I ALWAYS OUTSMARTED UNCLE MARK

I almost made a grievous mistake yesterday of blaming God for giving me such an uncle, but as I always say and I will repeat, I am a smart guy. So instead of blaming God, then I find myself in hell-fire in future [With uncle Mark], I shifted the blame to one of my relatives that I don’t quite know very well; but somehow he/she misbehaved or rather messed up and now I am stuck with one Mark as an uncle. All could have been smooth, if at all I didn’t meet Uncle Mark, but somehow my being smart landed me at FSK…and BOOM! The accident…..I met Uncle Mark who henceforth insisted that I should never call him uncle but ‘Sir’. I almost laughed at that joke, until I discovered that he was actually serious. But even as a tiny Form 1, this was the only teacher who apart from a defiantly protruding belly, he was my size. At this point I must confirm that I found it easier to call one Martin Kitong’o ‘Sir’ but it always seemed like an intimidation using the same title for Uncle Mark.

Anyway, I am a smart guy and soon I knew I would deal with Uncle Mark, the Drama Club Patron then. Rumours had it that the man had been very hostile to my brother, who had also gone through his hands [I mean, in class and drama club…don’t allow your mind to be derailed]. So even as I joined the club later on, I was 100 steps ahead of Uncle Mark. It’s like preparing for a battle with an unsuspecting woman. I was on a mission to revenge.

In 2006, I made a point of asking Uncle Mark for Ksh.500. My Ministry of Pocket Finance had all of a sudden run bankrupt due to the extremely hot conditions at the Coast Province that had made me misappropriate funds into buying sodas and ice-cream for my crowd of high school girlfriends. Well, to cut the long story short, I was broke even before the festival started. Uncle Mark however was not the understanding type. Basically, I use “I will refund” as a cliché when asking for a loan from a high profile relative. So I expected Uncle to understand that it was more like, “forget about it” but hell no! It dawned to me that Uncle Mark was not the one to easily let go a hardly earned ksh.500, when I found myself headed home for a suspension the next term….apparently for failing to payback. Anyway, usually suspensions took 2 weeks, but mine took 2 days, so let’s just say I won. I still returned the money, very bitter at heart of course.

Uncle Mark always seemed to doubt my potential in leadership and somehow I suspect he jokingly discouraged members from voting for me as an official of drama club wit statements like: “We want someone who is serious. Someone who can take you to the nationals. Someone who understands what he is doing.” Then when I am very optimistic thinking that I was that person, he would get to his punch line, “….not like Nakitare!” The Form ones [usually the majority] would laugh but the seeds of doubt had already been sown. I lost my target seats to smaller people like Dennis Liyai. What he failed to discover was that I am a smart guy and I eventually outsmarted them all. Somehow, I always found myself later on as an official, with or without their votes. In this one, I laugh at them.

I will never forget this time when Uncle landed 12 slaps on my handsome face distorting it with his fingerprints. Now, 12 slaps are far too many. They are especially abnormal if they are from a linguist punishing you for speaking ‘sheng’ language. Anyway, my friend Richmond Embeywa convinced me to forgive him for two extremely strong and understandable reasons:

1.       Maybe he thought when you said ‘unacheki hiyo solar panel inakaa kama parabolic reflector’ you were referring to his under-construction airport [ a respectful phrase for a developing bald]

2.       Or when you commented, ‘walai uyo msupa ana haga’ he probably thought you were making fun of Mr. Shitubi’s spectacles.

Well, these points were strong enough for me to forgive him for misunderstanding me but am still waiting for a financially-related apology regarding his slapping me right in front of his future in-laws. From this encounter, I knew Uncle Mark would have a problem with taking me to the national in the next season, no matter how good I was. And just as expected, something came up just before the nationals. We qualified to go for the nationals with a narrative that initially was made up of a cast of 15, but due to some reasons we had to reduce the number to 12. Ideas hit me quickly, that after the encounters I had with Uncle Mark, he would not think twice before dropping me out of the squad, so the smart guy had to act quickly and the INFAMOUS CHEMSHA event came in handy. While my friends Erick Shibweche, Graham Nduko and Euclid Shilaku went home for suspension[leaving a perfect figure 12] due to the involvement in the saga…the actual man behind the beginning of the whole CHEMSHA thing was in Meru, enjoying the nationals, Nakitare. I owe them an apology, but for now allow me say that I was smarter than Uncle Mark once again.

But one thing has returned me to square zero. After the Ksh. 500 shillings incidence, I didn't actually let go until I played my last cards. I had to make Uncle Mark believe in me a little. That I did and he found himself putting one of his very great narratives, BABUSSA, in the hands of a man who was set to make sure, the name Mark does not appear on the National Drama festivals that year. We had several narrators but funny enough he insisted that I was the one to narrate it, despite my deliberate strategy to lose my voice before the Provincial festivals performance. To cut the long story short…for the first time in many years, we flopped. I only realized my mistake when the Choral Verse qualified for nationals and so it meant that Uncle Mark would make a grand entrance to Nyeri town without his nephew. Uncle Mark also ensured that I did not attend the provincial galas in spite of all my begging and pleading. I even promised to help him push his car that always needed pushing whenever he started it, but it was all in vain. Lately though, Uncle Mark has made a point of reminding me of how chubby my cheeks are, and in creative ways calling me fat. I can’t help but go back in time and discover the description used for the huge fat african ladies in that script BABUSSA. With this I feel like Uncle finally has outsmarted me. It is like he is shouting into my ears, “It’s not like I believed in you to give you the script kijana, I was actually laughing at your looks in the narrative. It looked funny to see you foolishly describing yourself!”

ALL THE RESPECT TO MY FAVORITE HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER: MR. MARK MUTALI CHETAMBE. I MISS THE FSK DRAMA SQUAD THAT YOU MOULDED. I NEED 12 MORE SLAPS, MAYBE I WOULD BECOME GREATER!