Famine ya '84 was called “Ndakua ngwatĩte” meaning you are dying still holding money in your hands. This was due to people having the money but no food to buy.
Hehehe. I remember that one. I was a pupil at Maralal DEB. Second term, the kitchen was opened for only two weeks. Meaning, we boarding students , had to scavange for food in garbage bins and behind hotels for eleven weeks. That was my second time to be a chokoraa, aged 11. But I managed just fine, thank-you. When we went home, we met ugali ya yellow, eaten kavu coz the only green thing were Leeds in what used to be water pans. Same year across in Ethiopia, carrion eater kept vigil on dying children to dismember their emaciated bodies. A pathetic time in deed.
Hehehe. Icio ciarì staple food gwitü. Muyuyu, Na mathoroko, terere, mabaki, togotia , managu, manoe. Mukimo wa kahurura kana malenge ukiria Na ndubia hehu , maithori ma gikeno no kwìiita
That concert was epic. I don’t think any of the millennial here would survive such a time. Third term, the government brought a lorry load of maziwa ya nyayo. We used to be given two packets each per day. We would go sell them to town and buy posho. Then cook ugali and eat it with salad oil drained from discarded oil cans from town dump site. One day, as usual, we entered a hotel, and ate mandazis with chai. The trick was to jump out of Windows and doors, all in different directions, as usual. But on that day, me and two comrades were nabbed. That was my first day of mob justice. I have faced mob thrice ever since. But am here writing about it, proof that God had good intentions for this grandson of the Patriarch