A Tale of a Singing Trip
By Wesonga Robert
When people move into new neighbourhoods or new residential areas, they normally find it appropriate to engage in pass time activities that might help them adapt to the new environments. That is how it happened that when I started living in Maralal, my ambition led me to the imagination that I could be the drama teacher for Lebero Women Group. This is a venture I soon abandoned when my clients refused to see the divide between reality and acting. One of them declared to me that she could not pretend to be mad in one of the skits.
Beni’s inspiration directed him towards pretending to be a music teacher. This is an engagement he went into with such spirit; a spirit that can only match the peace of living in the beauty of the African savannah.
My friend reached the peak of his music coaching venture because of the nature of his country. Blessed to live in this times when treating our leaders with pomp and colour is prime, Ledero Women Group Choir was told to prepare a song for the president who was scheduled to visit the district in a few weeks’ time. Since the president’s visit was of such a high profile, an officer from the Social Services Department in the district was assigned the responsibility of ensuring that all the groups due to perform were well prepared.
Beni’s Ledero Women Group Choir was, as a consequence, assigned to sing in Kiswahili. This was not to be without a complication. The women, through no fault of their own, did not fully understand the dynamics of Kiswahili, although some of them could superficially speak it. Beni decided to compose an appropriate Kiswahili song.
Beni embarked on his duty with vigour and commitment. This had to be a success because he knew well that failure meant he would never get hired again to do a similar job in the district. Within a fortnight, the women exhibited remarkable interest in learning the song. This made Beni wonder why he had initially feared the job. The women’s enthusiasm partly stemmed from the fact that their trainer insisted on the difference between certain words, yet they themselves saw none. For example, they were amused when he told them to say chako, and not shako, or say chakula chako, instead of shakula shako. After lengthy sessions of being trained, the women were ready for the president’s visit.
Three days to the visit, a message of disappointment reached the district. The president would regrettably not come after all. He was scheduled to swear in newly appointed ministers at State House. The women got disappointed and sought to know why their time had been wasted on teaching them the song. Worse, in a language they had no original desire to learn. They demanded to be paid and threatened to stage a protest if this did not happen. To avoid such embarrassment, the District Commissioner promised to make plans to have them travel to Nairobi to perform at State House. This plan succeeded.
In the middle of one night, the women embarked on a journey to Nairobi in a lorry. Coincidentally, the lorry was called HAKI YA MAMA. Eight hours later, clouds of dust endured, and the stinging chill of the night borne, the women arrived at State House in time for the function. When their time to perform reached, the women faithfully went on stage. Donned in their traditional red, blue and yellow, a strip of red ochre around their necks and bedecked in beads, they began to sing:
Wageni wetu, tanawakaribisha
Asante kufika hapa Samburu
Raisi wetu, pole kwa safari.
Unakaribishwa kwetu kwa ukarimu.....
Helplessly, Beni looked on as the faces in the audience got perplexed. Like bad luck which does not promise, Beni had not had the slightest hint that the mistake, if any, would be so ridiculously simple. He had been so concerned with technical matters that he forgot the basic. When the venue of the performance was changed from Maralal to Nairobi, he did not remember to change the words of the song. For the briefest of moments, he wondered how practical that would have been, gauging by the time he had taken to teach the women the song.
As the women left the stage with glowing faces; you could see they believed theirs was a duty fully executed. As for Beni, he realised that what he had feared was happening, and in such spectacular fashion. He had brought the whole district and tribe to disrepute. Nobody would ever hire him again. It was only fitting that he began treating himself like a persona non grata. But for how long?
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