THE POACHING GAME

                                THE POACHING GAME

It was so difficult to get a girl those days. But we got still

Hunting girls in my village was supposed to be a discreet venture. Let me tell you why. I come from a village where most girls’ fathers are teachers, soldiers or former colonial slave drivers- like my father. These people are known for their meticulous attention given to protecting their lasses. They would employ different tactics to do so. Some had German Shepherds which would scare the would-be scavengers like yours truly and his brothers. Others like my father would counsel their daughters with enough threats of curses of leprosy and other scourges. You would not meet these girls anywhere beyond six o’clock in the evening. At this time they were all coiled at the hearth in their mothers’ kitchens either holding for them the famous tin lamp tandika nilale or just listening to their mothers stories of them days. Sometimes they would cook. Actually, most times they would cook for the families. Majority of these girls ended up in very good colleges after high school education and some are lawyers, teachers, police officers, doctors, nurses and others ended up in business. I actually know one daughter of a teacher who is an Aeronautic engineer. Her sister is an accountant. This accountant will take a whole chapter in my memoir one day.

Now, hunting these girls required one to be creative. You had to be as efficient as their fathers. You had to be hawk eyed like their brothers. You had to be an artist as well as a scientist. You needed courage my friend. You had to be the man. For your information, there were no phones those days. Despite all the challenges, ‘’hunters’’ got a way around it. A story is told of a soldier who got lost in a grassland where there were no trees. He neither had a gun nor bullets. He met a lion. He climbed the nearest tree! There had to be a nearest tree. My brother was living in the neighboring town and he would come to the village every weekend to ‘’see us’’. He would give me his sweater to carry for him and then tell me to go to my neighbor’s place to see if his friend Mburu was there. Little did I know that they had a deal with Mburu’s sister that if she sees me with his sweater she should know he was around. As I write this, it is death that separated them.

I remember when I was a little boy somewhere in class four and my friend Wanyama wanted me to graduate and become a man. He told me stories of ‘’giants’’ of anthill climbers. This ended with a piece of advice for me to go and ask for the ‘’it’’ from a certain big girl who was in class six. She had terribly failed to move to class seven now for the sixth time. I was scared. He encouraged me and I gathered courage. I went to her and used direct language. She looked at me as if I had demanded for her liver. she looked at me from bottom up then up bottom and concluded that I was taking her for a fool. She decided I needed a lesson from her hands. I just heard her tell her friend, ‘’Lola khana khano’’ loosely translated as ‘’ look at this child.’’ She held me by the scruff and lifted me up. My legs were dangling in the air. She gave me slaps which my mother used to call ‘’of come and see.’’ Wanyama the fool was rolling on the ground with laughter. The gods of my ancestors have never forgiven him.

All the same, graduation day came. I was older. Big boy. No struggle. It just came. I received the following letter;

P.O Box,

Love via Romance.

Whatsup my lover,

It is high time I take this opportunity to bombasticate this missive to you hoping and believing that you are well and kicking. I am also fine. The main aim of jotting this missive is to inform you that I have accepted to be your girlfriend. I love you. Next Sunday I will sneak from the church and see you near the banana plantation at Mama Nyokabi’s farm. See you my lover.

Yours in love,

Nanjala

The rest as  it is said is history………………………..