AFRICAN VIBE

"No! I say that the cockerel must be slaughtered. It shall not live to see the sun of tomorrow. My house is the guardian of culture and tradition, and as the headman, I decree here and now, that the cock must go! It is profoundly insane and unheard of in our land that a cock crows in the hours of nyachieni [the devil] and it is let free to see the beige rays of the morning sun. May our fore fathers unleash tenfold of dry thunder upon they that do not heed the customary way of life that they set!"

That was my old man on the Christmas eve of 2005. Simple and casual as he was, with a long Africa shuka strewn all through his frail-looking but yet strong body stature and an oversize pair of traditional flip flops, Mzee Yimbo was still the de jure leader of the household. He was the head. And so as such, his word was law. Any deterrence from his decree was bound to attract an inevitable terrible punishment, or even banishment from his home; at least according to the informal customs of our people. So, when he said 'sleep', only heavy snores were bound to be heard. Woe unto him that didn't heed his instruction.

And so that night when he declared that the cock had to die, there was no other way around it. Poor cock! His better half, my granny, had bought the red cockerel barely a week prior that eventful night. She had other plans for it, or so it seemed. For when Mzee Yimbo declared the customary death sentence upon it, she flared up, and for the first and probably umpteenth time, she actually raised her voice against the voice of voices - Mzee Yimbo.

Whatever ensued is only knowledgeable to man and wife, for it happened in a flash - like the way a cock rides a hapless hen - and I didn't seem to even realise. But nonetheless, the aftermath was lucid for all to decode. A sharp shriek that preceded hot tears from my dear old granny said it all.

My cousins and I had gathered round the fiery and flaring hearth readying for grandpa's routinely tales, (which by the way I have come to realize were just fictitious) when all that fiasco transpired before our very own eyes. Most, if not all of us, were in pretentious wonderment at how granny dared to regard with sheer disdain the tenets of our long gone ancestors. "How dare she contemptuously shun Mzee Yimbo's decree that the nasty cock be slaughtered? Seriously, how?"

Ideally, our solicitude was not the disregard of communal tenets or better put, superstitions. The concerns we had then were just circumstantial. Our minds and hearts and probably stomachs were set at the aftermath of upholding the widely proclaimed tradition. A hefty meal of tasty chicken and ugali was in the offing and we were not going to leave anything to chance.

So, naturally, we took sides with grandpa. I mean, that is what any other normal African child would have done in an era when eating chicken was an annually one time event. Maybe Christmas or if lucky, New year.

Coaxing grandma proved to be futile as well for she argued that she had spend all her yearly accrues solely on that cock and that she would not let culture deprive her of it- a beacon of her illustrious hard work. But was that reason enough to keep five children and a man destitute of merry on a day when merry was all that counted? Hell no!

And so as such, the male negroes in that grass-thatched hat amidst many others of the same caliber, connived to have the red cockerel slaughtered before the break of dawn; behind granny's back of course. As soon as she had retired to bed and her sobs ceased and her heavy snores taken course, we maliciously winked at each other surmising that our moment had come. We tried to sneak out stealthily but the old and rusty door hinges, as if hired by nature, creaked loudly but to our relief, old granny heard none of it. Her mind was too hazy from whatever had made her cry.

Ochieng, my cousin from Mzee Yimbo's third daughter, was settled on to be the one to pounce on the hapless cock due to his long stay at the suburbs of Western Kenya. Soon, the long contentious cock was all but alive. A sumptuous meal of roast chicken and ugali as we had hoped was prepared afterwards by the same flaring hearth as we laughed and made merry at grandpa's tales and folks.

Poor old granny woke up at Christmas dawn only to find the dry bones that were left of her red fat cockerel by the hearth. It is only recently that we made a TBT of the same and deciphered that it was unjust. But to our defence, we were mollified at the thought that we were enforcing culture and tradition; though moribund now.
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©oiraqaleb esq.