The Othaya fish scramble

Othaya is a town in Central province. The town is on your way to Nyeri from Murang’a or vice versa.  You can also access the town from Mukurwe-ini if you use the Karatina town route. The town like most in central Kenya is mainly supported by agriculture.  Cash crops seem to take a lion’s share of what is grown there-in. Tea (Coffee was abandoned a few years ago it was no longer profitable) growing is extremely popular. Small pieces of the farm are set aside for subsistence farming to enable farmers produce their own food. The town has changed but not too much in the last 30 years. Buildings have come up and they are now storied, there are many good private boarding schools in the town, the market was upgraded to a permanent shed market.  Not too much of life is different from what it was in my formative years (until my car was clamped by the local council for not paying parking fees) maybe after all things have changed more in the mind than what can be seen.

Mr Mwai Kibaki our recently retired president represented Othaya constituency from 1974 to 2013 one year short to clock 4 straight decades of parliamentary leadership. During this stint the retired president held various government offices including Minister of finance, Vice president among others .Did I say he was the president of Kenya for 10 years? History has had that this lifelong politician is one of the most brilliant economists of our times. He is also deemed to be focused, calculating, a fence sitter hence his alias “General Kigwoya” meaning the General Coward.  The man is also renown for absolute stinginess not one to waste money on any kind handouts. Everyone including his relatives have to work for what they want to have.

Othaya then is a paradox to many. Many people imagine that thanks to Mwai Kibaki the town must be heaven on earth.  A total myth or is it an urban legend? The town is similar to all other rural towns in Kenya. The first time a chopper landed in the president’s compound after the 2002 elections, children were so excited many having never seen one with their naked eyes. You should have seen the spectacle the whole town was queuing up to take a memorabilia photograph with it. In fact villagers have come from so far to come and see the presidents upgraded residence never mind with the high stone wall you cannot see much inside.

Now don’t be mistaken Othaya is an electrified rural town. There is also piped water. The town has benefited from many a “bonus” tea payment. The farmers have worked hard. They pick both tea and coffee manually. You will often meet women carrying nappier grass and fire wood on their backs. Loads that would easily drop wheel barrows down. Children criss cross with vibuyus of milk and grownups behind them with gallons of more milk. There is a buzz of activity everywhere. Othaya is a picturesque; it can easily be the best place to put on a post card. Karima hills, Chinga dam, Kanyange ridge among others that are always green.

Oh, before I forget and this I dedicate a whole paragraph. Othaya is ice cold. Especially in the months between June and August. It is unbearable. In the last years before my dear Grandmother passed on when the cold season started she would tell us the grim reaper is back. “Gathano ni gachoka kunina andu aria akuru”. Surprisingly, a lot of the elderly people passed on around this time. It was rumored their bones froze over. And sadly, my grandmother herself passed on during this cold season. So if you decide to visit Othaya in the June-August season be armed you have been forewarned. And the first week of August is normally the worst.

So on this random weekday in January 2014, I leave work and there is an uproar on Othaya town on social media. And please stop looking at me like that. Othaya has only been mentioned in media in relation to Mwai Kibaki nothing more nothing less.  I checked on face book and still couldn’t figure out what my people had done. A friend advised me to watch the 9.00 p.m news. Oh my God, it was now viral. The fish scramble. I watched in disbelief. Who were this people? Where did they come from? Where did they live? They scrambled for hot fish and ugali disregarding the hot oil and their own safety! I was tongue tied; unbeliaveable.

I had come from Othaya one week earlier and no, there was no hunger or signs of such to come in the future! Othaya residents are not even a traditional consumer of fish. In fact for many years fish consumed in Othaya was “imported” from Sagana. How did this people end up jumping in karai’s of ugali and samaki? How did a man with no cooler steal half a bag of tilapia? Did he consider he needed to preserve it to sell it? Who would he sell it to?

Enter a vice called greed. A sport that is slowly but surely sipping into our culture. The behavior that makes us want everything at the same time. To grab all we can, hold and hide for the future even when it’s highly perishable. Our obsession with the more culture. That belief that more is better. I watched painfully as grown men piled 3-4 tilapias’s on their plates. Did they know that this same tilapia choke grown men who have fed on them since they were 3 years? It is not enough to have it all, you must have it in a proportion that makes sense and is not shameful or detrimental to your own health. The Member of Parliament who came up with the idea must have seen it noble but must have regretted for days on why this happened. Greed, I answer her. Even when you come from the retired president’s backyard that is awash with plenty. If you allow your mind to think that there is not enough. That you need to grab, hide and unashamedly behave like a savage, you will have lost even what you have. You will never have enough with such a mindset!

Sojourner.