I am 100% sure any Kenyan above age 35 who watched Kenyan TV, or lets say KBC as very few had KTN then, instantly do recognize this song and just as quickly draw a parallel with “Kenya’s First And Only Horror Movie”.
Aihhh…Tahamaki used literally terrorize almost all kids under 12, and despite seeing much more gory stuff since, Tahamaki’s niche doesn’t fade. Three specific episodes scared the shyt out of me:
- Scarist for me was the death of that light skined beauty called Ajali. She is showing walking towards her house, and its very dark, and as soon as she is in I think Kwapuo (The stocky guy with a big beard from Mahoka) was waiting for her, and then strangles her…I still remember that expression on her face, and just the creepiness in the dark, and terrifying sounds !
- Second was I think “Chapuo Chapawa Mla Wake” or however they called him in Mahoka. In this episode there is a scene where its like he is threatening to drill someone in the eyes, and then was probably apprehended at this point by Inspector Sikujua and Sergeant Mawazo(Ukifanya jabo rorote ra upunzi nsee uthaumia----a true connoisseur of Kikuyu).
- There was this dark skinned guy who strangles some guy in a love triangle gone bad or something and then a guy is strangled wooden leg of a bed.
And some comedy within comedy: Laila Dumba the karate-ka lady but, who would kick a guy at 1900 and when the time reaches 1902 you hear boingggggg like a tire being struck…
Same thing with firearms; Trigger pulled 1900, you see flash 1 minute later at 1901 and a boom again at 1903!!!
To make factors worse, when I was about 8.5 years of age, apparently a neighbors’ housemaid had hanged herself, and we arrived when my big bro was administering CPR, as he used to be in St. Johns Ambulance as a volunteer, and the neighbor came to our house to ask for help…it was NOT like you see in the movies…it was scary stuff!!! very scary stuff!!! I think it would even freak out a full grown adult who never heard that sequence before. As chest compressions are made there is a high pitched sound like whistling, and then when the diaphragm is let to relax all the way to normal you hear another loud brrrrrrrrrrrr, you see saliva at the mouth etc. I believe she was already dead when they arrived. I thought then that she was still alive because of the really loud noises, but now I think they were just mechanical noises by the thoracic activity and her respiratory system during CPR. The theory was that she had strangled herself, but strangely , when my bro got to the bedroom in that house after being called, she was still suspended! I do believe strangulation is a time bomb, because the gravitational forces on your neck area cut off air, and first order of business should be removing the force. Things were convoluted though; in the few days before her demise, according to a neighbor friend, her speech had the tone of premonition of doom(Unaona vile nawapenda hata hizi x y z nimeaoshea leo…aki nawapenda si umeona), that kind of thing…which might appear to support suicide theory, with a very formidable retort being the fact she was still suspended when my bro arrived, yet my bro was not the first one to find her in a hung state but was called in, suggesting the maid had already been “found in that state”, then why not immediately untangle her? It stinks of alibi and confirmed irreversible permanency in deep slumber, but it might also be due to being in an extremely unsettled state of mind, and very afraid of what was going to happen when the truth comes out, and then she broke the news perhaps not long before my big bro ended up there, and if you think closely, the timing, i.e. the duration be4 lunch might suggest potential arrival for some before kids come for lunch, just to have the bomb dropped. If I were a gambler, pregnancy would be right at the epicenter. The judge apparently stated the obvious towards the end of the case as though it were a sarcastically charged rhetoric joke, “so it seems that you will get away with this?”, but from a keen observer, she was literally saying you did it but we can’t prove it.
For a full decade I never went to any funeral church service after that!
I am made to understand the maid’s mother loved her daughter so much and was completely distraught by the event, she levelled a curse on whoever did it to watch as all their kids die. I personally don’t buy into any happenstance of the “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”(actual word) realm, but notably, almost precisely 20 years later, and starting with the last born, within cumulatively about 1.5 years, 3/4 of the kids were dead.