This man, MWALIMU KAMAU
Any teacher’s nightmare!
We go on chatting. I ask questions and he
answers. I give him comments about the
gossip I have heard in their staffroom.
We chat about staff payment, political gossip, how Jemoh’s galfie was snatched and about me and
my work.
Kamau is the kind of interviewee that is
any journalist’s nightmare – he knows too
much.
He has read too much. He has an
opinion about everything! He supports his
answers with a quote from a book he read,
an article he read or a conversation he had
with his former boss. Word for word
Kamau will quote for you. “Money is like
sex. Good to have but inappropriate to talk
about in public…” he tells me in reference
to Muzee’s political attempt confession.
He promises to loan me several books
including the autobiography of the late Njenga Karume, Kiriamiti’s life in prison, that he is currently
reading. Kamau likes to share knowledge,
he brought me a print out of an article
written by Waweru Mburu.
He tells me to read and see what a clever
Editor does to an ordinary story. He tells me
the changes I need to make to my writing career. I listen, watch and learn.
He orders for another bottle of Guinness
and he tells me the story of Michael
Karanja, the man behind Kana. “Have
you seen the signature?” he asks. “No!
What’s the story?” I ask.
Kamau orders a waiter to bring an empty
plastic bottle of kana and tells me about the
man whose signature appears on the
bottle. Karanja is the man from Athena, near Kiandutu who graduated as a Bio Chemist
but failed to get a job in Kenya
Breweries. He took up a job as a tea boy but
in between his chores, sat in the kitchen
reading books. The company CEO (a
European) noticed his unusual love for
books and asked him what he wanted to
be. When he said he wanted a job at KBL,
he made a call and got him a job. The boy
was later to come up with the unique
formula of Kana inspired by the
death of his father who died of illicit brew consuptions.
Karanja later rose to become the KBL
managing director. Or so the story goes ….
“The problem with Africa is not poverty but
we waste talent! Can you imagine if the Mzungu CEO did not notice the boy?
People especially in Kenya do not give
others a chance!” Kamau tells me.
I look at my watch. It is past 4 pm. We have
been chatting for over two hours. “I need
to leave,” I tell Kamau. “No! Let me get
another Guinness before you go. I also
need to check when a friend is able to see
me,” he says. I wait and watch him sip his
beer and we continue chatting.
Down memory lane
With nostalgia, Kamau recalls his day in Naivasha.
When ‘smart robbers’ utilised thier intellectual power to rob a group of youth that time.
“Its a long story”, he says and I just let go it.
When he goes to take a
puff, I peep inside his bag.
A bunch of papers with names of the shortlisted.
So it is Kamau who oversee interviews in various Kiganjo institutions?
Kamau is indeed a special man. A crazy
genius. A man who gets an exploding
orgasm from a good story.
The phone-losing man whose name on M-
Pesa registration reads a lady.
He is the man Kenyans guys have come to love passionatly,
the man behind Kenya hookups! The man I
had lunch with at a restaurant that has an
atypical toilet.