Mwenge Edition

In Kacheliba, behind the hills, there is a ‘hangout’ I need to tell you about. It is called Mwenge. It is a semi-permanent mud-walled structure installed with a DSTV where Kachelibians watch all soccer games, news and catch up with the latest news, gossips and politics. If you claim to have been in Kacheliba without having heard or being to Mwenge House, good friend, you can as well tell your story to the birds. If it be true that KICC is the architectural definition of Nairobi, then Mwenge House is Kacheliba’s version.

And in this small structure, you can hear everything. Everything is told with the veracity and authority they deserve.

Take the Post Election Violence for instance. As we were watching the unfolding chaos, one Mwengean commentator, holding a few sticks of miraa and shaking them, could say:

“Kenya bado tuko nyuma sana. Huko America results zao ni za kompyuta. Za California, za Ohio (he could pronounce it as O-H-I-O), za Alabama zinatumwa pa zinaingia kwa kompyuta kubwa. Utaibia wapi hiyo! Na hapa Kenya? Na hapa Kenya? Ati hoo Form 16 A zimepotea..Ati zipelekwe mpaka Nairobi KICC…”

Translation:
“We still lag behind as Kenyans. In U.S. their poll results are computerized be they from California, Ohio, Alabama. How can you steal those! What about Kenya? What about Kenya? That form 16 A has disappeared. That they should be taken to Nairobi KICC…”

And most commentators are really updated with news. A radio with an improvised aerial made of an aluminium wire sits by. With it BBC News ( and even Deutsche Welle) are ritually heard. Rules on No-smoking don’t apply here. No-Miraa, quite naturally, won’t apply too.

At 7 p.m. with ten shillings, you can watch news from either KTN, Citizen, NTV or K.B.C.

A story is told of one Mwengean who was highly intoxicated with miraa. They were only two in Mwenge House deep into the night. Suddenly one Mwengean asks the other that they go out because he had some secret to tell him. They go out, the secret is told, they get inside Mwenge House and the other Mwengean asks: ‘Tumu nguya, ulinikapele njei kuniyape risto koya si ungenimbiamwa tukiwaku paha’ Translation: ‘Friend, you took me out to tell me the secret, pray, you should have told me while we were still inside’. To which the other Mwengean responded: ‘Nilikiriafi tuwa ni ngiwe paha njo nikakutell tundae njei’. Translation: ‘I thought there were so many people here that is why we had to go outside’.

That’s Mwenge for you.