For once I admired the effects of the ‘holy herb’

COLUMN: BABA BOYI

I THINK I heard somewhere that the price for checking DNA has gone down….to me this is very good news.

For many years I have been campaigning silently but effectively for the government to start administering DNA to children and their parents before they leave the maternity ward after giving birth, because some mothers walk away with children who do not belong to them.

For example, a bright fellow like yours truly is automatically expected to beget bright children, after all they say a fruit never falls far from the tree.

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And I cannot say that I followed my mother’s secret recipe and fed my children on the same diet which mostly consisted of sweet potatoes and cassava, that is why sometimes I think that the scoundrel I call my son was switched at the hospital where my wife went to give birth.

These lines of thought always run through my bald head when I look at the boy and the way he behaves, and I have all the reasons to believe that the doctors played a rough game on me and replaced my real child with this young criminal.

I know that some of you start to believe that I should be placed in front of a firing squad and get shot because I sound like the worst father in this planet, but believe me; I have all the reasons of sounding that way, because that boy has been the reason for some of my woes.

At his age, I remember I was still in the village herding goats and sheep, and generally being a great help to my father, and not committing the capital offence of complaining, because my father would have skinned me alive.

Sometimes I get more worried because I have reasons to believe that the boy, who calls himself Papa Dog Killa or Mtoto wa Ngwasuma, will soon start collecting paper and empty cans while talking to himself.

This line of thinking has been in my brain because the young thug smokes something he fondly calls the Holy Herb, which happens to be a favourite herb of some characters in a place called Jamaica.

It is this same boy who can shake his imaginary dreadlocks and start singing seditious songs and pumping his fist in the air, calling himself the soldier of Jah, and referring to me as a ‘Babylonian’.

On numerous occasions, the young thug has put me on the wrong foot with my neighbours and once I was almost lynched by angry neighbours after feathers of a chicken which had mysteriously disappeared three days previously were found in my dust bin.

But recently the boy was at it again, and this time a delegation of angry elders in the company of a very pregnant woman appeared at my home, and claimed that my son Boyi was responsible for the heavy state of the girl.

It was on a Sunday afternoon, and that day I had completely ignored calls from die hard drunks because I knew that if I made a mistake of answering any of their calls, my Sunday would have ended on a bar stool at Zakayo’s.

I was watching some cartoon on the set and dozing off peacefully, when a loud bang on the door shook me from a dream which was starting to take shape.

I cursed loudly and went to answer the door, determined to give whoever was standing outside a piece of my mind, and I even had the words formed in my head. I found five people on my door step, including a very pregnant girl who was barely 18 years of age, and some old men who appeared as if they had just landed from the village.

I glared at them before asking them what they meant disturbing my Sunday peace, and one of the old men apologised profusely before asking if they could come in.

I hesitantly welcomed them in, and I thanked God that mama Boyi had gone to visit a sick relative, because I was not sure whether these people were here because of me. I eyed the pregnant girl suspiciously, thinking that maybe she was bringing the fruits of my labour as a result of my night escapades, but my memory hit a dead wall, and my heartbeat slowly returned to normal.

I was not in any mood of acting like a generous host, so I did not bother to ask them if they would care for a drink, because after all, the only edible drinks in my old refrigerator consisted of my five beers, and I had very serious plans for them.

The old man who had apologised on behalf of the rest did not wait for me to ask them what they wanted, as he proceeded to introduce himself.

“Sorry for bothering you at this hour sir, but we have come here in peace, although it will depend on how you perceive what we have to tell you,” he said, and once again I threw a glance at the pregnant girl, who was busy chewing her lower lip and squeezing her hands in her lap.

The old man carried on, and told me that they had brought a visitor who, according to her state, was rightly supposed to live under my roof as a new member of my family. I once again looked at the young girl, and was about to object and inform the old man that they had committed a grave mistake, when the old guy waved his hand at me to keep quiet.

One of the men who had been quiet all this time stood up, and judging from his tone, I knew that he was the father of the pregnant girl. “I know that this might come as a shock to you, baba Boyi, but your son is responsible for the condition of my daughter.

Your boy has given me sleepless nights, and that is because this silly girl here had refused to mention the person who is responsible for her condition, until yesterday,” he said.

To cut a long story short, I told the furious man to hold his peace as I went to summon the young thug, and when he entered the room, I knew he was high on his holy herbs as he moved to the rhythm of a song which was playing in his head, as he sang something to the effect that Jah is going to help him chant down Babylon.

When I told him the reason why I had called him, he looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time, and before I knew it, he was laughing his head off.

I was about to remove my belt and discipline the young crook, but the old man stopped me. Looking at the laughing boy, he asked him to explain what was so funny.

“Mshua najua unapiga tungi, but let me ask you. If one night you enter a pub and drink Serengeti Lager, then Kilimanjaro, and then Safari Lager, and then you swallow several glasses of Konyagi, will you know which drink made you drunk?” he asked, and I had no answer.

The boy looked at the girl, before focusing his eyes on the old men and told them that the girl in front of him had a love affair with him, and five of his buddies, simultaneously.

“Now I want her to tell you, if that pregnancy is mine or Man Peewee’s, or Rasta Fasta’s, or Ras Kifaru’s, or the bus driver she spent the night with on Saturday,” he asked, and when the girl failed to answer, I ceremoniously kicked them out!!

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