JD OTIENDE and The tree

The big tree that landmark’s the 1960’s Luhya enigma was not planted by the late President Kenyatta. A man who largely talked to himself as he ‘walked me’ to the compound had said that people say it was Kenyatta that planted it. To present, something beneath it exists; a mystery. The buttress roots must have let the thing seep up the xylem when the tree stood before me. Were he in ownership it could long have been fallen, timber sawed and stump axed for firewood. 

 

JD’S sick room has a window facing kiguti, the grassy open area before a house. It once was a forest as the bare and stony Maragoli hills. From there, his poky eyes cannot figure out  the position of the tree yet it largely stands akimbo. The legs that used to propel his crib up the tree to hide from colonial chiefs and collaborators as a freedom fighter are now feeble. How Kenyatta could climb and hide with him there is not satisfying to me as a listener. Kenyatta was a houseboy. The real fighters died.

Like Kibisu, the man whom we used to go pick litter from his compound for a few coins and a ride on his pick-up, Otiende receives no visitors of his caliber. In the late days of Kibisu only the noisy bats gave him solace. Maybe people cared…but the old man Otiende is disheveled with a year only to mark a century. There is no joy in waiting for the birthday when he cannot walk under the tree’s shade; his plastic teeth clatter and calls are answered in the clothing. Neighbours and road users near the quiet grey compound look at the tree and sigh, ‘it hasn’t fallen yet, the roots are strong’.

Otiende ceased the moment after independence and was the first education minister. The words won’t express the status of such a position before. You could build a wall, name an estate, roads and public schools in your President’s name! You’d change your name to god if you wanted. There is Otiende Estate on the North side of Ngumo, Nairobi. When presidency exchanged, he lost sight and was ousted by Mudavadi senior, Moi’s tool boy. Maragolis say that Senior was a true leader. He was poisoned and rumoured that it was his tribesmen. Kibisu took over before Mudavadi junior capitalized on his debauchery. Misfortune states that when you are in power you can be carelessly drunk. You become the Tree in trees.

Down by the path the huge and flamboyant tree can be used as a direction mark to Kegoye Secondary. There is land, a mark of wealth that sleeps bare, grass scorched. If you want a piece to farm on, you can be lent by the daughter in-law, the main care taker to the man- who is in two worlds at the same time. His mind is not around, he sees angels, she told me. The first angel tells him about his badness as the other angel balances it with his goodness. If his badness be a feather heavier than his goodness then damnation awaits. It is both good and bad to live long.

Mudavadi fell, Kibisu fell and Otiende is no exception. Otiende had five sons and four have fallen at his eyes; this is more painful than the wealth he lost. He murmured about Joseph. He said something about the house of Joseph chosen by God himself to lead others.  He thinks he and Haile Selassie are descendants. They all bore fruits and are remembered for their good works. What makes him different from Joseph is that he waits for death in his house, the long Nile River approaching a sea. There we shall meet. And who knows, the will would want him under the tree.