#WeAreOne: SPONSORS' LIVES MATTER

The other day I was driving to the village. So, I decided to pull aside into some restaurant in Naivasha to have a snack in the name of pizza, which some people gladly call food. My eyes hovered around and easily rested on some fine girl, seated alone with a couple of high-end phones before her. She was sipping some juice. 

My heart never skipped a bit like it used to do in my primary school compositions – this time round it stopped completely! She was fine to the bone. I concluded that those people that died before simply seeing her were actually in an unnecessary hurry to return to their maker. 

This beautiful lass made me almost agree with Jehovah witness guys that heaven is actually here on earth. I saw some nice hips, lips and fingertips that could even heal the sick. Maybe for pro—bono purposes, she stood and walked all the way from the side extension of the restaurant, across the main restaurant and into some car; she picked something and then was back to her seat. All this while I had sufficiently ‘eaten with my eyes’; this is the time you pity Chinese people for sure.

By the time she got back we were just finishing talking about her with my pals and as soon as she rested her generous sitting allowance on the plastic chair, set her bewitching dashboard for public scrutiny with two excited boobs scrambling for the rays of the sun way above her collar and only converging to birth a deep and sexy cleavage, a heavy built nigga came around with food. The man looked like money, smelt money and made us look like some lost boys arriving from fishing in the village river – with no fish. 

The man was of age – the kind that God could have used to lead the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. He looked like he probably had a wife whose hair had begun graying like the guy’s beard. The guy had a bald shave on his head – they do it to conceal the stubborn white hair. He probably had children older than this girl and perhaps I was actually age-fit for the girl but that’s a story for another day- At least by now I know where my rib has been long lost. This man evidently had a vibrant relationship with money; they knew each other and money had found safety in his hands. Probably with my earnings I need to live and die about seventy times to get somewhere close to him. Anyway, Mungu mwenye alimpa ndiye alininyima.

This guy was probably a sponsor. And this is my story for today. I pay due cognizance to the pains and perils of sponsors, their feelings and determination. I stand with sponsors. It is not their fault. Money just arrived late and somehow it still wants to be used. Honestly, there is nothing bad in a man’s life like money arriving too late in life – it guides your fragile bones where your heart dreads. It literary turns you into Jesus and you can feed multitudes when that campus girl arrives at Dusit in the company of Carol, Kate, Pesh, Kish, Tish, Mish, Shish and all the other ishs she could gather. Sponsors grew up in bad times; at the time girls dressed like they were going for a night vigil daily, today our girls dress like they are going to take a shower in town – what do you want Mr. Sponsor to do? 

You know life is just interesting: when you are young you have energy and time but you don’t have money, when you are in middle age you have energy and money but you don’t have time, when you are old you have money and time but no energy – and then God says he will still judge us and throw some into everlasting fire, yaayee, God, haven’t we suffered enough already?

It is a high time we officially recognize Sponsors as a tribe in Kenya – a minority tribe, a special interest group at that. Let’s work closely with them for cohesion purposes, let’s seek partnerships with them to be able to attain our collective goals as members of the infamous Mafisi Sacco – Sponsors are here to stay whether you like their faces (which are often not good) or not.

In case you have been directly wronged by a sponsor, like say, he took your girl; please exercise restraint and remember that vengeance belongs to the Lord. Work hard, make money and when you are grown, rich and affluent, his daughter will be ripe for the game. As for now, Nairobi men, I appeal to you to maintain calm and step aside to pave way for sponsors’ investigations on your girls.

Alenga Torosterdt.

The last letter

No deathly night like this one. Even the crickets in the ground ceased. Earlier in the evening an owl had perched on our makeshift kitchen and hooted all the while; occasionally, my mother would get out and throw a burning splint at it – to scare the owl away with its omen. I was frightened that this was an ominous sign.

My mother pushed open the fragile tin door to our room. We were all strewn on the floor with torn blankets loosely covering our frail bodies against the biting cold.

“Mother” I shouted.

“Quiet son, I am covering you. It’s a cold night. Sleep”. She replied softly.

I rested my head back on my folded arm and placed my other hand right between my legs to keep warm. I watched lazily  as my mother’s form faded in the dark, then I heard her spring bed creek and knew she was in her room already. I loved her. She was our father and mother for three years now since our father left.

I groped in the dark and reached for the tin lamp. We hardly have the lamp lighting long since the price of kerosene went up and lately everyone in our house has learnt to find things even in the dark. I sat up against the mud wall and pushed my hand under the heap of old clothes that was my pillow and fetched out a small sheet of securely wrapped paper. I carefully unwrapped the paper and got two match sticks and a small rod-shaped, slightly hard paper that I had peeled off from the match box lighting end.

I thought my siblings would wake up; but seemingly they had no room in their slumber land to deal with this emerging issue.  They were dead asleep. Asleep like they already were in the Promised Land devouring the goodness of the Lord. They snored, snored like they had swallowed some small generator engines.

I struck the match stick against the small lighting bit and on the third strike it lit.  There was light. I tiptoed to the old arm chair where I kept my school bag. I opened the bag, got out an exercise book and tore a blank page. I opened my geometrical set and picked a short pencil that was kept in line with my counting sticks for our Mathematics lessons in school.

I wanted to write a letter to my father. 

To tell him that we needed him back home. I wanted to apologize on behalf of my mother – in case she did anything wrong to make him leave. I wanted to tell him my mother is beautiful – beautiful than Topista. I wanted him to ask Topista to release the spell she cast on him and let him come home to his children. I wanted to tell him my mother sees groups of other women talking and when she draws near they keep quiet and this spoils her mood. I wanted to tell him mother maybe looking less beautiful now because she bore him five beautiful children and Topista has none so far: that it is our fault and not mother’s. I wanted to tell father that we loved him.

“The big tree has fallen and the little birds have crashed with the nest. What shall I do? Now tears will be my food and sorrow will be my haven forever!” My mother shouted amid tears.

 It was clear enough she was shouting from outside. What could have woken her at this hour of the night? Why was her voice so laden with sorrow? What was she doing outside? My mind was engulfed with a barrage of thoughts, my heart pumped faster and a cold chill went all the way down my spine. My hand grew frail and my eyes hazy. My pencil and paper dropped and my fingers lingered motionless like branches on leafless trees.

“No. This is not true, this is not true my father in heaven. Why Lord? Why?” I could identify Aunt Tabitha’s voice and then I heard more voices and more footsteps and more screams.

I stood still with my loose torn t-shirt hanging precariously on my body like strings of broken litungu.[i] Beads of sweat formed on my forehead and my tears dripped free like the grass grows. I didn’t know why I was crying. Clearly, something was wrong – the air was dense with grief.

I walked out. By now my siblings were lazily coiling out of sleep and rubbing their eyes. The door was wide open. I could see a crowd gathered at our gate – they were weeping and murmuring. I walked towards the gate with some confidence since there was many people around.

I saw him – lying motionless on the dewy grass, cold and pale. My Father who was gone for three years!

I wanted to write him a letter tonight. But time tarried and now I will write no more, for he will read no more.

By Alenga Torosterdt.

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[i] Litungu: This is an 8-stringed lyre made and played by the Luhya community from Western Kenya.

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