THE SHAMBA BOY SERIES: FROM GRACE TO GRASS: I AM DOOMED

BY MAALIM SALAT

It all started when I received the letter signed by our own prof. Ole Karei admitting me to the school of human resource development to pursue a bachelor’s degree in communication and journalism.

I remember how my grandmother went around Shanta Abaq, the village where I was born and brought up, to boast how I was going to be the first Somali president of Kenya. Reason? Because I was admitted to Moi University.

To my grandmother and most residents of our village, the word “Moi” means “president”. According to her, we had President Jomoi Kenyatta and Danyer Moi, we have Moi Kibaki and we shall have Raila Amoi Odinga or Willium Samoi Ruto. She argues that all the above were students of Moi University and that is why they became president.

All was well until the headmaster of the local secondary school read the letter again and confirmed that I was not going to the big school to “read” about how to become a president, a minister or a doctor. I was going to read about suxufi.

None of my family members exalted me for receiving “the big letter” that sends only the “great” to the big school locally known as ‘jaamacada’ where if someone from our community “finishes from”, he/she is assured of becoming richer than the people from Somalia, marry many wives (in the case of a man), live in a big self-contained house with a qaboojiye (air conditioner).

Students from my community who get admission from the big school usually receive a heroic send off and enough praises to give them the heart to compete with JVC ( jaluo very clever) students from kisumu and migori.

No one praised me because I was going to the big school not to read many books about medicine but to waste my time reading many books about talking and spying on other peoples’ affairs. Becoming a suxufi (journalist) meant that I will not be a big person in the government. This means my siblings and my relatives will not get the national ID easily. I am now a nitwit.

Even my mother-in-law-to-be stopped greeting me when she met me on the highway. Prior to this, she knew me as the boy who topped in KCPE, the boy who was admitted to a national school in the caasimada(the big city with many lights), the boy who is waiting to join the university, the one who will become a big man in the government and give her daughter a queen’s life. She now believes that I will not receive salary from Raila (the man who read the constitution for us and found it fit for consumption), I will get a job that will pauperize me and that throughout my life I will be running after MPs and mama mbogas looking for news. I am now an execrable young man; a good for nothing goon.

When I went home over the holiday, I didn’t expect a ngamia to be slaughtered for me. There was no fiancée to hug me. I did not deliver the speech I prepared for shanta abaq secondary school on how to pass KCSE exams by use of mwax. Who will listen to me anyway?