WHEN *PKETER ATE A LITTLE TOO MUCH When I was young, there was a problem I noted with most boys my age. They ate quite a lot as compared to their ages. But I don’t blame them, the daily activities ranged from hunting birds, sliding down slope on three wheeled homemade machines (Munyeris) to playing soccer – by the end of the day; it was like covering several kilometers walking uphill. It was common to find roasted maize hidden under the grass at the school’s playing fields or smell homemade popcorn in class – boys often hid them in their book bags and pockets and ate them during class breaks. Weekends were days when farmers deployed more eyes to watch over their fruit farms as boys could go around the village looking for ripe fruits in the pretext of scavenging on wild fruits. It was common to see young boys suckling cows or milking them at the grazing fields and drinking the “raw milk.” I grew up at the edge of Chemorgong forest which was guarded by fearsome forest guards who dressed in green and carried machetes. Were it today where such guards carry the white man’s weapon that spits fire at its tip, most people could have met their maker early. There was a story of *Png’ok a man who was said to have iron feet. He had never worn shoes and his feet were as hard as steel. “You see those thorns?” My elder cousin *Protich told me pointing at a thick bush of thorn trees which I had come to know they were good in removing jiggers. “*Png’ok walks through them and his feet can never be pricked,” he said. I had seen *Pngok several times delivering fencing posts to my dad and he would sit down to eat before vanishing back into the forest. I never knew exactly where he lived as he always emerged from the thick cypress forest at six in the evening and vanish into the darkness a few minutes later. There were times we thought of following him with my younger brother but we had second thoughts. Whenever *Png’ok came, Phylis the dog never barked at him. His aging face, old clothes and long dirty hair were enough to send the dog under the granary with its tail behind its legs. I always wondered if he was human! Among the forest guards was a man called *Mwathi. He was a tall, well-built giant of a man. He had an old bicycle which had a horn that sounded like that of a car. He had so many passion fruits near his house (which grew naturally) but he had warned that anyone caught stealing them would be locked up at a cell the forest guards had constructed to detain those found felling trees to make posts. I was told *Png’ok had been arrested several times and locked up but he vanished in the night but no one else had escaped from the feared facility. Elder boys from the neighborhood had been studying *Mwathi’s movements and had come to know that every Sunday, he travelled on his bicycle 30 kilometers away to attend the Akorino church at the nearest town. In my village, there were three churches – The African Inland Church (AIC) and the Full Gospel Church and the Seventh Day Adventist. So, Mwathi was forced to travel several kilometers to congregate with his fellow Akorino worshipers and so, his passion fruit farm was not secured whenever he was away. One Sunday, *Protich my cousin invited me to go and have a taste of *Mwathi’s fruits. He assured me that it was safe as the horn of his Bicycle had been heard early in the morning as he scared cows off the road. I was convinced as I had been told of how ripe and juicy the fruits were, so I followed along. *Mwathi’s house was a kilometer away and it did not take us long to arrive. We found more than ten other boys already up in the tree. The passion plant had entwined itself high on a cypress tree that stood next to *Mwathi’s house and because all the fruits that were lower had been eaten, we were forced to climb the tree. I was the youngest boy and so, I climbed slowly, but to reach the ripest ones, I climbed to the highest point. Unknown to us, *Mwathi’s bicycle developed a puncture along the way and hence he was forced to cut short his journey and return and so we were sitting on a time bomb. I must have been lost in the delicious taste of the fruits which I had eaten for a while – I must have been heading to my 50th fruit when I heard the scary sound of *Mwathi’s Bicycle. The older boys jumped off and vanished into the forest but due to my age, I could not jump. I was cornered. *Mwathi parked his old Bicycle by his door and stood looking at me at the top of the tree, I pulled green twigs all over me and tried to camouflage but it didn’t work. “Today is your day, you will discover who *Mwathi is…” his deep voice rang. I felt my thighs get warm, then wet….drops of water started streaming down the tree. It was not raining so, well you know what happened. *Mwathi asked me to come down but I could not move an inch. I was scared of two things. Being beaten up by *Mwathi and the wrath of my mother – she had bit my ear the previous night after I drunk the child’s milk. I finally gathered the courage and came down to find him with a pile of fruits and twigs which he planned to use as evidence against me. “If you do not show me where your home is, you will know why chicken don’t produce milk,” he warned. I meekly pointed at the direction of my home. He told me to stand up and tied all the fruits and passion fruit leaves around my head, neck and body – I looked like a passion fruit tree. He then forced me to take him home. When my mother saw me, she almost collapsed in shock. “What on earth is this?” she exclaimed. He explained to her what had happened and left as I was given a dog’s beating. But our greed to feel our stomachs not only led to punishment but could a times make boys suffer serious upsets. *Pketer was my neighbor. He was a bit older than me and so he knew how to make various delicacies. He had taught me how to cook deer meat and showed me which wild fruits were edible. He even knew which roots were medicinal. One day, when my mother had been taken away to the nearest child market to get us a new member of the family. *Pketer appeared at our home when darkness fell. He told me he would teach me a new recipe – how to make homemade popcorn. I did not have an idea what popcorn was and so he gave me the instructions. “Get two kilograms of maize, a water drum lid, salt and some water and light the fire then I teach you,” he said. When all was ready, *Pketer set to work, throwing handfuls of maize on top of the red-hot metal lid. The maize popped out into the ground, some occasionally into my t-shirt making me remove it to save myself from the burning grain. The result was impressive. The “popcorn” tasted good and we ate and ate. We must have been carried away by the stories we told each other as we continued eating until we fell asleep. The sound of *Pketer groaning in pain woke me up from my deep sleep. I had been dreaming that a huge monster was chasing me through a thick forest and low lying twigs kept slowing me down as the monster closed in on me. I then jumped into a small ditch but it had no end! It was a deep cliff and so I was falling to certain death when…*Pketer’s cries woke me up. He was pulling on my oversized t-shirt – which was the only cloth I had on. Those days, we never wore cloths; a long t-shirt was good enough. I turned to *Pketer who lay on his back, his stomach lay bare. It was dark and so I struggled to see through the moon’s rays which shone through holes on the old, rusty iron sheets. I felt for an old spotlight which barely shone light and looked at *Pketer’s tummy. It was swollen, I tapped on it and it sounded like a football full of pressure. He was constipating! Thinking quickly, I recalled my mother telling me that a concoction of ashes mixed with water was a remedy for such a condition. I rushed to the fireplace, scooped ashes using an old metal plate and poured them into a container we used to fetch water from the drum. I then forced it into *Pketer’s mouth and he drunk the whole of it. I then left the house. Word had it that when a person who has suffered such a condition is given the home remedy, the result may be a human health hazard as his stomach will release the pressure in a way that even the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) could have a case to file against the victim. After Several hours, *Pketer managed to recover and we continued sleeping but with windows open to let fresh air in until morning. I wonder if boys still eat as much!
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 08:32:17 +0000
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