My dad was a driver. And he used to enjoy his work or so I thought. I was born in Kibera slum and I didn’t know it was a slum. I knew that is home. I had uncles and aunts and cousins living in the same place. So was my grandfather and once in a while my grandmother would come to visit. Some of the memories I remember then is my mum warming water for dad in the morning using 2 kg Kimbo tin on a stove, and dad going to shower in the communal bathroom. I remember mama Michael, our land lady. They used to cook with cowboy cooking fat and their chapatis were sweeter than ours. I remember Michael who used to shower with lifebuoy soap, and it had a very strong smell. I used to wish I lived with the Michaels. We had a neighbor who had a girl called Lillian. I can't remember much about Lillian, but I remember her going for a long call in a ditch outside our house and I was peeping at her.
I remember going to church to Our lady of Guadalupe in Adams arcade. The church used to so crowded that people would stand during the mass. I loved the part after church because we would be bought ice. On Sunday I would meet my cousins Martin, Lydia and Boyie. We would go back home playing in the vast playing field between adams arcade and kibera slum. Also remember my mum going to the uchumi supermarket and my mum would get Zesta plum jam. It used to be very sweet on bread. At some point in my mind I could not picture the supermarket and I used to think the supermarket was a dam near the showground where you would go and collect the products you want and you would wipe the water and take home. I have no idea where this notion came from.
I also remember the Gathogo's. They used to live in Ayany estate. Gathogo used to work with my dad. It's here that I first saw a different type of a toilet. And I could not manage to relief myself from the seat because it was high. And I helped myself down there. And my mum was so ashamed of me. But she didn’t beat me. I remember they had a very nice drink, which now I know was a fruit punch. But unfortunately after the visit I had a severe diarrhea and I thought in my mind it's because of the what I took there. I admired their hood so much and I started to realize where we lived was of a lower standard.
I also remember a day it flooded on kibera drive near karanja road and the buses were not passing there. We had to alight at Karanja road and walk home. I used to love the trips to town with the buses. My mum would ensure we sat near the driver and she would make us sit on the coffin. I mean the engine looked like a coffin near the driver. I used to admire the bus driver. And I swore to myself that when I grow up I would become a bus driver. How was it that a thin guy was able to carry a hundred of people in one bus? Again, my dad who was my hero, only drove small cars and he used to brag to me, I wanted to be better than my dad. Driving a bus was much more than driving a small car.
I have a brother, Daniel who is exactly one and a half years younger than me. I don’t have a first distinct memory of him. I just started to realizing we were two. My mother used to hide the house keys under the door and she would ask us not to show anyone apart from dad, incase he came back from work before mum came. One day, our grandmother Shelmith came to visit and we showed her the key to the house. We were so delighted to see our grandmother and we so welcome her in the house. My mother was not impressed by our generosity and opening the house to her. After my grandmother left my mother pinched my cheeks so hard I had bruises. I learnt the lesson. A family is made up of a father, a mother and your brother.
I also remember visiting my cousins; Muthoni. They lived in a very nice house on Karanja road. It had many rooms including a bathroom and a toilet, they had a TV, a cooking gas and when you visit they would buy soda. Muthoni was a little princess. At some point I wished I was a girl. They were light skinned and everything about them was different. I had a lot of questions about our family. Why we only lived in a single room when people like Muthoni lived in a big house. I feared their house though. My mum had told us about a story where a man was left by his master in his house and warned not to open a specific room. But out of greed he open the room and a leopard ate him and his family. When my mum was narrating this story, I would form a mental image and I would imagine my cousins house as the master house. So when we visit I was afraid to go to other rooms lest a leopard eats me.
I cant remember us going shags, but I found us living in our grandmothers house and sharing it with our aunt Lucy. Live here was so different and we had a tap of running water outside the house. My grandmother had a cow called queen and it used to fight people. It had long horns and the only friend was my grandmother, who would milk it and feed it.
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