black soil, before finally giving in and melting away.

Walking through the park, I noticed the newly constructed ceremonial tree in the middle, yet to be decorated. On both sides of the park, men had put up camp and big heaps of fleshly cut little trees were waiting for these years’ customers. In the centres of these camps were camp fires made by reject branches from the little trees, and off the fires came the familiar sweet scent of firewood smoke. The little trees and the scent reminded me of another time, another place far away. Home.

I was about seven years and we, me and my friends Jora and Wanyos were playing with the sand heap opposite my house. ‘Boy’ had run to his home to empty his bladder and probably “steal” a mouthful and pocketful of getheri as he often did. The boy loved eating and his body was good evidence to that. The sand was meant to be used in building a new house at the site but since it took sometime for the job to kick off, it became our favourite playing place. We would fill our tin made trucks with the stuff and transport it to other “sites” where we would build our “houses”.

While playing in the sand, we had to be on alert for the owner who loved to surprise us with unannounced visits. These visits resulted, if one got caught, to a good beating before being taken home to our parents where there was a guaranty of a bonus beating.

The sound of the village young men could be heard from far, as they returned from some adventure that we were not allowed to be part of. My uncle and his friends were the village young men, around ten years older than us. They had the freedom to play wherever they wanted, but not us the village kids, we were not to go outside the village without an adult supervision. They had fun and we envied them.

We ran to see what they had been up to this time which sometimes could be a good surprise for us. Their trips to the woods could yield wild berries of different sorts, a wild kill; from a rabbit to a gazelle, or just some fish depending on their luck. As we met them and to our disappointment, we realised that each one of them was carrying a small tree. Us we, bored, went back to our games we knew what it meant. Later on during the day they would call us and demand that we go look for stuff to decorate the trees with, bougainvillea flowers and such.

As we settled back to our game, ‘Boy’ back and chewing hard on his getheri, we heard the familiar sound of the Voxwagon beetle labouring up the hill and we froze. ‘Materu’ the nightmare was here. ‘Materu’ was the richest man in the village also the fattest and even worse the owner of the sand we were busily distributing around in our trucks!

We rose, prepared to make the now common dash and as usual came the moment we dreaded most. ‘Materu’, so called because he had a beard that never heard of razors or scissors since it started sprouting from his lower face, despised kids. But though we did our best to stay out of his way ‘Boy’ the village nuisance, could never resist the urge to provoke him. ‘Materu’ knew that people called him so, but never to his face.

He was so huge that I was sure even the bravest of the village men feared him. He had a belly huge enough for anyone of us kids to comfortably fit in and live inside hidden from the rest of the world. I could not understand why a man of his size would have a beetle for a car. The pitiful thing heaved heavily down on one side every time he sat in it and jumped up as if in a mixture of joy and relief every time he disembarked.

‘Boy’ started laughing stupidly amused at something only he could tell. He put the handful of getheri he was just about to throw into his eagerly waiting big mouth, back into his shorts pocket and waited. ‘Materu’ who had by this time seen us was just about to drive past when ‘Boy’ let it go, “Materu!” he shouted at the top of his voice.

Even before the ‘u’ left his big mouth we were a good fifty meters away. ‘Materu’ braked hard and came to a stop by the sand hill with ‘Boy’ only a few meters away. ‘Boy’ had not noticed that we had taken off so when he turned to start his sprint, he let out a loud scared scream calling after his mother after realizing that he was on his own.

Lucky for him it took ‘Materu’ precious seconds to drag his giant self out of the beetle and start the now familiar chase, a disadvantage that led to an almost sure win for us. If he was ever to decide to loose weight, I was sure it would be more for revenge than for his own health.

Afterwards and sure that ‘Materu’ had given up the chase we stopped under the huge jacaranda tree to laugh off the “comedy”. ‘Boy’ too was laughing with tears in his eyes, though he played along as if it was nothing, we could tell that he had been scared good this time. But we also knew that that was not going to stop him. He had a reputation to keep.

When I came home for lunch, I found the small tree erected in the centre of our sitting room, my sister was already putting cotton wool all around it and my uncle came in a moment later with the flowers that would soon join the cotton wool in the tree.

“Where have you been, I’ve been looking for you?”, he demanded “outside” I answered and prayed it would stop there. “Go get the ribbons” he commanded and I rushed to the bedroom to retrieve the annual ribbons, used every year for this occasion for as long as a can remember. Once brightly coloured and shiny, they were now starting to fade.

As I came back, my uncle was putting on some music on the record player, the only one in the whole village at the time. The pleasant sound of it soon filled the house and we danced while decorating the small tree, it was Booney M singing ‘Mary’s boy child’.

From the kitchen came the scent of a burning fire, I loved that smell and I can still remember it today, I miss it. Now, here I am thousands of miles away in a similar atmosphere but different still. All the same the season is the same all over the world something to be happy about. Christmas is coming!

Njoro