The other day, I ran into my first cousin Timotheo in Mavumbi town as I was busy looking for materials for some chemistry practicals.
Things have been quite hard for me since we fired Kasheshe, the lab assistant who was involved in a chemicals theft that ended up in an illicit brews den on the outskirts of Mavumbi town.
Let me not dwell much on what transpired after that, but suffice it to say that the replacement we got turned out to be so lazy and incompetent that we had to show him the door before he stayed long enough to unpack his bags.
Since then, I have been doubling as the chemistry teacher and lab technician despite not being paid a single extra coin.
In fact, at some point, I will have to petition the school administration to pay me remedial fees or hire another lab assistant, or else stage a strike of one person, namely myself.
Timotheo was hale and hearty over his livestock project back in the village (livestock project of one cow, my foot) after Samantha, the stubborn kienyeji cow, gave birth.
So he travelled all the way to Mavumbi town to purchase some special livestock feeds so that the cow could produce more milk, though I know the animal cannot produce more than a litre per day even if it is fed on a tonne of Napier grass.
I admonished him for coming to town without telling me in advance, but to save face, he said he had planned to call me when he was in town, just before we met.
I let the matter rest after my first cousin offered to buy me a drink at Makuti despite it being as early as ten in the morning.
Freebies don’t come easily, so I accepted the rare offer (Timotheo can be as mean as a church mouse, so when he offers you the little that he can, take it as a miracle and accept the offer with both hands).
However, I could not risk taking any alcoholic drink, given the fact that I had some serious practical sessions to undertake back at school. So I agreed with Tim that I would take a cold drink, then take my mzinga away so that I could “swallow” when I was off duty.
He gladly obliged as we positioned ourselves strategically at the high table at Makuti.
Yondo Sister, also known as Sister Do, walked over to us and began wiping the table dutifully as Timotheo pointed to an empty crate of beer in one corner of the pub, which previously held the beer of his choice.
Yondo looked at me doubtfully, but I winked at her to assure her that my cousin was in the right form and frame of mind to order and pay for drinks.
As we took the drinks, he continued talking endlessly about his agricultural projects, including his maize crop, which was showing all signs of a bumper harvest.
An unexpected visitor
I was about to order a second soda courtesy of my cousin (cold drinks drain faster than beer, naturally) when I heard a familiar whistling sound.
Before Yondo Sister opened my drink, Pinto the catapult seller walked in proudly with several pieces of his merchandise slung around his neck.
In fact, I was a bit surprised when Timotheo called Pinto closer and began examining the catapults in a way that suggested he was interested in purchasing one.
For once, I thought probably the beer had begun working on his head because I could not tell what exactly a mature adult like him could do with that kind of thing.
You see, when we were growing up in the village, bird hunting was our favourite hobby. At times, we even killed some edible varieties, roasted them and feasted on them.
However, the business of hawking catapults was unheard of in those days. Instead, we fashioned all the required materials ourselves and eventually came up with very efficient bird-hunting tools, which could at times shoot down birds as big as wild doves and crows.
It turned out that Timotheo was having problems with birds on his maize farm and actually needed the catapult to scare them away.
At that point, his need for this unique tool began making sense to me.
On a light note, I advised Pinto to carry small stones in his rucksack for customers to test the efficiency of his catapults before buying.
Pinto did not take my joke kindly, saying that none of his clients had ever made such a ridiculous suggestion.
So I ate humble pie and continued sipping my soda as Timotheo searched through his wallet for a hundred shillings to pay Pinto for his catapult.
Pinto took his money as Timotheo slung the catapult around his neck and looked at me as though expecting a positive comment.
I had none, so he gulped his Balozi silently, probably feeling smug about the rare weapon he had acquired, which he would use to shoot at and scare away destructive birds from his struggling farm.
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