‘Walegs’ – of the legs. Walegs, short for
Walegwa. Walegs, a fine Taita babe, her legs, splendid. Walegwa had those tall,
shapely legs that disappear into a delicate waist. Her skin, ripe mangoes.
Dimples on her cheek, a twinkle in her eyes, she had once represented a rural
university as their Miss Climate. Looking at her, you could tell that it was a matter
of time before she was whisked away into a nice apartment and a nice car by a
top political honcho. The short of it, she was the stuff of wet dreams.
Mr. Steven Akumu, always a man of ambition,
of destiny. Mr. Steven Akumu, a learned, curious, travelled man. A man of
opportunity. It was Mr. Steven Akumu who first introduced us to camel soup
spiced with Ethiopian and Somali herbs and condiments before the copycats
ruined this lucrative trade. There was ‘hush hush’ talk of him being involved
in ‘magendo’ – smuggling – but which we dismissed as idle talk from small,
jealous men.
Mr. Steven Akumu, he did his things in style.
There on the road, some young lads and lasses on skates, giving out flyers
announcing his new joint. Men, ever glad to have their domestic problems sorted
out, flocked his joint. Camel soup (and the Ethiopian/Somali garnishes and herbs in it), good for arthritis, diabetes
and pressure. But it is not these ailments that necessarily had men fighting
for spaces on the wooden joints. Mr. Steven Akumu, very strategic. At 4pm when
the joint opened, his playlist boomed loud and proud, ‘Big Bamboo’, ‘The Needle’…
other like-minded calypsos.
Mr. Steven Akumu, his was now become a
local monopoly. The other two joints for soups, ‘mutura’, hooves, heads,
tongues – cow and goat, they suffered. Business rivalry, we later concluded as
the impetus of what happened to him and his business. But first, let us talk
about Walegwa and how she features in this story.
One day, we found her, this lady who bathed
in milk and lotioned on honey and lemon, we found her. Perhaps, Mr. Steven
Akumu had put up a vacancy notice for his expanding business. Perhaps, she had
come looking for a job and her freshness had caused him to reconsider his
hiring policy… anyway, we found her at the joint. The regular waitresses, you
could see how they gave her bad looks, for our tips – keep change, small and
big – were directed at her.
A week later, Mr. Steven Akumu had the
landlord knock down the wall of the next vacant room to expand his joint. Men’s
eyes, refreshed at her sight. Home quarrelling, increased as men reported to
their homes late and later. Jerusalema was come and we requested him to
consider opening the joint on Sundays. He would give it a thought, said he,
after we exasperated him with our botheration. Women to their ears, men and
their eyes – that is how the good Lord created his world.
There was much talk on what to do. Beat him
to death, jail him, have him vacate the neighbourhood. The talk was raged, hot,
vindictive. This talk, done at either Kimondo’s
or Mutua’s joints. The two, once held sway before Mr. Steven Akumu’s
monopoly. The former customers, a foolish grin as they trooped back to their
old haunts – apologies and excuses… had been upcountry, Arab land, Somalia… as
they sought acceptance and camaraderie.
Finally, Mr. Steven Akumu had relented and
opened the joints on a Sunday, then the next Sunday… for two months. As you can
tell, patronage in football dens and bars greatly reduced. Now, his joint had
five rooms joined together. The landlord, mixed on his feelings. His fellow
landlords, owned or had tenants doing the football dens and the sports bars.
Again, Mr. Steven Akumu paid a pretty penny – in advance too – so, there was
the great matter of capitalism for the landlord to consider.
Post-mortem later, we dissected that his
case had been fixed. On that particular Sunday afternoon, officials from the
Health Directorate raided the joint, fully patronised. Again, the gathered
menfolk, a bit jaundiced. Walegwa, she was nowhere in sight and her phone was
off. The raid enraged us that we nearly burned down the place, except that the
OCS of the nearby police post and his men – teargas canisters at the ready –
was present. There were a couple of news reporters too that validated our claim
that, Mr. Steven Akumu, his was a fixing.
From out of one of the big sufurias that
bubbled the wonder soup, a dog’s head had been fished out. ‘Awuoro!’
Abomination! The rumours, placed strategically, had that the soup might have
been added other things to it, hence men’s addiction to it… Walegwa and her
famous beauty momentarily forgotten in this dangerous talk. Perhaps, the
landlord had tipped Mr. Steven Akumu to make a run for it, otherwise, that very
afternoon, he would have had a sudden unplanned meeting with his maker.
We later attributed the dog’s head to the
missing Walegwa, perhaps, planted there by a business rival to sabotage it from
the inside. Everyone was now happy – landlords, bar owners, the two soup’s
joint owners, wives, the plain ladies employed at the soup’s joints… someone
reported that he had sighted Mr. Steven Akumu down in Malindi. In tow, a
heavily expectant Walegwa. Of course, we out rightly dismissed this as
fabrications of an idle mind. Jealous men, we were, perfect and taking comfort in
our illusions and delusions.
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