DR FIXIT (NEW VERSION)

241 in the new setting was the female gender. Their freedom was robustly hampered  with what it strapped on its back like a new mother. The girls tried everything this to scupper. There was a prominent case in our neighbourhood. After the boyfriend's parents became rude the teenage girl had gone to abort as the boyfriend said he was not the only one responsible for the pregnancy. Fate too failed to show any leniency.  242 She died and was dumped by the roadside  by her friends who didn't want to be on the side  of the law quite wrong for trying to help out. It remained an eternal model throughout  the clans as who wanted to rebel would be told the tale for her father did level, out of rage, the boy's family house  to the ground and if not that the boy like a louse sneaked into the thicket to hide, the witnesses said, with the tide 243 of the fury of the girl's father he would, just like their home, have been swept off too. What did boys do to make girls pre...

 231 and then made us imbibe the notion  that seven days make a week. In our tuition, our teachers made this their core instruction  and gradually, the old underwent deletion. Our town was full of artisans  and apprentices. Most were from clans outside our own and every weekend  you'd see them on conveyances bend their legs as they wheeled their bikes or would pay  the commercial ones who would find the way  232 to their ancestral homes in the outskirts. They littered our streets with fine shirts, gowns, trousers and skirts. Afro hair was in and everyone seemed to wear it. It was a din along the main roads and parks. Somehow, the kite went real high and far that we suffered our sights  to have it in focus and then downwards it did spin. The thread hooked on a branch. Its fate did dim when the kite-flyer pulled and pulled on it  and then it broke. From street to street  233 we suspected could lead us near  the lost kite, the owner an...

 221 'hekay ehkpo'. I'd noticed that if Ma Moneyit  was telling tales, she'd end up buying on credit. If she had the cash with her, the bumble bee wasn't half as noisy and busy like her. 'Ah, Ahfeah ma. Sell me things quickly. My cool man friend has come. I need to hurry. I want to cook him a super dish before he travels back to the creek to fish. Sell me this, sell me that.' Where slow Big Mama appeared, Ma Moneyit would throw 222 herself into helping in some of the tasks. One time, she'd talk of a guy who worked on rail tracks; the next, it could be an oil merchant, the fishmonger  or she'd even give subtle details of a mugger. The war had taken so many lives and many were males who had wives. The women had returned with their progeny  and were now sole breadwinners. Many a family  was fended for by women who turned prostitutes and Ma Moneyit was one of them. The magnitude  223 of the crises was huge. Big Mama had walked round the table which had c...

211 of the clans but the baddies in the name  of trade were busy playing the game  called 'divide and rule' as they pitched  one clan against the other so they couldn't be ditched  by their subjects soon. Well, during their rule  we had education in a formal setting called school, motorcars were inching out rat-drawn carts  and the killing of twins was dead in all parts  of Antburg that practise it. Open-minded army ants couldn't help but acknowledged all across the clans 212 the rule of the foreign army ants as 'uhkara mbakara'. 'Uhkara' here stands as rule and you already know the meaning  of 'mbakara'. We would keep applauding  everything good and condemn what is bad. The core evil of colonial rule had to do with how they treated their subjects. They saw them as mere objects  that should be seen and not heard  and which should be goaded around like a herd. 213 The colonial masters treated their subjects as mere servants and slave...

 201 We were in a circle, sitting and leaning  on each other's frame as Moonit did her thing. 'Ehkong nkay,' she said. 'Nkay ehkong ahbasee!' we responded. 'Once upon a time, not at sea but on this hard surface we called land, there lived a man,' the tale she began, 'his appellation was Mr Tortoise.' This man again! We'd heard of how in a race, he outpaced the hare. We'd heard of how  he did a tug of war with giants - wow! - 202 and made the two - hippopotamus and elephant - to bow. With lion and him, under the plants  they battled hard to be crowned the king. We'd heard the full narrative as he did sing and develop wings and was the guest of honour in a festival up in the sky and sheer horror,  the birds abandoned him and one to his wife  brought back a message that seared his life. (The sage had repackaged his tales with his own pen and we'd follow his adventures like on a TV pane). 203 After the folktale, we returned to our beds  w...

 191 'the owner to start a fight to showcase  they have such awesome power encased  in their frames. Evil won't stop poking its feet around for trouble.' Mama Moonit asked: 'Who is evil: the tenant or landlord?' 'The ring,' my grandma replied. 'That's absurd,' Mama Moonit cut in. 'We're at the crossroads of what's good and what's evil. To get the power notes from a defaulting tenant, where persuasion  had failed, I'd use force.' With that notion  192 the younger sprightly woman was up. She got up with her pear and corncob. 'The truth is there's a good force and a bad one. When your anger is red-hot, you are torn about what actually is the truth. There's a thin line  drawn between good and evil.' Mama Moonit's spine was now facing grandma. 'Halt. I know you're a very  busy woman. First, take these to your family.,' Mama Moonit turned and took the bowl of corn  and pears. 'Thank you,' ...