Memoirs

With Corona virus on the ground and locust plaguing in the sky, it was utter gloom for humanity back then. But even coffins and graves exude a certain kind of beauty, don’t they?  Bad times often bring great opportunities for brisk business, just as war and drought do. Why not, if as the Bard said, “in love and war, all is fair”? The Corona virus, now slowly receding from our memories, visited us with the most vicious force. Yet I was among those who both lost and profited from it, like the sellers of masks, sanitizers, and sarcophagi. I’m not gloating; I profited from love even as I was bereft of it, losing relatives, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, our priest, and so many others who fell to the pandemic. Rest in peace, all of you. When the lockdown came and schools and cities closed, our good government for once in its wisdom, saw sense in affording teachers the coronavirus tax-relief reprieve. Did I hear someone say “Thank you, Uhuru Kenyatta?” Yes, Unye did that. Upon learning of the disposable tax relief, I reached for my phone and dialed Mr. James Mugambi, CEO of Premier Credit and Platinum Credit. He crooned back in his usual baritone voice, “Halloo, Bro Laing’o!” We call each other the moniker Laing’o, meaning “hero”, because of an ambitious enterprise we attempted as small boys. Teaching ourselves carpentry to make Christmas money, we built a table and carried it across the village to sell to a teacher. The customer said it was wobbly and wanted it at a throw-away price. But my nosy grandmother (RIP), having seen us jump the table across River Kithiu, informed my father. He gave us amnesty by buying the table back. To date, it’s still in my mother’s kitchen and, in my view, should be made a major tourist attraction in Meru County. I can imagine the curator telling curious visitors, “This is the famous camphor table that Lemi and Kajei made and sold, and their father bought back.” After exchanging greetings and lamenting the twin scourges of coronavirus and locusts, I asked Mugambi, “By the way, Bro Laing’o, can a teacher commit the Corona tax relief on their payslip and secure a loan from your Premier Credit?” “Why not, Bro Laing’o?” he replied. “Isn’t that exactly how we’re helping cash-strapped civil servants in Kenya?” The phone had barely reached the deep end of my pocket before I was darkening the doors of the Premier Credit office in Meru town. I wasn’t even told “Wear a mask, wash your hands, keep distance” before they said, “Please press OK and authorize the loan amount.” I hadn’t even reached home before the money hit my M-Pesa. The next day, before the sun was up, I felled some trees and ferried the timber to Mikinduri Township where I had earlier acquired a plot. We had barely nailed two planks together before Faith, a beautiful lass, appeared and asked, “Will you please rent me this new kiosk to sell potatoes?” I didn’t even say “no” before she extended a wad of banknotes to me. It was love at first sight. Now a landlord and a Mr. Moneybags, I was jumping over the moon. For that very same kiosk, Ernest Muthomi Karauri, another brother-friend from the Avocado Society of Kenya, granted us a temporary pass to transport vegetables to Nairobi as “suppliers of essential commodities” to my kin and kith. With the kiosk money, I bought a cow, which my wife soon sold so she could claim her college certificate and apply for the chief’s job when the vacancy came up, and our area chief she became. (And yes, she’s the one you didn’t see shaking Ruto’s hand when the President invited all 1,001 Kenyan chiefs to State House on the morning of November 2025.) Thanks be to my poor holy cow, which must now be grazing in cow heaven. Between Mugambi, Muthomi, Faith and I, if this wasn’t love in bad times, then darned if I know what love is. For it’s a small world and a short life, and so it goes, it was all in a day’s work. Lemi J. Matau is a teacher, a novelist and blogger at MyCountyStory.Com [Email: teenpen@gmail.com]