Zilizopendwa; Part C

Instrumentals ended Part B; Zilizopendwa. You can first read Part A and Part B. It is now June 2019, four years since I promised to get back with an article to continue the small series. What a hung of a dance it has been! For some reasons I think this is the time to note the article though I was not going to do it anytime soon were it not a reminder from one of the blog’s followers.

It is 4 years ago that I graduated. I have never had a paying job since. I could not manage my stay in Nairobi. I moved to the cool rural. The rural is a good nurse to a hurting soul. No song sings of committing suicide when youth hood dreams are not achieved. Kazana, siku yaja, patience is encouraged. I have been able to successfully start an organization committed to archiving pedigree knowledge through research and championing community libraries. I am a community organizer to the Maragoli Hills restoration initiative. All on volunteer basis. I am a diarist, ten years next year, a therapy for every evening I open my door and enter to write, some zilizopendwa in the background. It goes late without sleep for there is much to do daily. Baraka Mwinshehe asked the world what the secret to sleep was….siri ya usingizi ni mwanamke…then instruments. Lakini naogopa!

Part C was to write about the musicians. I do not know which angle to assume on that. My age does not provide a social basis of knowing them well and there are no real time archives to read about them. Therefore I will write something to do with their going against the drain. And I will take my father as a representative of them all. Hello dad! How are you today? Yesterday was Fathers’ Day. I wrote it in my diary. But I could not lift my phone to call you. Mbona? And why couldn’t you call, as a father? Silence.

A man with a breakless bicycle. Indication of long service of wear and tear. Pic by Jason Florio

It reaches a time when nothing appears to be going well. When an assumed state of comfort is no longer ease to be in. These are moments of reflection. Music that used to interest you no longer does. The sounds a choke to the ear. The repetition a nag. You wish for silence.

After instruments comes silence. Retirement. Hanging up the guitar. That is Part C.

It is as a by the way that I had returned mom’s call and she told me of my father’s soon retirement apart from her ailing legs. Both news sank my heart. 1980, the year of our Lord is when my father was employed in an Indian Factory, in the busy industrial area (indastreria was how we used to pronounce). Pictures of him then have an afro on his head, huge black speck by the eyes, a dark top moustache, in others he holds a radio in his hand while squatting, a well-fitting coat to rhyme with the broadening trousers of the times as they touched the high soled leather shoes. Kabaka, when he used to smell good cologne from a woman, he is said he used to walk down River Road in clean cut suspended trousers, white in colour. He was a lover of good looks. And he could hardly be refused by a woman. Thinking of  my father in that way gave me strength, him coming home from Nairobi gave me happiness…but him coming to stay for retirement gives me silence.

None of the Zilizopendwa musicians took anything worthwhile back home from the city than their names. I can imagine the old radio by the bedside. The old phoenix bicycle… what else? The bicycle is to zilizopendwa as the beetle is to the hall of fame. A bag of a few clothes will follow. And my father will have been done with Nairobi by only a single move. All of them tied on the bicycle carrier. If I were him, I think, I would have, for the fun of a lifetime, I would cycle from Nairobi to the rural, 400+ kilometers away. I would buy several cells from the little retirement package, check on the bicycle tires and one fine early morning, going round the whole of Dandora phases he has lived all along, listen to zilizopendwa as I tell the block plots, markets, corners, junctions, vehicles and friends, breathing for the last time around…. Sweet Goodbye.

Stories he has told us. Of Salim, Ben and others. How they left the city in hearses. Corpses. Or seriously ill of questionable diseases. He used to tell my mother in a hidden gem that she could only be the cause, not him. He was fit and chaste, only something else to take his life. People he used to work, live, drink and share with. People he used to give letters and money to bring to my mother then when postal letters were opened and money stolen. And we would keep waiting at month end due to the increased anxiety of my mother for a message from good papa. Sometimes it was delivered. Sometimes it was half delivered. Sometimes the sent person disappeared with the money. It was that when they used to meat they could talk about who was travelling up country. And a friend could speak of a friend who was going. And by faith the letters given in that channel. Silence!

It will be good that he therefore puts his radio on high volume as he travels back home and not silent in the bag, a bed up on the bus carrier. Silence is not good. He should try even to reach at Nakuru and celebrate the effort. For his diabetic condition may not allow him further strain. He used to take in lots of sugar and his teeth are mostly gone. Exercises kept him fit. For all those years he has used a bicycle to and from work. From Dandora to cross Jogoo road. Up Likoni road. I am not sure of the exact industry for the times I was passionate to know about them he had feigned excuses. I wanted to know where my father works. I wanted him to feel proud of my visit. Did he not pride about he had a bright son in the University? But he was like Sigalame, living in Bungoma. And I hold the workplace and hiss efforts in contempt. Seen but what he does, he knows himself.

Fast forward, I can imagine him settled at home, stories of the city slowly ending. At first he shall keep touch, always with calls. Then he shall settle to churching on Sundays. He shall be getting news of his one or two friends being buried or already buried. With no electric power yet at the home, he shall have no full privilege to play music on the radio. Even if I was quickly blessed with finance, as his wishes are that he has schooled children and he expected them to excel in their searches and look after him, getting a full time television program of zilizopendwa won’t provide the warmth. Something better will be his need. After instrumentals the song falls…and there is silence!

Is there need to turn over the cassette? Or Part D; Zilizopendwa will tell. Though not soon... not without after maddening silence from the the sounds of gold that sound no more. It is the sound of silver in the meantime...