BENEDICT MUSOGA
@benedictmusoga495042
1 year ago
THE WET BROOM
BEN MUSOGA
The whole world experienced a historic pandemic that had stricken people with fear. A strange virus was spreading as fast as bush fire and all governments or heads of states had to come up with measures to arrest the unfurling. Among the many ways as afore mentioned, were imposition of curfews, restriction of travelling including pilgrimages from one region in a country to another or across the border to another country. For movement within the country the bourgeoisie were exempted… they were exempted. There were also earnest reminders to practise hygiene and sanitation of the highest order. Greetings by shaking hands and holding physical meetings were all discouraged.The waters of Lake Victoria had started flowing back in January 2020 or probably in late 2019 and affecting all low lands adjacent to the lake. Budalang’i was not an exception. The name Budalang’i is a direct translation of the phrase ‘land of lions’ in Lunyala which is the local dialect of Luhya spoken in the area. The area is called Budalang’i because of the old tradition of the natives of the area who used to harbour great thirst for wrestling at Lunyofu and Nakhabuka playgrounds and would do anything to quench it at least during the wrestling season that came once a year… quenching the thirst. During a contest a couple of opponents would be given space at the centre of the field and the winner would be the one that would managed to wrestle and lay the opponent flat with the back on the ground. This spread over to other places of the western region of Kenya and expectedly, “tsidalang’i” would win in most of the contests especially when on away grounds. That was not the only reason for the name as in some occasions the people of Budalang’i were prompt winners in pulling tugs of war. Their victory in wrestling spilled over in the tug of war as well.
During the long rains that usually come around March or April, River Nzoia flooded due to its waters hitting the other waters that were flowing back from Lake Victoria. The water overflowed the river banks and broke the dykes that had been constructed on both sides of the river overlapping it’s meanders from one apex to the next one down to the lake shore. The dykes were constructed to bar the water from reaching people’s settlement and wreaking havoc… “Tsidalang’i” (Lions) as they were referred to, were not strong enough to wrestle the waters nor were they capable of defeating it in pulling the tug of war. They had to start moving to raised areas.
River Nzoia bisects Budalang’i into two. The southern side is flat and said to be majorly below the see level while the northern side is raised and hilly. The southerners had no other option other than moving to the northern side. ‘Fortunately,’ schools and churches had been closed indefinitely as a measure of curbing the spread of corona virus and therefore those who were displaced by floods found empty churches and classrooms in schools and there was no competition for space because there were no believers or learners competing for the same respectively. The government had to have blind eyes and deaf ears towards the people of the region as far as implementation of the curfew was concerned. The people therefore were free to move around even at night in order to seek refuge.
They tried to rescue any of their belongings that they could but losses were massive compared to what the people had acquired there before. It is only aquatic creatures and some few bird species with adaptation for living on or under water that found the environment conducive for them. Almost all the southerners crossed River Nzoia via the Sigiri Bridge which had been constructed during the 2017 general elections campaigns. The bridge saved many if not all and sundry. After crossing the river and finding places for makeshift settlement, the displaced people would later go back to their homes via the similar means they had used to vacate the places for purposes of surveying their homes and assessing the situation. It was mostly during these kind of visits that they would count losses and end up more devastated than they had been earlier before. They would find their houses and vegetation greatly destroyed by the water and maybe the only way they would benefit from the water would be creating some openings on anthills to let the water inside and completely wipe out the termite kingdoms that had been terrorising the peoples’ property before the floods.
Mateo Makanye, the farmer, was among the many people of the southern side of Budalang’i who were seriously affected by the floods. He had a young family made up of himself, Nauya his wife and their two daughters. They painfully left their healthy green crops submerged under water without anything within their power to do in order to salvage the situation. They only managed to move with their little goat, some few chicken and personal effects that were not burdensome to carry considering the fact that they had to wade through water. Mateo and his family were able to get a haven in Munde Primary School. They got an empty classroom and put up in there. From there onwards, they survived on relief food that was brought by Non-Governmental Organisations like The Red Cross and other well-wishers. Life became very difficult especially for a person like Mateo who was used to reaping from his farms and directly benefiting from fresh nutrients supplied by his own crops. He was not in position to sustain his earlier lifestyle and that is when his marital challenges set in.
Just like the flooding water had swept everything leaving behind only trees that were deeply rooted, Nauya flooded Mateo with numerous demands ranging from food to clothing to entertainment to medication and the list was endless…
Some few weeks later, the flooding waters started subsiding and those who were fed up with staying in classrooms or churches and were lucky enough to have been residents or occupants of places that were somehow raised (their initial homes) decided to start returning home. Mateo was still unlucky because his home was still submerged and only fish and some other aquatic creatures could benefit from his house even though they were encroaching if not squatting on his property… he really wished the water drifted off his land but his wishes were never horses…
Because of the flood of demands presented to Mateo by his nagging wife, he bowed down to the pressure and sold his goat and all the chicken they had managed to wade through the water with. He was very disgusted when his wife pressurised him to sell even their remaining chicken that was incubating some eggs… the hope of having more chicken after the eggs hatching was all gone… gone and there was no indicator of owning another chick leave alone a hen or cock. Mateo wished he got a job even if it were on casual basis. He made efforts to search for one but all was in vain.
When he was totally unable to meet his wife’s demands, she decided to get another source of resources to satisfy her needs. She remembered that before meeting Mateo, she had been in a relationship with a certain gentleman who happened to hail from around Munde Primary School. Nauya and her former man reunited though secretly. Most of her needs including conjugal ones were now met without much ado and at this time Mateo had devised a method of earning some few coins for his survival. He would leave their temporary residence very early in the morning to climb Njalagobe hill to cut some firewood and look for willing buyers. This method was not all that fruitful as some consumers of his fuel wood would bargain for unnecessarily too long and end up buying a huge bundle of wood at a very cheap price… Mateo had to swallow the bitterness and continue with the business. After all he had nothing else to do. He would return to his ‘classroom’ late in the evening hungry and exhausted. What never ceased to amaze him was the way his nagging wife had suddenly stopped pestering him with her several demands. However, he ignored it with a presumption that she had finally grown old enough to realise that her husband was struggling a lot to bring food to table. Did they have a table anyway? She did not even ask for her fair share of his flesh… pound of flesh as she used to… His new way of earning some little cash didn’t last for long as he one day escaped being arrested by the Forestry Services Authorities by a whisker. He therefore had to continue leaving his ‘classroom’ as usual but this time not going to the hill. He would only tour some few places and end up taking naps under different trees and watching some shepherds looking after herds of cattle
One day Mateo came back to his ‘classroom’ and found it surprisingly empty! He didn’t believe his eyes and for a moment he thought that Nauya was just implementing another amazement for him and that perhaps she had carried their few belongings and two daughters back to their home in the flood affected area. Nauya had carried anything valuable including Mateo’s clothes… He was only capable of seeing some pieces of paper scattered in the room but there was one pinned on the wall which attracted his attention. From a distance he was able to recognise Nauya’s handwriting. He plucked it off the wall then started reading the inscription;
“Your wife now has a new husband… your daughters now have a new father… your belongings now have a new owner… goodbye.”
Mateo cried pitifully shedding tears that almost flooded his face and chest. After some minutes of sobbing, he got up, spat out some heavy sputum and decided to go back home that very late evening… before dawn… to avoid people’s eyes seeing him walking away dangling and swinging his empty hands. The wet broom had actually swept away everything he owned… the wet broom.
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