Accept New Year’s goodwill from the modest people of Emanyulia. For the past two weeks, I have been mingling with my fellow villagers. I have also been holding counsel with myself, with my fellow elders and – of course – with the ancestors and the gods.
We call the gods EMISAMBWA. Other cultures call them angels. What does it matter, really? In the end, we all commune with the divine world.
The wise from across the oceans once told us, “That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.” Still I prefer to think of these mediums as EMISAMBWA. So there have I been, these past few days, reflecting with the living and with our glorious departed. Only we elders can do such things. In the Emanyulia order of things, the elders sit next to the ancestors. The ancestors sit next to the gods – EMISAMBWA – who sit with God.
You begin appreciating why our people are deeply concerned about townsfolk who have been insulting elders. Our people revere age. As we have said, age is proximate to the divine world. You do not fool around with it. When you insult age, the ancestors and the gods get restless. They know that they are next in your line of assault.
Conversely, their wrath is not too far from the owner of an impudent mouth. We call it the mouth that ate itself.
The mouth that ate itself is cautioned about what it says about elders. That is why I have been sent to say to all mouths that would risk eating themselves, “Who tells you that you are going to be an old mouth someday, if you are eating yourself? You might never get there. Age is the privilege of a few. Don’t assume that because you see some old mouths around, you will also be an old mouth someday. The majority goes early, precisely because they fear age.”
I turn 55 myself, on Thursday next week. I am perfectly happy with my age and the way I have lived. I love my modest station in life. I have been a herd’s boy in the village, a town boy striving for an education in the rockeries of Nairobi, a high school dropout, a factory labourer, a dairy boy, a rescued high school gent, a teacher, a member of the academy, a radio journalist, a writer, an intermeddler in TV production, a publishing editor, a failed politician and – in the same vein – a failed adviser to politicians.
Significantly, I have been a son, a brother – sometimes an overbearing one – a husband, a parent and a villager. I have picked up a few friends over the years. Some have been true friends, others utilitarian as usual. But such is the way of life. You gain some and lose some.
In the manner of speaking, I belong to the same circumcision age group with people like Uhuru Kenyatta, Musalia Mudavadi and Kalonzo Musyoka. We are all in our 50s. William Ruto is just behind us, in his late 40s. Raila Odinga is in the group ahead of ours. Together, we all belong to the national class of Kenya’s elders.
I am at the age where townsfolk usually buy you a wheelbarrow, a hoe, spade and a clock. Uhuru, Mudavadi and Ruto are chasing me closely.
Townsfolk obliquely tell you that their town is now fed up with you.
You should go back to the countryside and wait for when the ‘wheelbarrows’ will be put to use, in your final adieu. But of course I short-circuited this eventuality, when I offered to formally retire eight years ago. I am therefore a proud 55-year-old who knows how to do my own things without needing anybody’s wheelbarrows.
Mudavadi, Ruto and Uhuru have done the same by becoming successful politicians. But I gave up on competitive politics. Lately, I have given up on imagining that I could work with politicians, or advise them. Again, that is a story for some other day.
For now, like Uhuru, Ruto and Mudavadi, I can just about tolerate wheelbarrows. The wheelbarrow is about the most amazing equipment anybody even dreamt of. The poor thing can never do anything without someone pushing it. It can carry just about anybody’s cargo – anything – provided that they can load it. Where you leave it, there it rests with its junk and all. The cargo will rot right there if nobody sees fresh use for the wheelbarrow. Such a person may redeem the poor equipment, clean it up and find some new use for it. If nobody comes to its aid, the wheelbarrow rots with its cargo. Poor thing!
The elders in Emanyulia were telling me that we are going to see quite a few political wheelbarrows, now that it is election time, again.
Politics have a way of shoving wheelbarrows at you! But I will not go there. That will again be the subject for some other day. Suffice it to say, watch out for wheelbarrows.
I have been asked to urge my fellow elders not to lie to the world that we are the youth, when we know better. The elders have been asked to love their age and to thank God for it. They have been reminded that old age is a mystery that very few are privileged to experience.
The ageing will want to carry their age with the grace, decorum and dignity of the privileged. The rest may wish to consider revering age as has been the universal tradition. That way, the gods might just smile at the youth and privilege them with this mysterious experience.
Meanwhile, my age mates, William Ruto, Musalia Mudavadi and Uhuru Kenyatta will want to look for something useful to tell us as we walk to the ballot, in the place of defaming the institution of age. They will also want to remember that we are enjoined in our distaste for the wheelbarrow tradition and refrain from behaving in a manner that makes them look as if they are anybody’s wheelbarrows, themselves.
Happy New Year.
The writer is a publishing editor and special consultant and advisor on public relations and media relations
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