Chicken Crossing by Gideon Chumo! Read it below…

Congratulations Gideon!

Would you like your story to feature here, please send in your work, in word 97-2003 format, and not more than 1200 words to blogs@storymojaafrica.co.ke. We will be awarding one of our readers and contributors every month, so be sure to send in your work or comment on the featured stories.

Do you have any ideas about how to make your weekly reading more fun? Please send your suggestions to juliet@storymojaafrica.co.ketoday. Join us here on Monday for the next batch of stories and be sure to vote for the next Story of the Week.

Chicken Crossing by Gideon Chumo

Farming

At the inception of the chicken century, the sons of men pounced on the farms with obstinate wills and sincere and unyielding ambition. The earth fed greedily on their energies and nourished in ecstasy. They inflated her abdomen until it ruptured and gave birth to a thousand hamlets and wheat fields, a thousand paved roads and muddy paths, a thousand granaries and barnyards and abattoirs and butcheries.

The farms nurtured. They bore fruits and extended to each man an affiliation limited only by his talent, his dexterity, and his enthusiasm and aptitude for labour. For Smokie Joe and his kin, a yearning had been roused and conquered. But for us animals and our kith, life proposed no such promise or connection. We came from the wrong places, the forests, the wilderness; we came strapping, fervent, penetrating and unrefined.

The farms declined our offers and we took refuge back into the woodlands, along water points and underground abodes. We re-organised and cut deals with sons of men. We traded the use of our brute force and our sinewy muscles for food and security. We tilled farms and dragged carriages, we laid eggs and produced milk, and in hushed harassment and aggrieved arrogance, we desired, and endured in quest for our own dream; that we could live in liberty, finally, and rise to welcome life with might and majesty or suchlike simplicity, life could accord.

And there were hard battles and so were sweet victories, fortifying the communal might of the Animal Revolution. We fought and tasted triumphs, tackling a new dream that consumed equality and allegiance as its energy. We were kings, and life was promising, bursting, and blooming. The calves, lambs and chicks of change that would make our generation a cringing, cowering, subdued, and pacific generation had not yet been conceived.

Well, that’s gone with the wind now. It’s an animal dream crushed, and just half a chicken century after the glorious Animal Revolution. Neighbouring farms, earlier on liberated, have been lost back to the descendants of Smokie Joe, who now dominate the landscape with might and power. Ask Dog—never has he felt so servile in his life than to Smokie Joe. He only has to see his pipe on his desk to feel undersized. He has only to smell his cigar and he gets timid like a mare—even now when he looks at his boots, stepping on that the gas pedal, taking us for a ride, so flexible and springy, he feels his heart sinking, as they say, into his paws.

Mine too, that’s why I sometimes plant my chicken shit right inside those boots, accidentally of course, as poetic justice. I guess, it’s those old, biased ‘accepted wisdom’ fed into us as young pups and chicks. Dog has sleepless nights (for our sake) thinking up ways to ruin Smokie Joe without being found out. Perhaps cut the brake cables of his truck, but then, we almost always ride in it and that would spell doom for all of us.

His three boys toil too, on the farm, and the two girls hide in the kitchen, perfecting skills, as plain Janes do (sad but true), being useful only in culinary arts and in housekeeping for what they lack in looks. Smokie Joe has to look at himself in the mirror to know where they got their deficient looks—and perhaps their dexterity. And as the boys hanker after bean-stalk cutes in short-skirts that can’t boil tea, they rust on the shelf. Sometimes at night around the kitchen table, they help the servants shell French beans; their wages, after powder for their dull faces, can’t even keep me in shoelaces, assuming I have shoes. Poor girls! Poor servants! They are just like the rest of us animals.

That’s why Smokie Joe has to run the farm with might and muscle—and only when he’s around. Right now, I bet you, as we drive to town, you wouldn’t find any servants at home. They would have taken a French leave to rave and crave in honour of the free occasion. Last night, when Ol’ Trevor developed complications, and had to be taken to the veterinary clinic, Smokie Joe ordered them to be around, just in case, as he wouldn’t return until this morning, and gave them explicit instructions to stick in the compound. The briefing was enough, we well knew, to insure their immediate departure, all and sundry, as soon as his truck hit the road.

The evening breeze, as sharp as a Somali sword, slices over our heads and we all cower at the back of Smokie Joe’s old truck. It negotiates the bumps and cruises round the hilltop with loud threats of speed. He shifts the gears carefully and peeks at us from time to time, as if we would jump off the truck! He is only met by Ol’ Trevor who, in her mournful eyes, is staring into empty space as she chews the morning’s cud; Dog and Cat are busy quarrelling, as they usually seem to be doing. I am the only one who seems collected and calm, and perhaps the eldest, north of fifty—in chicken years, that is!

A Cattle Crossing poster hangs dejectedly at the bend and it seems to have been written by a drunken monkey. Smokie Joe lights his pipe, and hums to the music from the car stereo.

You’ve been riding
You’ve been riding quite a while, child
(keep on riding, keep on riding)
You’ve been jiving
Like a peacock, that’s your style
(keep on jiving), ooh (keep on jiving)

Smokie Joe puffs his pipe with unembarrassed and contented air, exhaling as if he has summed up the world in a phrase, or perhaps his own world.

Mrs Mabel waves; she’s a senior spinster and neighbour. Smokie Joe has a soft heart towards her, so he pulls to a stop, and they chit-chat. She has lost Daffy again, her favourite nanny-goat, and the only one she has. She peers, from time to time, into the distant bush searchingly, like a starved dog that can’t remember where he had hidden a bone.

Then her peeping eyes of poverty stare at the ‘goodies’ at the back of the truck. The disappointment of their search—perhaps for a goat track that would guide her back to a monarchy of realistic happiness—keeps them wary and cagey. She hadn’t done so well on the farm business, like Smokie Joe, but still retained that matriarchic authority about her. All her suitors were would-be inheritors of large wheat fields, and of course, she had hoped to settle down with one and raise her family on huge plantation tracts with plenty of servants. But man proposed—and woman accepted the proposal, if I am to contrast that ageing maxim modestly.

She leans at Smokie Joe’s half-opened window, but withdraws when the fumes hit her nose. Smokie Joe hums to the radio’s tune.

You’ve been riding quite a while
(keep on riding), keep on, ride (keep on riding)
Ooh, wait till I get my hooks on you
I’ll show you what a fisherman can do

‘Where are you taking my likkle darlings?’ She asks, throwing another generous look at the eggs in the tray.

‘Ol’ Trevor had a miscarriage last night; she has been uneasy all day, so I’m taking her back to the Vet. Nana here has chicken flu. I guess Titi and Toto just hopped along.’

‘Shall I have a tray then, I’ll surely pay you at the end of the week.’ She begs, still gazing expectantly at the tray, her mouth hanging open, wide enough to allow in a swarm of flies. Her pitiful eyes are dramatic, they are always so lively and gay, and explains why she almost always get away with every bout of begging. Today she forgot her eyeglasses and obviously didn’t apply her sun-repellent lotion in her anxiety, and light has starved the rosy dimples in her cheeks and depressed the lilied tint of her face, to give a shade blacker than Daffy’s coat.

Smokie Joe grudgingly lifts a tray and hands over to her—an example of his ‘widow and ol’ spinster’ charity—loving his crooked neighbours with his crooked heart.

‘But you can have it for keeps,’ he changes his mind, ‘if you ride alongside me, of course. I won’t be long. That way, we can come and look for your nanny together.’ And he puts his hands at the side pockets of his dungaree, exaggerating his manliness.

‘But, but…’ She blushes, and starts drawing sketches on the dashboard. Perhaps Smokie Joe has inspired poetic imagination in her, but they are only some knick-knacks of writing, such as a baby with an author’s pen might make for idleness or for practice

She gives in, in spite of herself, and opens the front door, enters and sits, in her queenly grace.

Smokie Joe is being sensible because he knows she won’t pay back, that easy, for that tray—they almost never repay! He has lost four shrewd neighbours for good by loaning them money and hoping they’d keep their word; they keep his money instead! He assumes they feel he doesn’t miss his money. He expects them to feel embarrassed, as he would have, if they did not repay him. Still, he was not about to lose another by refusing her a ‘tray’ loan.

Smokie Joe winds the side window for her and hits the road, cruising softly, as before. He throws us a distant look, increases the volume in the car stereo and settles to smoke his ‘eternal’ pipe. He whistles to the lyrics.

At Christmas, more like an Easter bunny
Just like a rabbit, you’re always on the run
But wait till I get my trap on you
I’ll see where you gonna run to
Wait till I get my trap on you
Then I’ll see where you gonna run to

‘That shong ish about Mishis Mabel.’ Dog suggests, lifting his ears as if to listen to the lyrics.
‘You have more fur than brains!’ Cat teases Dog, ‘And more foolishness than fur!’
‘You have more wormsh than shtomach.’ Dog retorts.
‘More fur than intelligence? I love that.’ Cow agrees.

‘Lishten to me you shilly gooshe.’
‘Why must I listen? I know who ate Mrs Mabel’s Bunny, last Christmas!’
‘Thish ish no time for bloody nonshenshe, it ish sherioush.’
‘When you want somebody to listen it ish sherioush.’ Cow joins, imitating the lisping Dog.
‘Cow never know de ushe of him tail till de butcher cut it off!’ Dog digresses, hitting at Cow.
‘Let sleeping dogs lie.’ The cow challenges back.
‘Every dog hash hish day!’ Dog balances the battle of puns.

‘That’s why you have more hair than intelligence!’ Cat goes on.
‘If the cover of the shalt shaker hides the shalt, then it ish more than the shalt. And sho the hair that coversh my intelligence ish more than the brainsh, for the lessh cannot hide the greater.’ Dog justifies himself.

‘Miaw.’

‘Moo.’

‘Bow-wow.’

They go talking about origins, that the ancient line of his great grandfather was descended from the very Dog that Ceausescu had seated in the House of Senate, with full ranks of a Comrade and even saluted by other Comrades.

‘Each day you tell that fairy-tale, you find different ways to tell it, different crap to spice it up.’ Cat sneers.

‘I’m shpicing up nothing. I’m telling you the factsh of my genealogy. They imported bishcuit from Harrods for my anceshtor, and delivered through the Romanian Embasshy in London. We were kingsh!’

‘But the trouble is—no liberty! A hungry dog believesh in nothing but meat.’ He muses dreamily but wakes up at once! ‘It’sh the shame with me—I can think of nothing but liberty.’

They roar rumbustiously with laughter at their dull dry jokes, but Doggy dries a tear when Cat informs him about the death of her kitten, and stretches, yawns, sighs, and groans like any other Dog with a rendezvous at the back of his mind. He then pokes his head against the railing of the truck unconsciously, and begins to pant, mechanically lolling out his tongue.

‘Why is it that,’ Cat asks, ‘dogs always feel a sweet sensation when they poke out their heads out of car windows?’

‘Like in Bolt? He watches too much TV and Bolt!’ Cow suggests, and they all go into giving opinion about our favourite character, Bolt.

The air is electric and crunching and shouting out with opinions, and they pretend they have some. Each one of us animal has opinions to give, and they are demanded in return. They misinterpret my absence of opinion as opinion.

Smokie Joe doesn’t shout at us to stop the incessant noise, but instead, he increases the volume in his stereo.

Ooh-ooh
Old Mr. Joe, he build a house away
On top of some hill
Old Mr. Joe knew he had to go, so he
He got right down and wrote bank will
He say now, here’s to Mother Hen
And her Chicken, Lord have mercy now

‘Why not perfect your acting shkills by watching more Tom and Jerry?’ Dog says to Cat, after Bolt’s intelligence is ridiculed. ‘What a shtray Cat! You shall go back to the shtreets where all condemned catsh live!’

‘Shut up, Doggy, you can’t! You haven’t the invention of a cockroach! Can you fast for a week with bran and water?’ Cat asks.

‘Yesh, and alsho pray for a month with moushe and pigeon.’ Replies Dog.

‘Sshh!’ I warn, ‘when Chicken merry, Hawk de near! Why don’t you be reasonable like Ol’ Trevor here?’ I plead.
‘Shut up, you, chicken heart! Don’t you know that a totally reashonable cow is alwaysh pregnant and calving, haha!’ Dog teased.
‘Calves are a blessing from Taurus!’ Trevor could hardly restrain herself.
‘Well, Taurus can have the pupsh and bitchesh back!’ Dog went on.

Master, will you take a roll in the mud
Like you know you should?
The old barnyard, the old barnyard
Birds and the Chicks, ooh-wee
Who’s got to watch out for Brother Mongoose
With his top hat and walking-stick?

The truck speeds past the mulberry plantation that is even mentioned in the encyclopaedia.

It’s just the poor’s brain washing
(Poor’s …) They told me a long time ago,
It’s just the poor’s brain washing, ooh-wee
(Poor’s brain washing) Now look at a thing like this

At the Zebra Crossing, we meet Mini, Dog’s half-sister, wobbling in the mud-spattered pot-holed section of the road with the energy levels of a starving village mongrel. Smokie Joe slows down, to let her get out of the road. He becomes impatient and gives a deafening hoot for the silly bitch to get out of the way. She doesn’t. She has recognised Ol’ Trevor and is barking madly, coming towards the truck. We make telepathic noise and even Smokie Joe recognises her in his smoky mind.

‘Be careful now, ol’ un!’ Mrs Mabel warns.

He gets out of the car and hoists her to the back of the truck. He is so mechanical, he doesn’t even think about it. In a while, we are riding once again like before, him curiously blowing smoke into the air like a Victorian steam locomotive.

Cinderella and her long lost fellow
In the midnight hour, she lost her silver slipper
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
While Jack and Jill had themselves a fall

Dog breaks the pregnant silence in an actor’s voice. ‘Forgive me my shweet lady, but I haven’t had chanche to shay “hidy dey do’’ to you.’ He tries to kiss Mini’s paw but she pulls it away.

‘Spare me Doggy; I am not in the mood for nonsense. If I permit you to kiss my paw you’ll be yearning for my elbow next, then my shoulder!’ She was offended.

‘Oh, you won’t return my compliment becaushe you are not in the mood. Oh, the logic of bitchesh! Come to think of that, I never have liked bitchesh; I could do without their shillinessh! Thank God I’m no daughter of a bitch! Mutton dresshed as lambsh! Jusht to shee one in the dishtance getsh me horny. My shaliva shtarts pouring with rage.’

‘You can’t touch us, Doggy, we are the emancipated bitches. ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL! No more incest! How can children be fathers of their own brothers? We can’t be the very same to our mothers who bore us! To be son and husband—the very same who mount their father’s beds still wet with their mother’s milk! What inglorious shamelessness?’ Mini sounds seriously disturbed.

‘All animalsh are equal but shome of ush are more equal.’ Dog adds, looking greedily at Mini’s shy tits, like he never turned down a third course of any meal.

‘Your depraved psychosis will plague this land. O thunderbolts, where art thou? But what use for the thunder? O precious villain!’ Mini swears, but she knows, as much as I do, that her trepidation to bring down a piece of the sky is only a vacant boasting. That’s the noble office for my husband, for when he crows early in the morning, the sky and Sirius star obeys him and comes out of the sky, and dawns listens to his crows. For Doggy, Smokie Joe’s leash is enough.

It’s just the poor’s (… brain washing)
And I don’t need it no longer (… washing)
It’s just the poor’s brain washing
Coming through to a poor man’s child, ooh-wee, look at this

Smokie Joe slams the brakes so hard and abruptly. The truck jerks. Swerves from the left. Swings to the right. My chicken heart comes to my beak and I shake. And before we know it, we have hit a nanny goat, and on a Cattle Crossing sign! She now lies in a pool of blood, kicking the last kicks of dying horse—nanny, before finally succumbing to her internal injuries.

Baa, baa black sheep. Baa baa have you any wool? Baa…dead!

‘Oh my Living God!’ Cries Mrs Mabel. It’s her lost Daffy.

But Smokie Joe only gets out of the truck to asses the damage on his bumper. Then comes behind the truck and curses at the careless number of eggs that has broken. Throws us his meanest looks, but never for once ask us how we are feeling, he just goes back to his steering wheel, trying to restart the stalled old truck. My feathers are still ruffled.

‘You killed her!’ Mrs Mabel stares disbelievingly at her favourite nanny. ‘Only you Smokie Joe, can do this! Told you to drive slowly, didn’t I?’ She gives him a ‘didn’t-I-tell-you’ look, but obviously knows its futility. Even Mrs Columbus with her cold shoulder couldn’t have prevented her husband from that carelessness of going out to sea and discovering America.

‘Why do goats keep crossing these roads so slowly?’ Smokie Joe keeps swearing. ‘Why can’t they learn like the dogs?’ Something occurs to him, and suddenly he seems so surprised, finally, although I didn’t see anything about the death of a nanny goat on the road that went beyond the bounds of the ordinary. His eyes look away from where Daffy lies, as though he had thoughts to hide. His pipe shakes for once in his lower lip.

The dead nanny lies, as dead nannies always do, in a uniquely dreary monochrome, her rigid limbs slouched in the rough tarmac, with the head forever bowed to the yellow sign. Her pallid brow with bare patches over her depressed eye-socket had been re-organised by the screeching tyres. The ears had subdued, and in the way typical to the dead, the jutting muzzle seemed to compress the almost popped out tongue.

She had transfigured divinely and had grown even fatter since I last saw her, but, as is always the case with the dead; her countenance was more composed and above all more venerable than when she lived. The dead still looked peaceful—never mind if Orwell got terrified by dead humans he saw when he was supposedly shooting down rogue elephants. The appearance on Daffy’s face testified against it, and added that, what was crucial in her life had been consummated, and done properly with a nanny’s dignity.

Further more, there was in that dignified expression, a caution and a counsel to the living. This reproach, however, seemed an afterthought—don’t cross the road carelessly—or, as I felt, it was an out of place thing, at least not for my kind. We all stood there, paying our deepest last respects and feeling an assured discomposure, even Mrs Mabel hurriedly crossed herself once more, turned, opened and slammed the truck door— too hurriedly, and too disregarding of all her queenly decorum. I think she was oblivious or just too hysterical to care.

‘Why do they keep crossing the road like they were going to a wedding ceremony?’ Smokie Joe kept cursing, even after the truck had jump-started, and his music filled the mourning air.

Little Miss Muffet she sat on a tuffet
While Little Red Riding Hood
Delivered her grandmom’s food
Ooh-wee ooh-wee
Ooh-wee, look at one more thing like this
The Cow jumping over the moon
While the Dish got jealous,
He grabbed the Handy Spoon

Yes, why indeed, were our kind—goats, sheep, cows, chicken, dogs and cats—dying on the roads day by day, in spite of the Zebra Crossings? The Cattle Crossings? Ol’ Trevor has the explanation, she read it somewhere in the Animal Farm Chronicles. Hearing the story from her would be like hearing the theory of relativity from Einstein himself.

A few chicken centuries ago, our ancestors shared a cab home after an evening out. At their destination, Cow paid her fare in full amount. That’s why she crosses the road majestically, gracefully, or sometimes, at her choosing, even doesn’t get out of the road at all, for she owes no one, nothing. Furthermore, she has a Cattle Crossing sign specially designated for her kind.

Goat paid half-amount, is why she moves out, but quite reluctantly, because she has to—she still owes a half-much!

But watch the dog as he crosses the road—always too fast! For he paid nothing! He’s on the wanted list, and drivers don’t get to hit him much too often because he darts like a female lizard being chased by her mate. He’s guilty. He’s afraid.

It’s just the poor’s brain washing
And I don’t need it no longer, I don’t want it no longer
I don’t need it no longer (…washing)
And I don’t care for no more brain washing (… washing) …

Cow’s anxious eyes, still reeling from her personal loss, and now this, drift damply inside her yawning dark sockets; semi-cloaked by stern upper lids and weighed down heavily by bushy white brows. Deep furrows fan out from the soggy corner, stretch past the muzzle, and suddenly she puffs up her nose and licks at her snotty mouth.

Her old gaze is straight ahead, but at what? Perhaps at nothing. Some imperceptible target. Some parting point of exodus. I feel for her, it has to be the crossing business. Her kind has to learn the hard way. Even Chameleon learns to run faster when the forest is on fire. She stops chewing. She shakes her head as if to say this isn’t her head she has right now—something that used to belong to Shrek or Nemo.

The sun plays hide and seek with the fluffy clouds and genially swathes the oriental sky with an ornate layer of gold. We are heading back to the farm from the Vet. I’ve witnessed two more road carnages. The last one was a chick, barely a year old (in chicken years)! Where are Chicken Crossing signs, before all chicken are wiped out from the face of the road? Scattered like locusts all over the railway track and crushed to death in hundreds by passing trains? Bewildered creatures that will one day rise up in swarms from their graves and curse, ‘we never took a ride in your cab, yet you buried us by the roadside! Woe unto you?’

Who will run up against a hit-and-run truck that even after hitting you, keep on going and a-going and it won’t stop till the day Sirius hits Planet Mongo? Good thing, when I am done for, the wheel has run over me, I will have no reason to get anxious about the future. Death is just an old comic fool, but every animal sees him in a brand new costume. Until that day when wheels grind me, as I walk under the shadow of death, I will feel no fear, for I shall not be able to find consciousness! The Michelin tyre that would compress my skull down to the tarmac, shall help transport me to Sirius, which with its bluish light, has always caused wonder and terror in my husband’s mind, in fact I think he worships it as a divinity.

©RoundSquare 2008 http://myroundsquare.blogspot.com/

 

Fellows

Moremi Initiative for Women’s Leadership in Africa is pleased to announce its call for applications for the 2010 Moremi Leadership Empowerment and Development (MILEAD) Fellows Program for young African women leaders.

Please note that this is not a full-time fellowship. Selected candidates may remain full time students or work full time for the program duration, except during the 3–week summer institute. The 3-week summer institute is an intensive and full-time residential program and all fellows will be required to attend. The rest of the program involves community-based, online and other distance activities.

Be greedy with resources though it looks late
We have suffered enough, let them feel it,
Africa God gave us, who’re they to enslave us and,
Exploit us, swindle us of our land.

Africa Renaissance is the slogan
Though it looks bleak to attain,
We know that one brick can’t build a house,
Our countries are bricks and Africa’s the house.

As a family, the head is the father
This African house let the head be the mother
And we paint with one brush, paint and one goal
Focus on this task, though the net’s closing the shoal.

Our sovereighnty can see us forward
God’ll smile and make them nobody,
It’s everyone’s duty to build this life,
And busy we must be, like bees in the hive.

Let them come to admire our house at a price
Sweet things come, with death we dice,
They’ll be remorseful to guilty and atonement
Until they pay our debt of which they can’t.

Bruises and scars they inflict on us
Are poignant and indelible to a mass,
If they can give us back our tears
Then Africa will have a new sea for years.
God lives in Africa!!!

]]> http://storymojaafrica.co.ke/main/2010/02/god-lives-in-africa-nixon-mateulah/feed/ 0 http://storymojaafrica.co.ke/main/2010/02/storymoja-blog-advice-for-the-young-writer/ http://storymojaafrica.co.ke/main/2010/02/storymoja-blog-advice-for-the-young-writer/#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:13:21 +0000 Storymoja http://storymojaafrica.co.ke/main/?p=2107 The article below is borrowed from the Internet Writing Journal. It further stresses some of the things that we have discussed here previously. I am quoting it here just to demonstrate the wide resource of good advice and encouragement for the novice writer.

As previously noted, not all advice is good for everyone. So, we would like you to share with us what has worked for you as you find your foothold and then your niche in the writing world. Further, we would like you to tell us what you think we can do to help you in achieving your writing dreams.

Advice for the Young Writer by Alex Keegan

Becoming a good writer of fiction takes a mass of work. You have to read and read and read: the good, the bad, the ugly and the eye-bleeding atrocious, then some more of the OK, and some more of the good, some more of the very good, the classics, the stuff you don’t get first pass, (so read it again) and then you can go back and you’ll see that the OK is pretty bad too.

Foothills of Mt. Everest

It takes a minimum of three years’ full time study, or 7-10 years of part-time study to get a university degree. Becoming a writer is harder! I think it was Ray Bradbury who said we need to write at least a million words just to make it to the foothills. Seems like a lot? Not really. 3,000 words a day for a year or 1,000 words a day for three years and you’re home free. What d’you mean it sounds tough? It IS tough!

A writer is someone who on waking, always thinks, “Now how will I find the time today to write?” If you start writing every day and it becomes a habit, something which gets into your blood. If thirty days down the line the habit is set, then you’re a writer, and you’ll get there twice as fast as the six-day-a-week writer, ten times as fast as the weekdays only one. Exercise the writing muscles, exercise the soul, become pixel dependent.

Write about things that energise you, that make you buzz, get angry, get sad, emote over. Write about things with weight, meaning, a point. Don’t be glib or trite, or clichéd, don’t re-write Asimov or Chandler, write yourself, be brave, and while you’re writing your million words, don’t think you have to write LIKE anyone. You are a true original. Think originally.

And when you want me to believe you, paint me pictures, let me see the pain without having it explained. Understand what the pundits mean by show not tell, or better, understand my own term, seduction not instruction. And if you don’t understand it, work until you do.

Most importantly, forget plot, let characters do it for you. This always freaks the younger writer (especially since most are first attracted to the genres, such as Science Fiction, where ideas and plot appear more important. They’re not. What people remember are people, situations, emotions, character, so be brave, imagine your characters, put them in a spot and let them get out of it.

Think about language, style, flow and lyricism. There are great writers with ordinary styles and there are “stylists” who bore the pants off us. Nevertheless, mastering how words work musically and phonetically as well as semantically can give you an extra level of power and set you apart.

Learn about good dialogue, how it is NOT like real speech but artificially creates the illusion of everyday speech. Learn to hone dialogue and read great writers of dialogue — I love Elmore Leonard for this.

I’ve said already, read, read, read, read, read, and we know we must write, write, write; but don’t forget submissions! Submitting our work after it’s had time to settle and then has been seriously reworked is one of the most overlooked essentials to becoming a writer. You write to be read. If you aren’t writing to be read stop now and go do something else. To be read means getting published, and to get published you have to get rejected, and rejected and rejected, tens, hundreds even thousands of time.

The above is an excerpt from British Crime and Literary Fiction Author Alex Keegan’s article Advice for the Young Writer at the Internet Writer’s Journal.

And now to this week’s readings.

We begin with another debate. Working Mother – Adam vs Eve: In a perfect world where everything comes easy and life is good and has no hardships, mothers should indeed not have to work. They should stay at home and take care of their children.

Then we have a little love in the air. Love Note – Rayhab Gachango: “I don’t want to hear anything from you. Go get packed now. Let me deal with that villager. He will know who is playing with. I am going to have him arrested right now. No one touches my daughter. No one.’’ After saying that Mr Mbae stormed out.

Lastly, we have Chicken Crossing – Gideon Chumo: He has only to smell his cigar and he gets timid like a mare—even now when he looks at his boots, stepping on that the gas pedal, taking us for a ride, so flexible and springy, he feels his heart sinking, as they say, into his paws.

The winner by vote is Spilt Milk by Stephen Mwangi Ichungwa! Read it below.

But Spilt Milk has to share the limelight with the post that generated the most debate. Blogging in Kenyan Schools by Marvin Tumbo

Congratulations Writers!

Would you like your story to feature here, please send in your work, in word 97-2003 format, and not more than 1200 words to blogs@storymojaafrica.co.ke. We will be awarding one of our readers and contributors every month, so be sure to send in your work or comment on the featured stories.

Do you have any ideas about how to make your weekly reading more fun? Please send your suggestions tojuliet@storymojaafrica.co.ke today. Join us here on Monday for the next batch of stories and be sure to vote for the next Story of the Week.

Spilt Milk by Steve Mwangi Ichungwa

The milk sprayed into the bucket with a sound like rain on a tin roof. Kamau pressed his forehead on the warm flank of the cow as his fingers squeezed the milk out of the swollen udder and thought about nothing. It was quiet in the cowshed, this early in the morning. The sun was still below the horizon somewhere, but the birds had started chirping meaning that the sunrise would soon be along. The sound the milk made in the bucket thickened as it filled up.

“Boo!”

Kamau jumped. The cow fidgeted and turned its head to look at him. Jamo, Kamau’s elder brother was standing behind him, an amused look on his face. He had crept up from somewhere. Kamau turned around on his stool to face him.

“Don’t do that,” Kamau said, annoyed. “What if the milk spilt?”

“Stop being such a wuss, boy,” Jamo said, laughing now. “Where is father?”

“In the house. You should leave. If he finds you here it’ll be shit for both of us. More for me because I live here. I get all the flak.”

“Don’t worry about the old man. I wanted to remind you about this evening. You will show up, right?”

Kamau turned back to the cow. He rested his forehead on the flank again and milk continued streaming into the bucket. The froth looked like detergent suds.

“I will think about…,” Kamau started.

“You will show up,” Jamo cut in. “Because you hate it here. You hate that you are a farmhand in your father’s house. You hate it that you know he will never see you differently.”

Kamau squeezed a teat too hard and the cow bucked. If its hind legs were not bound it would have surely kicked the bucket over. What Jamo said was true. Their father was a hard man who liked controlling his family. Their mother was a browbeaten wisp of a woman who crept around in her husband’s shadow. Jamo was the rebel. And this rebellion had cost him his place in the family. Their father had disowned him and sent him away. Jamo, always an enterprising young man, was now a matatu driver in Murang’a town. He was also known, by a select few, as the leader of the local Mungiki cell.

“I’ll come,” Kamau said.

“Good boy!” Jamo ruffled his brother’s head and disappeared like smoke in the wind.

The bucket was full and Kamau carried it and the stool back towards the house. He met his father on his way back from the latrine. A grunt that passed as ‘good morning’ came from his father. Kamau said nothing. He went into the kitchen and placed the bucket of milk on the old table at the corner. He got the jerry cans and the funnel out of the cupboard and prepared to fill them from the bucket. His father, sipping a tea from a tin cup, slammed his hand on the table. Kamau jumped. Too many people creeping up on him in too short a time.

“How many times do I have to tell you…” he started, “…to rinse the jerry cans out before you fill them? You useless boy!”

“I rinsed them last night,” Kamau said.

His father was not impressed.

“Do it again! You don’t know what has been crawling around in this kitchen your mother can’t keep clean. Do you think I want to be known as the man who provides dirty milk? Rinse them!” The old man walked out of the room, muttering under his breath about having being cursed with mentally retarded family.

***

The evening was cold as the initiates stood in a line by the riverbank. There were eight of them, all from the same neighbourhood plus a couple of guys that Kamau did not recognize. The shopkeeper’s son was there, as was the carpenter’s son, a burly lout who drank too much and a few other men that Kamau had gone to high school with. They were all shivering, despite the heavy jackets and sweaters they all wore. Someone lit a cigarette and it was passed down the line, muttered words of gratitude breaking the heavy silence.

Jamo appeared from the bushes on the opposite side.

“I see sheep,” he proclaimed. “Do they want to become men?”

“Yes,” the line mumbled. Someone finished off the cigarette and tossed it into the slow moving river.

“I am not convinced, ”Jamo said mockingly. “Do you want to become men?”

“Yes!” More energy this time.

“Then shed your coverings and cross to the other side. Leave your boyhood behind forever and become the master of your destiny. I call unto you. Come!”

One by one, they shed their clothing and plunged into the shockingly cold water in their underwear. Two men had appeared next to Jamo. One held a flywhisk and the other a clay pot. As each shivering individual passed them, the man with the whisk plunged it into the pot and smacked it across their backs. It smelled foul.

The initiates were herded into a little clearing behind the bushes lining the bank. A goat was tied to a stake in the ground. They were instructed to sit in a circle. Jamo produced a large knife and went over to stand by the goat.

“A sacrifice,” he intoned solemnly, “to the one true God: Mwene Nyaga.” His assistants grabbed the goat and lay it on its side. A small sufuria was placed under its throat.

Kamau looked his brother. What the hell was this? What had his brother become? Jamo was the most untraditional man he knew and his role in this ceremony struck Kamau as fake, plastic even. Jamo did not believe in the one true God, and if he did it certainly wouldn’t be Mwene Nyaga. They had been raised Christian, good Anglicans who went to church every Sunday and paid tithe. So, again, what the hell was this? He knew one of the assistants; he was a tout in Murang’a town. They were not priests of some ancient religion, trying to maintain tradition in the face of modernity. They were kawaidaguys, just like him. This whole ritual initiation shit was a front for what Kamau knew all along was a gang. A regular criminal gang. A guffaw threatened to burst from his lips.

The goat had been slaughtered and the entrails removed. The initiates were asked to strip naked. Kamau, having seen the light, flatly refused. This was not what he had in mind when Jamo, a week ago, had told him about the benefits of being a member. Jamo had painted a picture of money and freedom, a life unencumbered by parental influence. Kamau would be a man, Jamo had said, free to find his own path in life.

“Take off your clothes, brother,” said Jamo now, his face a black mask of anger. “You of all people will not embarrass me.”

“I will not,” Kamau said calmly. The bloodstained knife in his brother’s hand struck a deep terror somewhere in his psyche but he outwardly he was calm. “This is not right.”

“You want to be a man, little brother? Do you want to be a man? Because this -” Jamo indicated at the pathetic form of the goat, lying in a puddle of its own blood and shit, “- is the only way.”

“Then I will take my chances,” Kamau said as he stood up. “I am going home.”

The punch was hard and Kamau was taken completely by surprise. He found himself face down on the cold grass, a throbbing pain in his left cheek and the large bloody knife pressed against the back of his neck. Kamau went numb, whether from shock or from the cold he couldn’t figure. He closed his eyes and imagined the ground his head was pressed against was the warm flank of the cow. He understood milking. It was so simple; don’t pinch, squeeze. Not like this complicated sample of real life. Kamau decided that, given the choice, he would rather be his father’s serf.

“Are you a man or a goat?” Jamo asked. “Because you know what happens to goats.”

Kamau, still imagining his head pressed against the warm cow, remembering how simple life actually was, said, “Baa-aa.”

© Steve Mwangi Ichungwa 2010

“Hello I am Betty Muragori.”

“Hello, I am John, and I am Luo!”

This happened to the poet Sitawa Namwalie in America when she excitedly greeted another Kenyan she met for the first time. She asked him why he had bothered to mention his tribe and he answered that she introduced herself with her tribe and that’s why he did the same. He had heard “Maragoli”, a Luyha sub-tribe instead of “Muragori.”

This is how Sitawa Namwalie began the “Cut off My Tongue” public performance and discussion by Storymoja held on the 26th January at Dass Restaurant in Westlands.

The poetry production based on her collection of poetry has been staged at different venues in Nairobi since July 2008. So far there have been over 20 performances in Kenya, and it even went international: for a staging last May at the Hay Festival in the UK and theatres in London.

‘Cut Off My Tongue’ is a one-of-a-kind show that incorporates spoken narrative, music, dance and movement. The show addresses contemporary issues in Kenya such as the above-mentioned sensitive topic of ethnicity, as well as corruption, colonialism, love, and identity. Individual poems form interrelated stories that explore different aspects of life from universal themes to more intimate recollections.

The performance gave a convincing account of how we Kenyans don’t accept that we are ‘tribalist’, and yet we talk about what percentage of ‘our’ people are in cabinet, what percentage in our place of work and in other sectors.  It delves into how we Kenyans blame our bad habits on colonialists and refuse to accept responsibility for our three main vices: Tusker Lager, women and land. Well, the colonialists don’t escape fault either. They are the ones who taught us the importance of land, Sitawa says: “the irrational passion that we kill for.”

The poems also mock our “Commission of Enquiry” tradition, and our leaders who use words carelessly and later talk about being ‘mis-quoted’. One heavily satirical piece shows how we are so used to dis-service from public officials that when we get good service we get utterly shocked. Sitawa comments on Kenyans’ silence even when our land is grabbed, when our leaders lie, and our people starve and die.

And why do we still maintain foreign traditions? The poems force us to ask ourselves. Like names, why don’t we use our African names? Do we first have to go abroad and get in touch with our “African-ness”? Sitawa argues that since we have lost our names, we have lost our identity, and thus lost our history.

The other lively part of the evening was the discussion that followed the performance. A lady in a pink top told of how Kenyans get surprised when she uses her African name because they are used to certain common African names like Muthoni, Njeri and Adhiambo. “Beautiful names exist in the country and they are yet to be discovered,” she said. She and Sitawa both shared the experience of having people think their names are South or West African because they are not used to hearing Kenyan names.

A young woman seated at the front challenged Sitawa and Storymoja to stage the performance in many other places in Kenya, especially areas that were greatly affected by the 2007-08 post-election violence. She argued that “Cut Off My Tongue” should be staged for the economically disadvantaged who, in her opinion, are more gullible, easily swayed by the politicians, and who executed most of the violence.

However, a young man seated near her disagreed. “Maybe we the ‘educated’ did not pick a panga and kill someone, but it was the upper classes that financed the violence” he said.

An elderly lady named Nyabonyi agreed with the young man, saying at her age she held tribal stereotypes, even against her friends, and yet she was very educated and mature. “The hate was very strong at that time and we are all guilty.” She added: “For little gain we compromised our values!”

“How about showing it to the politicians?”  A serious lady in loop earrings asked. A young man in a black suit agreed. He said he found the show to be very informative and entertaining but he would have loved to see what happened in 2007 from both sides of the issue. “Yes there was violence, but it happened because of a flawed election!” he argued. “The violence also happened across the board and not just in Rift Valley.”

There were also calls to stage the performance in vernacular to reach all audiences, as the message is important. Sitawa assured us that there are plans to have the book translated into Kiswahili soon.

The crowd was not all Kenyan; an Ethiopian lady urged Kenyans to be positive about their achievements. She said there are some countries where you cannot write or perform such candid poetry and live to see another verse. “We are not all guilty of tribe,” she added. “Tribe can be looked at positively, for example, the poems about names.”

Sitawa agreed and said that in the 80’s, Kenyans were not allowed to criticize their government in any way and thus we should celebrate the democratic space we are in.

Kalahari, an internet-based sales company, dubbed the “Amazon of Africa”, sponsored the performance.

The “Cut Of My Tongue” cast includes the poet Sitawa Namwalie, better known as Betty Wamalwa Muragori. When not writing poetry, she is a consultant on development, gender and environmental issues. Other cast members are Muthoni Garland (who does a hilarious rendition of a female politician), Ogutu Muraya, Shan Bartley, and Lilian Amimo Olembo, who also is also the choreographer. They were accompanied by a drummer and flute-player.

A bespectacled guy praised Storymoja for the production, which he said was a mirror for our society. He urged us to continue the good work, which we definitely will. Every last Thursday of every month Storymoja will have a similar thought-provoking event at Dass. Next month we are planning an exciting evening of story telling, so be there! Watch this space for details.

Cut off my Tongue on stage

How to Apply Criticism and Not Lose Your Mind by Merrilee Faber

Weighting criticism

Weight Criticism

No, that’s not a typo.  “Weighting”, in scientific terms, means giving certain data points more weight than others.  It’s something you should definitely do with critiques, as not all critiques are equal.

I usually weight using the following formula.

1. Agree completely with the comment

Number 1 should be obvious; sometimes you read a comment and go “duh”.  It’s your story; have faith in your intuition to guide you towards the right answer.  Just be wary of the dratted ego.  It doesn’t matter who the comment is from; if it’s right, it’s right.

2. Comment from someone whose writing I admire

If I get a comment from someone whose work I have read and who I think is a good writer, I will give it solid consideration, even if I initially disagree with the comment.

3. Comment from someone who writes/reads in my genre, but I don’t know

If I know the critiquer is familiar with the genre of the story, I will give their comment more weight than, say, a person who only reads romance.  All genres have their tropes, and someone familiar with the genre will be more likely to notice relevant issues, rather than raising comments that don’t apply to that genre.

4. Other comments

But just because someone doesn’t read/write in my genre, doesn’t mean they can’t make a pointed and accurate analysis.

5. Comments that induce blank confusion or homicidal rage

You will always get comments like these.  Read them, say thank you, then tuck them away in a separate file.  Don’t delete them though; they are deserving of a second read through at a later date, when the ego is not so prominent.  There may be hidden gems in there.

The man and his Goat...

Well, you have spoken, dear readers and fellow writers.

So here, I am very pleased to announce the results of The Man and His Goat Writing Contest:

The Second Runner-up is Paul Kariuki with Samuel Kinyanjui, Sammy to his friends.

The First Runner-up is Peter Nena with The Goat from Hell.

And the winner of The Man and his Goat Picture Prompt Contest is…

Dr. Lukoye Atwoli with his story The Man and his Goat!

Congratulations Dr. Lukoye Atwoli! Please contact me at juliet@storymojaafrica.co.ke to confirm the details of how to get your cash prize to you. Paul Kariuki and Peter Nena, please contact me also to confirm how to get your book to you.

Thank you all for participating, and please look out for a new competition to be posted soon!

Would you like your story to feature in the Story of the Week process? Please send in your work, in word 97-2003 format, and not more than 1200 words to blogs@storymojaafrica.co.ke. We will be awarding one of our readers and contributors every month, so be sure to send in your work or comment on the featured stories.