In the absence of a formal education, one was condemned to the drudgery of manual labor. A reality only compounded for a young black woman eking out a living in a third-world country. Ojuka’s wife sought an alternative to the back-breaking inconvenience. Sometimes without scruples at the cost of fidelity. She was a light-skinned beauty. Petite and well put together. With all factors considered, a handsome woman in spite of her circumstances. She sold vegetables at the market. A small venture set up by an admirer who recognized her value & in the days to come, promised to provide a more comfortable life. The kind she believed she deserved.
Her husband Ojuka winced in pain. His flared nostrils made his bulbous nose appear larger than usual as he smacked his thick lips in discomfort. He had spent the last of his earnings not only mere but meagre on cheap liquor. Unfortunately, it was yet to render him drunk. Double tragedy in his estimation. In addition to the earful he preempted from his better half in regard to irresponsibility; he feared he was developing an ulcer. He expected no sympathy, for it was a misfortune he’d brought upon himself.
Reflecting on destiny, fate and the unknown forces that bend the will of men; Ojuka recalled the events that led to his fall from grace. December 2007 was a tense period. Politicians appeared to have discarded civility. The belligerence witnessed exceeded the theatrical antics commonly performed during political rallies. It felt different too. Words like madoadoa, Swahili for blemish soon became acceptable lingo in reference to certain minority tribes. The flame of hate was being fanned in the hearts of men. One Henry Ojuka wrongly assumed would wane.
The rapt and deliberate banging on his door drew him to it. Ojuka had awoken from deep slumber, ready to confront the uninvited stranger that dared tear him from his wife’s warm embrace. The sight of his friend Njuguna enraged at the delay, unsettled Ojuka more than the inconvenience.
“We have to leave!” Njuguna implored.
“And go where?” He asked suppressing a laugh.
Njuguna stormed in frantically. He wiped off a bead of sweat from his forehead and took a peek outside the kitchen window in distress. Ojuka surveyed his bald lanky friend and suppressed his mounting apprehension.
“What’s this about?” Ojuka managed to mumble.
“We have to get to safety!” Njuguna spat out without preamble.
“What is going on?” Ojuka inquired unable to mask his confusion.
“This isn’t the time to be difficult!” Njuguna demanded. “They are coming.”
“Don’t I deserve an explanation?” He insisted.
“A gang of rowdy youth are on their way here as we speak. Gather Ciku and the children. Quickly pack whatever you can.”
“What quarrel do they have with me?” Ojuka inquired innocently.
“I’ll explain later.”
“It is well past midnight!” Ojuka exclaimed. “You can’t expect us to flee without good reason.”
“They burnt women & children in a church yesterday Ojuka! What do you think they’ll do to you and your family?” Njuguna posed.
“But I’m not the enemy,” Ojuka struggled to articulate.
“What tribe are you?”
“Does it really matter?” Ojuka put in defensively.
“ANSWER THE QUESTION!”
“My mother was Kikuyu and my father was Luo, “Ojuka replied.
“Can you speak Luo?”
“You know I can’t,” Ojuka confessed. “My father passed away before I was born. I have no connection to him or his people.”
The pair were interrupted by chanting from a distance that grew louder with every second.
Ojuka peered through the window out at the crowd still yet yonder holding torches, blazing in the night. Approaching with determined menace.
A hostage to denial, he attempted to rationalize their predicament. “Won’t our neighbours protect us?” Ojuka asked.
“Kenya is burning. It is every man for himself.”
“Could we encourage them to shelter us?” Ojuka solicited.
“Do not count on it my old friend,” Njuguna answered. He then stormed into the children’s room without reserve and started packing their clothes while they remained suspicious, staring at their uncle in shock.
On establishing the reality of the threat Ojuka was spurred into action. He made a mental note of all his earthly belongings. Foraging through drawers in haste. Cleaving himself from attachments.
Like Lot’s wife fleeing Sodom, Ciku struggled to detach herself from material things. Fancy furniture. Expensive cutlery. Articles she hadn’t realized until then- defined her. To her, it was more than just a superficial loss but a social retrogression she was unwilling to accept. Legitimate fears her husband dared not court; lest they weakened his resolve.
They hobbled out of their home with a suitcase in tow. All they had to show for a decade’s worth of struggle. Their old life was left behind along with its trappings and a new one beckoned. Shroud with uncertainty.
Ojuka lamented inwardly. Reluctant to steal a look at his erstwhile property. Bemoaning the inevitable privation that undoubtedly awaited them. With noble bearing, he mustered composure and warded off despair.
“Baba, where are we going?” Ojuka’s twelve-year-old daughter asked.
“Somewhere safe,” he replied with deceptive conviction. Stealthily creeping through thickets and avoiding the main roads the Ojuka family found their way into Eldoret police station.
To their surprise, they weren’t the only ones seeking refuge.
Congregated there were scores of kindred souls from a victimized tribe keen on self-preservation. Ojuka’s six-year-old daughter tugged at his trousers restlessly. Trying to make sense of the unfolding events in her own way.
On ferrying them to safety, Njuguna returned into the fray to assist in evacuating another family. That was the last they saw of him. His irrepressible heroism did him more harm than good. Ojuka hoped whoever struck the finishing blow spared his friend unnecessary pain.
***
Huddled together at the Eldoret police station, Ojuka couldn’t catch a wink of sleep. He lay awake, tormented by his newfound struggle with identity.
He was a walking contradiction. A Luo who, owing to his paternity, couldn’t speak a word of his native tongue. The Kikuyu blood coursing through his veins & language bequeathed to him courtesy of his mother offered little solace. A child of conflicting worlds, torn between the two yet forced to make a choice.
Just like him Ciku, his better half was a Kikuyu all in name but substance. A wanderer orphaned as a toddler. She could equate the task of tracing her ancestry to be as daunting as a quest for the holy grail. Having never set foot in Central province, Eldoret was all she ever knew. This probably explained why Ojuka & Ciku, devoid of clan and tangible roots, were drawn together. Seeking reassurance from each other.
***
Three weeks later
The days dragged on and the violence escalated. Snippets of information filtered back to Ojuka. Informal settlements in cities such as Kisumu, Nairobi and Mombasa were thrown into total bedlam. The police, overwhelmed and undermanned, applied excessive force under the pretext of enforcing law and order. Committing atrocities in equal measure. Reports of ethnic cleansing by outlawed sects such as the dreaded Mungiki sent chills down Ojuka’s spine.
Apparently, Kofi Anan had waltzed into the country and was holding closed-door meetings with the disputing parties in the hope of securing an armistice. With the wave of his magic wand, Ciku naively expected the diplomat to recalibrate man’s humanity & salvage him from the beast he had become. Not wanting to dampen her hopes Ojuka didn’t air his doubts.
To everyone’s relief, some middle ground was reached. The political big wigs & oligarchs set aside their differences. A grand coalition was formed. A union between two rivals that heralded peace for a country teetering on the brink of self-annihilation. Transitioning into a period of national healing & reconciliation.
After a government decree, Ojuka and his family like so many others were herded like cattle into a camp for the internally displaced. It was an unusual concept to grasp. Quite unpalatable to fathom. To be a refugee in one’s own country.
Some claimed that tribe-like race was a social construct manipulated to divide men by those intent on profiting from the subsequent discord. Ojuka begged to differ. If anything, tribal affiliations were all that mattered. His banishment from Eldoret and exile to some wasteland in Molo was irrefutable confirmation.
***
IDP Camp-Molo
Rift Valley Province had been the most affected by the post-election violence. Recording more than 1000 deaths, 250,000 displaced and 80,000 houses torched. In Molo district alone, there were about 60 sites hosting the internally displaced.
The I.D.P camp was as underwhelming as expected. Barren, bare & dusty. Stretching for miles on end, cordoned by barbed wire with security personnel stationed at the entry & exit to protect the occupants from ill-intentioned locals.
The situation was exacerbated during the rainy season. The cracked parched soil turned into a slippery sludge over two inches thick. Impeding ease of movement. The camp was dotted with ramshackle tents that sagged after every downpour. The cold seeped in; ravaging shivering bodies, desperate for warmth.
The settlement equipped with less than six functional toilets that stank to high heaven serviced the needs of its occupants. Over 200 families to be precise. Diarrheal illnesses, therefore, ran rampant. With those under the age of five being at the greatest risk for mortality. The lack of sanitary towels, proper bathrooms and privacy made maintaining personal hygiene, especially challenging for the ladies.
Ojuka and his family subsisted on stodge. Insipid and far from nutritious. The children skipped meals initially, unimpressed by the starchy food. They quickly adapted & gobbled it whenever offered. Long gone were the days when taste mattered. Provided one’s belly wasn’t empty it was considered a small victory.
Despite their diverse backgrounds, those confined to the camp shared similar stories with slightly varying scripts. Tales of violence, bloodshed, carnage and loss of property were the norm
Maina, a hairy stocky middle-aged man Ojuka had struck an easy friendship with narrated his own ordeal.
“You see this,” he pointed at his hollowed left eyelid. “I lost my eye during the 1992 Molo clashes. If the arrow had pierced any deeper, I might not be here today.”
“What was the conflict about?”
“Land,” he spat. “It’s always about land. This disputed election only provided a convenient excuse to dispossess us of our property.”
“How many times have you experienced eviction?” Ojuka probed.
“This is the fifth instance in the last two decades,” he revealed. “Once a letter threatening my family was slipped under my door in April, I read the writing on the wall. I sought refuge in the camp a month before the elections. I actually voted as an internally displaced person.”
Following lengthy deliberation with his wife, Ojuka deemed it prudent to bury certain details concerning his past. Having a Luo name and ancestry, however vestigial in a camp occupied predominantly by a feuding tribe, would open him up to inevitable hostility. As push came to shove, he decided to go by his mother’s maiden name and masquerade as a full-blooded member of the house of Gikuyu and Mumbi.
A pervading sense of hopelessness resided, with some giving into despair sooner than others. Parents riddled with frustration beat their children for the most trivial of reasons. Projecting their own dissatisfaction in the name of instilling discipline. Necessitating humanitarian workers to provide psychosocial support to the already traumatized children. Going as far as seeking paralegal services to address accusations of child labour in addition to other forms of abuse.
Excluding their clothing, a plastic chair and two mattresses were the only things at his disposal to turn his tent into a home. It would all take some getting used to. “But at least we are still alive,” Ojuka repeated to himself.
After two years of dwelling in the camp Ojuka discovered there were fates much worse than death. Idleness. Indolence fed by the absence of prospects. With his savings exhausted, lack of a university education and a family to feed, was manual labour an alternative he could so lightly dismiss?
He trudged out of the camp to the nearest town in search of work routinely. His physique paled in comparison to younger broad-shouldered men with rippling muscles. In consequence, Ojuka rarely secured employment. When he did, it was temporary and the pay was abysmal.
Ojuka wasn’t always the bland figure he cut. In his prime, he was a source of frisson among the ladies. Boasting of magnetic charm exercised with unremitting success.
When he met Ciku, some thought the couple was so ill-matched that they searched for motives for their union, other than love. Probably owing to their conflicting temperaments. She was finely dainty, adroitly concealing an impulsive streak. Ojuka in contrast dark, blessed with an athletic frame to which a good wife’s cooking would distort with ease.
Nothing tested marriage more than poverty.
He watched his wife sleep on the floor of the cold leaking tent, her chest heaving rhythmically. He still desired her. Sadly, the feeling wasn’t mutual. According to Ciku, conjugal rights were reserved for men who provided for their families. As he didn’t qualify, Ojuka was forced to contend with touching himself. Plus, the presence of his two daughters cramped next to Ciku quashed any salacious cravings.
Ojuka yawned wearily, welcoming the daybreak of their third Christmas at the camp. Foreboding another day of misery in resigned disquiet. Persuading himself to be grateful, propping up the minute for that very purpose. At the very least he was still alive.
His immediate neighbour, Maina greeted him in a quotidian act of sociability, all while relieving himself, throwing sickening blight on the merriness of Christmas. Wangeci, Ojuka’s youngest daughter, an early riser in accordance with being her own woman, had moseyed away in search of water for their morning ablutions. She came into view, blouse torn; chest exposed with blood spattered all over her crotch. Ojuka stopped, dazed by her pitiable state.
For two weeks, Wangeci was a hot mess of nausea, vomitus and retching. A side effect of the Post Exposure Prophylaxis administered at the nearest health centre. Her body, fledgling and durable, would heal. Her mind, Ojuka feared, was shattered beyond repair. By her inimical silence, he surmised Ciku blamed him for their daughter’s rape. The culprit, a police officer, seemed to be above the law.
He knew the perpetrator by reputation. A venal man with a complex, inspired by fatuous grudges for the social slights he had received from respectable intellectuals. A perceived injustice in his impressionable years that he was correcting in the most inappropriate of ways.
Ciku glared at him. Unable to comprehend how such an affront to their daughter’s dignity could go unanswered. Ojuka’s lethargy stemmed from his being privy to unsettling information. Wangeci wasn’t his first victim. He’d defiled three other girls of similar age from the camp. The family members seeking justice disappeared under mysterious circumstances. A presentiment of woe. Some second sight warned him not to press the matter.
***
Naivasha Prison
Ojuka knew why the caged bird sings. Having once been incarcerated, he considered himself an authority on the subject. In a bid to restore his diminished value as a man after Wangeci’s ordeal; he helped himself to another’s chicken. It would have been a magnificent gesture had he succeeded. He almost made away with it before a mob relieved him of his ill-gotten gains. They then escorted him to the closest police post. Not before delivering a savage pounding.
Prison turned out to be the best thing to happen to Ojuka so far. An old friend he’d long consigned to the afterlife happened to be alive and well. A guest of the state doing his utmost to thrive in the less-than-idyllic environment.
He approached him in disbelief as if gaping at an apparition.
“Njuguna!” He called out spontaneously.
The bald lanky fellow draped in the black-striped prison uniform approached him in elation. Njuguna engulfed Ojuka in a bear hug.
A scar running diagonally marred his once attractive visage. No doubt a souvenir from the post-election violence. Thankfully the optimistic glint in his eyes were yet to be extinguished.
“You are alive!” Ojuka uttered hoarsely.
“Am I glad to see you,” he replied. “How is Ciku? How are the girls?”
“At an IDP camp in Molo,” he informed. Unwilling to delve into details.
The pair settled at a corner of the prison yard and shared the dubious circumstances that put them at loggerheads with the law. Driven by need, petty theft was a shared affliction. Njuguna, on good terms with old hands and fellow inmates from Eldoret pulled a few strings to land Ojuka a gig on kitchen duty. He’d scrub the floors diligently, earning extra rations as recompense.
*
Three months later
Njuguna had taken to incarceration as a fish does to water. On the inside, he was a man whom to assume with indifference could be perilous. A man with unprecedented access, proficient in smuggling almost anything. On dismissing his last supplicant of the day Njuguna & Ojuka chatted briefly at the prison yard.
“You seem comfortable here, old friend,” Ojuka commented.
“This place isn’t so bad,” Njuguna admitted. “A roof over my head, three meals a day. More influence than I’d ever wield on the outside. Plus, it beats your previous dwelling.”
“Indeed, the camps have a way of trying men’s souls,” Ojuka confessed.
“If I were you, I’d relocate to Nyanza,” Njuguna suggested in a neutral tone.
“I have never set foot there,” Ojuka reminded him.
The idea of returning to Eldoret briefly crossed his mind. But was there anything left to go back to? Ashes in place of what he once called home? His thoughts drifted to his neighbor Maina. What if he returned and came face to face with same people who tried to harm him or his loved ones?
“It’s not that simple,” Ojuka sighed.
Suppressing a sneer, Njuguna probed, “Apart from your name what makes you remotely Luo?”
“I don’t identify as one.”
“What are you then?”
“I’m my mother’s son,” he shot back defensively.
Ojuka silently appreciated the irony. A Luo who didn’t speak his vernacular & had never been to Nyanza. Like a river without a source, he was an African devoid of ancestral roots. He couldn’t help feeling disinherited.
“Am I running away from myself?” He asked.
“It’s interesting isn’t it,” Njuguna averred. “How every five years as the election period draws near, we are forced to pick a side. Why should your tribe suddenly matter?”
“A forest is decimated by an axe yet the trees stay silent because the handle is their own.”
“Do you remember when I was diagnosed with tuberculosis?” Njuguna asked.
“How can I forget,” Ojuka answered. “You almost died.”
“You nursed me back to health for over a month. Forcing me to take those dreadful pills,” Njuguna recounted. “Literally spoon-feeding me when I was too feeble.”
“Three years ago, you saved my family from a terrible fate. At great peril to yourself,” he recapped. “How can a politician convince me that you are my enemy?”
“Tribalism is the most effective tool in our politicians’ arsenal,” Njuguna noted.
“It’s a shame how often we sharpen it on their behalf,” Ojuka stated. “And wield it ignorantly.”
“My late father considered politicians to be members of a large canine family. Though the common dog, coyote, jackal and wolf at times may encroach on each other’s territory; at their core they are cousins. When collectively threatened will turn on anyone to protect their own,” Njuguna pontificated. “Service is an afterthought. They are all in it for themselves.”
“The philosopher in you has been revived,” Ojuka noted. “Remind me what you taught?”
“English literature,” he replied. “Back when I was a model citizen.”
“Take heart,” he encouraged. “Men of far questionable character tread this earth.”
“You are a good man, down on his luck who resorted to petty theft to feed his family. The law grinds chaps like you to dust while those pilfering public funds in the millions roam the streets unencumbered. There is no justice for the poor.”
“Sometimes there is. Isn’t the Waki list forwarded to the I.C.C. an example? At least someone is being held responsible for instigating the post-election violence,” Ojuka opined.
“Scapegoats sacrificed to create a veneer of justice. To me, real justice would entail indemnifying the internally displaced. Making them whole again. What would you prefer Ojuka, revenge or compensation if you couldn’t have both?” Njuguna rhapsodized, watching the crucial dictum he had deposited settle in Ojuka’s psyche.
***
Three months later
Ciku had a childlike sexual frankness. A quality that impaired her ability to be a surreptitious lover. Not that she bragged of her exploits, she just saw no need to pursue them secretly. The inconveniences of marriage were a temporary intrusion into her life.
Ojuka walked into the tent expecting a king’s welcome. Ciku’s gravid belly acted as anything but.
“You’re back?” She asked casually, not bothering to explain the source of her pregnancy.
“Whose is it?” Ojuka asked with almost a whimper. Slowly coming to terms with her blatant betrayal.
“What did you expect us to eat and live on when you were gone?” She railed in an unapologetic display of stubbornness.
“Where is Wangeci?” He asked, holding back tears. The question eviscerated Ciku. Deflating her fiery demeanour.
“The drugs didn’t work. Wangeci committed suicide. She slit her wrists after a bout of depression,” Ciku replied amidst sobs.
When tragedy struck it did so without restraint. Ojuka fell to his knees and howled in an orgy of frustration.
***
He had always wanted a son. Fate saw it fit to grant Ojuka a bastard who called him father. A lively little boy. A product of Ciku’s lapses in fidelity. Another mouth to feed that barely survived two years at the camp. Succumbing to an ensemble of malaria, typhoid and amoeba.
Ojuka withdrew from society, seeking comfort in cheap liquor. So far, the only ward against the phantoms driving him into despair. An effective balm to his weary spirit. Yet Ojuka’s wounds had festered beyond recovery.
Ciku lit a candle within the tent, dispelling the gloom of evening. Adorning herself for reasons unknown.
“Where are you going at this hour?” Ojuka asked.
“To meet a friend,” she replied evasively. Pleased to ruffle her husband’s tipsy placidity.
Her response, vague and far-fetched failed to allay his suspicions.
“I have a hard time buying that,” he grumbled.
“I’m not in a mood to argue,” she remarked dismissively. “I’m running late.”
His wife now sold vegetables at the market, a business she claimed to have started from the ground up. Ojuka feared she’d done so from her waist downwards. Yielding her person to a predatory benefactor in return. Peter was his name. The smooth-talking lad putting asunder to his union. He’d seen him severally at the camp. Flirting with Ciku unabashed. Using the medical aid offered by his NGO as a pretext for seduction. Ojuka witnessed the blossoming romance now maturing into nighttime trysts, in tight-lipped silence.
“Was she just a rogue woman acting out of spite? Would they ever be happy again? Had the relationship run its course?” Ojuka pondered.
Placed in a moral vice, he tugged on an uncredited assertion.
“Is there someone else?” He demanded. “Are you going to see him?”
“Does it matter?” Ciku asked calmly. “Besides, someone has to feed this family.”
She had all but admitted her premeditated indiscretion. Without a shred of remorse. The real commitment had a cost. Involving individual sacrifice. A beautiful thing when done to preserve a marriage. Lately, it seemed that responsibility was solely on him.
He was in extremis. His life was torpedoed by circumstances beyond his control. Leveraged and broken. Wilting from a lack of steel he once exuded. Ojuka wished he could shake the sense of inadequacy that assailed him. No longer at ease, he took stock of his pitiful existence. Ciku exited the tent looking more radiant than ever, leaving Ojuka stewing in jealousy.
An embodiment of failure in every facet of life, Ojuka cringed in self-loathing. Searching within himself for any remnants of the man he once was.
“What I am is a refugee in a nation currently not embroiled in a civil war, without a shilling to my name and a spineless cuckold,” he affirmed in disgust.
A faceless soul in a forgotten caste of men. The residue of an ailing country; unprepared to atone.
Ojuka slithered out of an abyss of indecision and followed his wife into the darkness. Bringing along an axe, wielded to defend his wounded pride. He trailed his wife with mounting resolve. Fueling his fury by ruminating on her betrayal.
He ran towards her in a trot. Ojuka clenched his jaw, overcome by a sense of calm. Steeling himself not to flinch, he swung the axe into Ciku’s back. Again and again, like one possessed until the manic light died in his eyes. His final act as a man, before being ground into dust.