Growing up in the village was like living in a Shakespearean play—equal parts comedy, drama, and sheer absurdity. At the heart of it all were the village markets. They weren’t just places to trade bananas for salt or haggle over the price of dried fish. Oh no, these markets were the beating heart of the community, where dreams, schemes, and sometimes screams collided. Life was simple back then, but the stories? Anything but.
The market buzzed every evening, but on “market days,” it exploded into a carnival of chaos. Farmers, traders, gossips, and—most importantly—the romantically hopeful would gather. If you were young and single, the market wasn’t just a place to buy soap; it was Tinder before smartphones. And boy, was I a hopeful participant.
Now, here’s the thing about growing up in the village: shoes were not just a luxury; they were a loaded political statement. If you dared to strut into school wearing anything on your feet, you were either a thief, a rebel, or a fool. The teachers would summon you for an intense interrogation and, without fail, administer a “disciplinary massage” that left your sitting apparatus regretting your life choices. As a result, most of us developed toes that took creative liberties, pointing east and west while we walked north.
But fate smiled upon me one Christmas when I inherited a viraka—full sandak—from my elder sister. Yes, they were unisex. No, I did not care. Those plastic marvels were my ticket to the big leagues, and I intended to flaunt them at Omondi Market, the local hotspot where music boomed, tempers flared, and potential love stories unfolded.
I prepared meticulously. My school uniform was washed, starched, and ironed until it could probably stand upright on its own. Bwana, nguo ilikuwa imekula starch aka omwogo! You may be wondering, “Why the school uniform?” Well, let me enlighten you—it was the only piece of clothing I owned that didn’t look like it had survived a wrestling match with a thorn bush… and lost.My sandak gleamed in the sunlight, and my heart thumped with anticipation of meeting Nafula. Ah, Nafula. She was the village Venus, the Helen of our mud-thatched Troy. To my mind, whoever said “the beautiful ones are not yet born” had clearly never encountered her. I was ready.
Or so I thought.
The walk to Omondi Market felt like a red-carpet moment. In my head, Katrina and the Waves’ “Walking on Sunshine” played on loop as I bounced along. But my glamorous strut was rudely interrupted when the plastic prisons on my feet started to cook my toes like yams in a boiling pot. Comfort triumphed over style. Off came the sandak, and I carried them like trophies. Nothing could ruin my mood. Nafula was waiting.
I wasn’t alone in my quest. My faithful sidekicks, Kiptaruru (the human doughnut, round and squishy) and Body (the man whose biceps forgot to inform the rest of his frame about their growth spurt), marched with me. Together, we were invincible—or so we thought.
As we approached the market, the air was thick with excitement. The smell of roasted maize filled my nostrils, and the distant hum of gossip added a soundtrack to the scene. And then, like a poorly timed plot twist, chaos struck.
“Nguyo khandi yakhaanza!” someone screamed.
Before I could ask what was happening, a flying stool nearly decapitated me. I turned to see the source of the commotion—Timna, the undisputed queen of chaos, in full rage mode. Her target? Her husband, Masakhwe, who was running for his life like a gazelle fleeing a lioness.
Timna wasn’t just mad. She was apocalyptically furious, chasing her husband Masakhwe, armed with her shibongoi—her traditional underwear, yes, but in her hands, it was a weapon of mass destruction. The villagers believed that if Timna struck Masakhwe with it, he would either drop dead before sunset or go stark raving mad before sunrise. Either way, it was curtains for poor Masakhwe.
“Run!” someone screamed. And run we did. Kiptaruru darted into a maize field, Body leaped over a fence with surprising agility for his mismatched physique, and I clutched my sandak like a lifeline as I sprinted for cover.
Masakhwe, meanwhile, was running out of options—and out of breath. Timna’s shibongoi swished through the air like a scythe, narrowly missing his head, as she unleashed a barrage of insults about his “useless brats.” Then came the knockout punch: “Huyu amekunywa chang’aa mpaka hana nguvu ya kazi!” Which kazi was she referring to? I wondered. Was it the type that involved cows and plows, or… something far more personal? The suspense was killing me. But for Masakhwe, this was no time for pondering riddles. It was a battle of life and death.
In the midst of the chaos, while still grappling with the burning question of how a mere piece of cloth could summon madness and death, we somehow stumbled back to the market—right into the shrine of Imboko Tsia Kalukha – the man who measured with a ruler strapped to his scissors, the man who shaved with a razor perched on a wooden comb—a barber-philosopher whose slogan “Chaguo ni lako” seemed ominously fitting for Masakhwe’s predicament. This was the Bunge of Wise Men, the ultimate authority on all matters chaotic, bizarre, and utterly absurd.
It was here that the council, with the gravity of a court sentencing a war criminal, revealed Masakhwe’s one and only chance of survival. Forget running, forget hiding—they declared that the only way to neutralize Timna’s wrath and her cursed shibongoi was for Masakhwe to stop dead in his tracks, face his wife’s volcanic fury head-on, and counter her rage with… a swift, calculated, and public ngosi! Yes, you heard that right. In front of everyone. On the spot.
But —–was it ngosically possible, considering his apparent kukosa nguvu? The odds were slimmer than a mosquito’s waist, and the suspense was thicker than Timna’s fury.
We stood there, mouths agape, torn between horror and hysterical laughter. How exactly does one execute a ngosi under such high-pressure circumstances? The Wise Men didn’t offer those details. Their only parting advice was, “Do it quickly, or die trying.”
