I have lived in the bush in a sort of camp for almost three years now. It was hard at first being in an unfamiliar place and with a harsh boss. I remember I would cry almost every day. They say crying is a sign of weakness. I have to admit, I did feel weak and I was not afraid to show my vulnerability. My boss started to finally understand me and so did I. The tears were nothing compared to the laughers that I have had in this place. I believe I have found the most hilarious breed of people out here and they have no idea how funny they are.
The other day a few of my workmates and I were having lunch and we decided to share the funny stories that have ever happened to us. I have to say most of my workmates are not literate. Some of the things they know they picked them up just from working here and being exposed to different people from different backgrounds. One of the maasai started it off. I will call him Tony.
Tony once got arrested when he was a moran and taken to one of the cells in Machakos. He grew up as a pastoralist; all he knew was to herd cattle. One of the cell guards asked him what kind of work he could do, and naively he said that he could only herd cattle. “Do you see any cattle here?” asked the guard, of course with insults following after. He was then given a hoe to do some digging and was taken to tend to one of the vegetable garden that was growing cabbage. My dear friend Tony had never done any digging before in his life. He didn’t know what to do, so with a hoe in his hand, instead of striking the ground, he struck the cabbage! The horror on the guards face! “What are you doing?” He asked Tony sternly. “I’m digging like you asked me to.” Tony retorted. “Have you ever cultivated before?” The guard asked Tony. “I don’t even know what this hoe is for. I only graze cattle.” That statement was followed by a hard smack on his head. Poor guy, I don’t know what he ended up doing; he didn’t really quite tell us.
Being a herder, the only meal he knew was meat, milk and blood. The prison food didn’t cut it for him. He refused to eat for 19 days and the prison wardens, sensing danger, released him. The uncle picked him up on the day he was being released. He decided to buy him a packet of milk seeing that he clearly looked starved. He was so weak that the moment he took his first gulp of the milk, he collapsed immediately. I don’t know how that works but that’s what he said. When he woke up, they fed him the milk little by little so that his body could not take it with shock again :).
My other workmate, I will call him Mark, who was at least used to the modern life, was next. He said he was once approached by one of my other workmates; I will call him Ted, and asked if he could borrow his underwear and shoes for some special function he wanted to attend, and that he would return the items :). Mark was shocked, and humored at first, and then he politely explained to him that those were not the kind of things people share. Mark then told him that he could sell him his shoes, and he can keep them that way, but he couldn’t lend him his underwear. Ted was insistent though that he only wanted to borrow it for the day and he would give it back the following day. He just couldn’t understand why people don’t share underwear. After a while, Mark convinced him to just take the shoes, and promised him that he would buy him new underwear when he goes for shopping. Ted agreed to the proposal. When Mark finally shopped for the new underwear for Ted, Ted was so pleased that he wore them and openly displayed them for everyone to see :).
As we were laughing our heads off, one of my other workmates said that at one time in a local church, an old guy walked in during the sermon wearing his underwear over his trousers. As soon as the pastor saw the old man, he quickly thought of how he could save the old man from embarassment and told the congregation to shut their eyes for a small word of prayer, and as they were praying, the pastor signaled one of his associate pastors to escort the old man out and show him how to dress appropriately :).
My other workmate, I will call him Steve, was next, and he told us when he was young, he never knew what a maize plantation looked like. One time he was herding his father’s cattle and he saw a very green maize plantation. He thought it was his lucky day as he had found very green grass for the cattle. You can guess what happened next, I will not even say a word, let’s just say the maize was history, and so was he :).
Personally, I had an interesting encounter with one of our camp guards. I was just closing the office and I wanted to send him to my boss’ house to deliver something for me. Unfortunately he was just starting his shift and he didn’t think he could manage and asked me to call another guard. We use walkie talkies to communicate with each other at work. So I picked up the radio and started calling out for another guard, “ Askari Askari”, and he, standing right there in front of me, answers back, “Go ahead”! I just couldn’t. I died. 😀 😀
I Am Bush_ Locked 😀
I Am Bush_Locked 