A tale from Kinoru village

A year ago Julius Kathoka returned unceremoniously and settled back to the village..,, from the city where he had been working in an advocate's office along Moi Avenue as a watchman, though he had always insisted that he was a legal security adviser. It later emerged that he was fired for impregnating the office tea girl.

After returning to the village, in order to make ends meet, he took up the job of digging pit latrines, and with a little Kenyan shilings he made - he married the second wife, and seemed to determined to individually multiply the village population.

The other weekend when i visited the land of my fathers, i was surprised to find out that Julius Kathoka is now the official village legal adviser, and ostensily his name has changed to Bwana Wakili, though some lazy big headed drunkards once in a while call him 'wewe watchman'.

Nway, it finally dawned on me that since Waki came up with the biggest invention in Kenyan history after that of nyama choma and Tusker, and subsequently everyone began talking about this Hague musical chairs - thats the time Julius legal services were needed in the village, now than never before. Apparently, he would occassionally be seen at watering joints, at the market place, outside the church or at his home surrounded by a group of villagers informing them in lots of 'legal jargon' the process of the International Criminal Court (ICC); or who is in the list, and what will happen to them once they reach the Hague and so on. Of course, he would craftly be heard quoting some Chapter Two, Section 2B, Article J (1) or something to that effect of Kenya's constitution or the Rome treaty to make a legal point of the implications of the Hague on Kenya.

Surprisingly, even the members of the council of elders, which in my village is equivalent to your average Supreme Court intricacely listens to Bwana Wakili. To them this legal mathematics is far beyond their legal knowledge of prosecuting cases like who stole whose chicken, or who slept with whose wife. Now, word on the street is that Julius will soon be sworn in as a learned friend in the village council of elders.

Perhaps whats interesting is that Julius has now become a full fledged marriage counsellor, educational advisor, and political analyst. Wives would be seen strategically waiting for him along the way to the river to solicit his legal services about their cheating and lazy drunkard husbands; and husbands will be seen irrigating his throat at watering joints to get his legal views on how to bag that pretty thing divorced wife of so and so; and even parents would be seen offering their eldest daughters for marriage to Julius with the hope of getting grandchildren carrying Julius' mind. And needless, to say that Julius is now considering throwing his name into the village political arena in 2012. And so there you have it, and what can i say, i love my village, i mean, who wouldnt?