A place to pass time

No one knows why we meet every evening to see the sun set before we disperse back home. This happens when there is no late-day activity or celebration. There is peace in the land and no sound other than the crows flying back home. Where the paths meet is the place. It came to be known as a junction.

As the shadows lengthen from the bright midday sun the legs ache. Having left the farm, the rural’s major occupation, there is need to stretch; the need to meet a friend, the need to speak about a few things, the need to pick up from yesterday. One quiet gentleman sits to have a glimpse of the traversing roads. He is soon joined by one, two, three and other village mates. After greeting those who came earlier, you take a place. They may all be standing!

It is there that time quickly elapses. Views are shared, mistakes ironed and truth spoken. A boy who is past maternal cane can join at the welcome of the elder ones. Your reputation should hold no questioning because everyone is known by virtue. When birds have called others to sleep, the road is mystical on a moonless night and mosquitoes bite sharper do they mumble parting words. Everyone takes the path he knows best to the home he was born in.

There are growing occupations in our time that define those meetings differently. The roadside and under a tree meetings have grown meaningless. All good trees continue to get lost in people’s private lands. Unless there is an accident, roads are made for you to access the next point. Make a date there and a stray lorry may run on you. 

For that matter there are bars and café zones. There are hotels. When your employer opens the office gates at 5pm, you may head there depending on what you are paid. Your friends will be those who appreciate your stupidity and earn as much. Traffic jam would help in spending the day as your phone helps to provide company. You aren’t badly of, are you?

Humans have grown to be strangely mobile. The friends whom you played with as a child are not the ones you started school with. By the time you are in high school your parents may have changed houses and zones greatly that the past is a blur. The only stories you share among peers are of the present innovations, political upbeats and exaggerated fashions and world happenings. We are more anxious to fit than we would be comfortable with the little we have. 

We do not have time for a good idle time. You may be in need to make friendship with a person housed in ‘Mbwa Kali’ gates where you do not easily enter. The walls are high and several doors are opened. You can be suspected for anything. 

We should give our friends time. Let them have the best of us for in that they heal in a way. I have an uncle, God rests his spirit in peace, who would travel long on foot, in search of his cousins who migrated from homeland, just to sit and speak about the weather, health, happenings and forth. We really disliked his coming and here I ask for forgiveness.