LONDON MISTRESS

On that beautiful day, the sun had risen, the sky was clear and the day was growing. Beside that tree the sun, now a dazzling shiny silver ball daggling like a ball loose on a string while heating the lands with an increasing momentum, David Rono was seated. Besides him was his brand new Robot Bluetooth music player. From its speaker smoothly playing was Chelele’s brand new song featuring another kamba artist, a feature union Rono was still far from content with. He wanted the song to be purely in kalenjin, a language he treated with a lot of care and respect like a new born. It was playing on his favourite radio station, chamgei fm. He would wonder at times whether its waves were still spreading far and abroad across the world. It was during this sequence of activities that Rono saw a pop up notification on his brand new huawei smartphone. A gadget he adored. After carefully entering the password, he read the text message with alot of delicacy, word after word, line after another until he completed the whole text. After that tears rolled down his cheeks from the edges of his eyes where they had accumulated to boundless limits, after struggling to control them like a gentleman, a true kalenjin warrior he was eventually lost the battle to his emotions. David Rono had won a scholarship with a United Kingdom based University after being the best student from his local day school, Kapterer mixed day and boarding community cdf funded secondary school. He was not actually happy with the man who named this school. How would a man in his real senses give a school such a long name? He a concluded at last that it was some kind of madness which had attacked the founding member. Truth was he knew the narrative behind the naming of that school. After the community got fed up with high fees and the distance students trecked daily to the closest national school, his community, with the help of a few educated members of the society decided to build a school. They constructed two makeshift classrooms and registered the school. The form one students, of which Rono was one of them used this makeshift classroom while the other room served the role of a*****e, office and the staff room. How they managed only God knew. The local health extension officer would later note with alot of concern that the school had no toilets and closed it down. It was at this time that a pit latrine was constructed with the help of the local member of County assembly. Later on two new classes were made by the national government constituency development fund with the help of the Member of Parliament. After on the school was given this long name that Rono called madness so as to accommodate the interest of all the parties which were involved in construction of the school. Despite this challenging name bright brains such as Rono would not go to waste as a result of lacking school fees or the long distance to the nearest national school. That evening, just as the sun was sinking to the west, Rono, walking of course with a new style like a leopard ready to pounce led his father’s herd to its pen. He proceeded to his mother’s hut, took his gourd of Mursik and proceeded to his father’s hut. He broke the news to his father with care, just like a man would do on a delicate piece of glass because he knew his father pretty well. On this evening he was a bit lucky because the man was on one of his very best moods. After a long research he would conclude that it was because tea payments had been made after a six months delay. His father being a good farmer who produced one of the best crops had been paid handsomely. "Hello dad" "Don't entertain me while you know very well you lost another cow", Mzee Msumbili understood the only reason his son would have approached him. "It's not that, all the herd is intact" "Then go on, is it one of the cows which is ailing?" he said spitting green tobacco. "It's something different" "Will you go ahead and tell me what what it is or keep me guessing till dinner is ready?" "Okay, this is it. I just got a message that I've won a scholarship for my undergraduate studies in England" "England you said? Is that not where they take our coffee?" "Some of the produce goes there father" "Then they must be jolly good people". Again that confirmed that tea proceeds had been increased. The old man was always complaining about the many cartels involved in the export of the commodity. "They are, I hope I'll be able to blossom well there. Ofcourse with your blessings" "Listen son, I hold nothing against you. If the scholarship will make you a young vibrant indi like Anderson, then you have my blessings". Anderson was an high school teacher and the only well educated person in the area. He possessd a pickup truck which was the talk of the village. It was clear the old man was happy. Rono’s father agreed to help his son go to London to persue his degree in economics in the London school of economics but not after a heated disagreement with his son over a traditional ceremony that he wanted conducted before his son went the the layman’s land. He said that the ceremony would root Rono to his mother land so that when he flew to the new land, a place he had heard a rumour that they were led by a woman called the Queen for quite some time now, he had also heard another rumour that women were allowed to marry men. His son, a full kalenjin would come back home with a degree and marry a local girl. This rumour which had found way into the ears of Mzee msumbili had been brought up by kipkoech, an athlete who had gone to compete in the Glasgow marathon. However what this old man never knew was that his son would actually bed one of those white girls. Kiplagat, Rono’s father contacted his kinsmen, sourced for goats and made preparations for this ceremony. This was of course not without another heated argument with Chebet, Rono’s mother who together with his son were in favour of an holy mass. Having converted and joined the holy Catholic Church, they wanted a priest to say a mass. They were keen followers of their faith and they never wanted to indulge or walk in the ways of tradition by conducting an earthly ceremony. "What do you think will be the use of afew drops of salted water sprinkled on our son". Mzee Msumbili put a resistance. "It's the best we can do, the Lord will take care of him", Chebet knew she would lose the fight anyway. The old man always had his way. "Just believe it, the elders blessed him yesterday and that was enough grace. The rest is upon our ancestors" "Still he needs prayers, the parish priest insisted on it" "Okay, if you insist". Mzee Msumbili gave Chebet her way for the first time in their history in marriage. It was all in the grace of tea payments. That was the only thing that softened his heart. It only happened once in a year. After further consultations with Father Peter koech their parish priest, the father was allowed to carry out the ceremony because it was not that an earthly a ceremony but only a blessing celebration to Rono. While the celebrations were being prepared for, the organisation offering Rono the scholarship had prepared everything, from travel documents, air ticket and accommodation during his period of study together with other privileges that came with the scholarship. He only need to avail himself for his studies, everything from pocket money, tuition fees and books where paid for. Rono had all the reasons to smile and be happy, he would not even sleep waiting for the day he would board the plane and go to London. He anticipated to see white people for he had but only seen only one white man whose organisation had sponsored books and desks to his former school. He would even go and watch Chelsea play against Manchester United, his favourite team. He would see Bruno Fernandes or Rashford score against Chelsea. The only thing he would miss was listening to chamgei fm. He would miss its good music, news bulletin and many more other programmes that were aired in his local dialect, but he also knew that he could stream these programmes live especially with the advancing technology which suppressed her worries. After the ceremony and the christian mass were done, Rono was now ready to leave his village in search of more light. He was a moran who had now been prepared to go and fight in another land, a land very far away from his home and come back with lots of cattle, the only thing and form of wealth acknowledged by his people.