THE GRAND DUKE

In my sophomore year of high school, I had gained reputation amongst my classmates as a watch repairer. I learnt this trade from my experience in dealing with electronics as I grew up. Then, I would experiment on various electrical components inclusive of mortars, chargers, bulbs, batteries, alongside spoilt radios and cassettes. Once, I got shocked by two loose copper wires of a spoilt charger as I tried to repair it for alternative use, while plugged in. However, this didn’t bring as much regret as losing the hour hand of Chikarata’s watch later in high school.

Chikarata was the most feared student in class. It was rumored that he once butchered a senior who tried to bully him by striking his arm with a ‘panga’. We nicknamed him the ‘Grand Butcher’, referencing to his assumed protégé Georgi Abashwili of ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle’. On this fateful day, Chikarata brought his gold-coated mechanical watch for me to repair its gear train, as its hour hand was static.

As is the custom, I agreed to indulge my expertise into his watch’s operational predicament at a cost of Kshs. 200. Normally, the task would be to disassemble the watch, taking note of how each component fit into the other in a notebook; then ‘doing my magic’ and relieving the watch of its misery. The tools of trade were a DIY screw driver and a pair of eyes with maximum visual acuity. The execution required precise hand movements alongside a held breath to prevent blowing light components away.

I immediately began examining the watch wary of the fact that any wrong move would prove disaster. Halfway through the process, I decided to take a short break to refocus. This was accompanied by a sigh of relief which, unfortunately, announced itself with a sudden resumption of breathing; blowing air across my workstation and sending the watch’s components flying all over. I was struck dumb, not knowing what to say to Chikarata. Nevertheless, I made up my mind to inform him that the hour hand was lost, after I scoured the class floor and located all the other components.

I thought that Chikarata would acquiesce with the words of Alexander Pope, a poet of the Enlightenment, that to Err is human, to forgive divine. On the contrary, he insisted on a payback; that I take possession of his watch and purchase him a new one, same make, color and texture. I knew better than not to cross paths with him, because I knew that he won’t be empty handed at the cross-roads. I, therefore, had to oblige and give in to his request. This made me to not only lose the entire earnings from my hustle since I commenced it, but also abscond my venture. What a loss!

ArchSam

TALK THE WALK

Long ago before turning ten, I loved walking alongside my dad, accompanying him whenever he went. His stride equaled twice mine, so I played catch-up all the time. Whenever he held my hand to keep up with him when in a hurry, my tiny self often tiptoed, strengthening my calf muscles that resulted in walking fast. This must be the genesis of my ‘walking fast’!

Walking fast has become something of treasure to me. I, personally wonder why my feet are always in such a hurry. I feel that my feet compete with each other, the left wants to be ahead of the right one and vice-versa. At times, my mind feels that each of my feet can take two steps once. I don’t know how that is possible, but a sum of all these leads me to walk fast.

Before I take walk to a destination, I schedule what to think about in the journey. The familiarity of the destination determines whether I’ll be calculating how much time it will take to reach a new destination or allocating time to think about other things for destinations I’ve already made the calculations for. These enable me accurately predict the time I’ll reach a destination taking into account the circumstances. It also helps me decide what mechanisms I’ll use if the time remaining to be in time is more or less.

Walking from Mamlaka Hostels to the CU office in Main Campus via Agony Hill and the University’s main gate is a case in point. It takes me about twelve minutes to make that journey. In the case I have nine minutes to be in the office, I’d have to run some short distances, specifically down Agony Hill and between the Fountain of Knowledge and Mahatma Gandhi Wing in order to reach the office on time. However, if the time is fifteen minutes, I’ll use the route via the sports fields to the office, and consume ‘mayai pasua’ along the way.

However, walking fast has not always been a golden ticket to pleasant encounters. One evening, as I rushed to ‘beat human traffic’ in the CBD, a police officer stopped me, rather, he pulled me over, since my speed was suspicious. He executed a warrant-less police technique; the stop-and-frisk search to ascertain that I am not an armed criminal running away from a crime that I had committed. His search proved futile and I was angry for the search diverted my mind from counting how many steps I could take from Naivas to Mamlaka, to wondering why a police officer was frisking me metres away from the police station.

That notwithstanding, I love walking fast. It keeps my mind active. I easily come up with solutions to problems since, I believe, that my mind processes things faster the more I walk. I talk the walk!

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton