Kutus, a small town in central Kenya, stays put scrambling for attention. A town that I’ve known for over two decades sadly has little to write home about. Sitting on the slope of Mt. Kenya, she is predominantly occupied by her native with a few remnants of traders who came and decided to try their fate in this stagnant town. Majority of Kutus dwellers occupy the bottom of the pyramid and nothing seems to change for them. It’s not uncommon to see people walking cap in hand whenever they see a ‘foreign’ looking person like the ones who have gone to the cities and visiting home. But that is not to mean that there are no descent people at Kutus.
It’s her local abattoir that probably embodies the town’s features. Obviously built before I was born, the four walled structure stands precariously by the river side. It’s attendants, I’m told most of them are Muslims, only from whom the other Muslims can eat meat from, have mastered the art of bull slaughter. I’ve watched bulls, from the indigenous Zebu bulls to exotic breeds stumble into the abattoir only to come out in meaty pieces stuffed in white, red-stripped boxes. As I struggle to find the meaning of the red lines, they have made profound meaning to the local dogs whose sense of smell has since failed. They can tell when meat is being ferried around. These dogs follow the hard-hearted butcher with anticipation that a meat piece might fall from the containers. I’ve never seen such hope! Outside the abattoir, you will find the town’s pets, the likes of which carried Jesus on their back. If only donkeys could speak, they can tell you the inside story of Kutus than anyone else. They toil all the day long under harsh co-driving of their master and feed during the night on anything that come along their way. Young, old and wounded donkeys work from Monday to Sunday. At the crack of down, when food has barely passed through the Rectums and Abomasums of these poor creatures, they are back at it again, pulling carts for a few water fetching trips. Although there is tap water in Kutus, the donkeys are not lucky as the cruel donkey owners collude with the greedy local council authority to cause artificial water shortages.
Like the abattoir, all the town’s buildings are characteristically archaic. Their walls are made of stained stones, their roofs made of rusted sheets. While the old town remains almost a museum, the ‘mjini’ region has in the recent past seen some modern houses coming up and no wonder they seem magnificent amidst ramshackle old houses. Save for the missionary churches and a few town houses, many houses have windows covered with mesh wire. The local Indian merchant is making a killing from the sales of mesh wire. The wires remind me of my days in class four at Kutus Primary School, a place I remember with a mix of both nostalgia and self pity. Our class four’s (if I remember well, class 4 East) Art & Craft teacher used to make us hang on the mesh wired windows while he whipped us on our backs. Girls were not spared either. And the hero of the class used to be a boy who had cut the wires and used to jump out of the class just before this teacher walked in. We hung like the goats’ limbs at the abattoir. All the beating was because we could not define in proper English the meaning of ‘a pattern’ and ‘a motif’. It was not our wish but English was not only a foreign language but a monster whose rebuke never spared even the best in the class. I don’t know about your school but at Kutus, class teacher had come with innovative ways of enforcing English speaking in school. Our class four class teacher had picked a stone-curved cup from her Art and Craft class. This cup would be place on the desk of the pupil who was caught speaking vernacular and the teacher could punish the pupil severely. My desk mate, who had come from the Coast and only knew Swahili, was very excited to learn our vernacular but the school was the wrong place to practise. I remember him saying a word in vernacular. Then from the blues, the vernacular cup was placed on our desk. My desk mate denied having spoken in vernacular claiming that he didn't know the language and instead accused me of doing it. In the push and shove, the cup fell and broke into pieces. When we were summoned to the staff room, my friend explained this and I quote, “teacher, the cup has died.” Yes, English was a language we struggled with. We got a memorable thrashing for that meaningless explanation. I hope that my friend had not borrowed the ‘died’ word from the local abattoir’s vocabularies. Well, back to my Art and Craft teacher, Mr. Bill (not his real name) finally died of HIV-Aids a few years after I cleared from the primary school, few of us cried. Not that we are bad and heartless, but Mr. Bill’s whips made us cry in his lesson and sob in the next.
Kutus Primary School, an institution which is supposed to help the local kids fight poverty by providing education is now begging for description. Ever since our age group left Kutus Primary School, the academic performance has continued to deteriorate. I blame it on the ban on canning, irresponsible parenting and the unplanned free-primary school education. Like the abattoir, whose slaughter business ends around mid morning, pupils at Kutus Primary School now attend class for half day only to return home when they know that their parents have gone to the market. This is against the school rules but with no canning, everything is done at will.
Located close to the abattoir is the local police station. These cops are useless, all except none. They have allowed crime and brewing of local beer to go on unabated. Petty crimes are the order of the day. Illegal brewing and smoking of bhang leaves a lot to be desired. Prostitution and thefts are a common thing. Like the local abattoir that gets flocks everyday, the cops receive bribes everyday, the results? Death in both cases.
If there is something that makes me believe that Karl Marx hails from Kutus are the town's mushrooming denominations. There is nowhere else the truth of Marx’s phrase that ‘religion is the opium of the masses’ is quite evident. I will not ask you to count your finger and toes as I enumerate the many churches we have in Kutus, you will run short of them. While some have enjoyed a significant following, some comprise of father, mother and children, others lucky to have attracted the whole extended family. We have the Faith Church, the God Church, the People Church, the Gospel Church, the Full Gospel, the Christ Church, the Krist Church, the Kristo Church, the Hope Church, the New Hope Church … and the list in endless. They are all worshiping the same God but vary in their style of doing it. While some opt to remain serene, some hammer their drums and metallic instruments until the church sound like the local abattoir. I’m sure God must be very entertained as He watches the different scripts, same cast. And those of you that think the word Sunday-best is rather dated, Kutus will prove you wrong. Throngs of people put on their multicolored apparels. Well, depending on whether you can afford second-hand clothes at the local market, white coloured T-shirts are so commonly, but I must admit that only a handful are blemish-less. Could the white-colour-love be borrowed form the abattoir attendants who put on ‘white’ aprons? This remains a question yet to be answered.
But forget about the donkeys and the dungeons, Kutus people are a sad lot. They are a people with hopeless faces. Perhaps they have made the town hopeless; perhaps the town has made them hopeless. Parenting has failed. It’s sad that young people, hardly out of their teen years are baby-sitting. Young girls carrying thumb-sucking kids on their back throng the market place. Their diets are dictated by the seasons. Families feed on the available starch and unavoidable kales (sukumawiki). This is however substituted by mangos during such seasons. But I must also add that the reason why the abattoir has continued to thrive despite the town’s poverty is the fact that there are a few well-to-dos at Kutus but these are just a drop in the ocean. To make ends meet, young girls have turned into prostitution. In Kutus you get the cheapest bargain. Young boys mill around barber shops, matatu terminals and some find themselves at car washes where they earn a few coins. A growing trend is where young boys drop out of school to operate bicycle taxis. Laughingly, these taxis are fitted with 'music systems'. Suffice it to say that moral values are a thing of the past for Kutus. But what has added the insult to an injury is the local brew. I shudder to see a middle aged woman soaked in liquor. Young men spend nights in clogged drainages. Like the one that drains blood and cow dug from the abattoir, all other trenches pour their waste to River Thiba.
River Thiba is in deed phenomenon! It not only provides water to the populace but also act as a bath tub for a few shameless men and women who ‘shower’ and bask at the river banks. Downstream, you will find kids, respectful and afraid to see their parents’ nude swim across the river. Kutus' Saturday is a laundry day at the river. But it’s the same river that provides water to hardworking farmers at Kutus. Small rivulets draw their water from this river and provide irrigation water to farmers. I respect them, Kutus hardworking farmers. From the same river, we fetched water on Fridays for cleaning our classrooms. But it’s the destruction that the river causes when it breaks off it banks that is greatly feared. I don’t blame the river; I guess it must be angry after misuses especially with pollution from the abattoir and the towns buildings.
For those who are wondering what the hell is Kutus, I wish to let you know that it’s the good old days in Kutus that make me wish I kept a journal. Although much of Kutus is negative, there are a couple of things that have seen better day and continue to excite. I’m particularly nostalgic about the daring childhood games we played with my brothers and friends. I still visit Kutus and although most of faces are new to me, I still spot a few familiar ones who I try to talk to and encourage. Since silver and gold I have none, I beg them to go to school and study hard to liberate themselves from the curse of poverty. At least my life has in deed been a message to them that heed.
God bless Kutus.
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