Tell The Nations (3) : My autobiography I worked on for over 15 years, came off the press last July. Here, I write of my background and my world view.
Tell The Nations (3)
CHAPTER 2
MY WORLD VIEW
When my father ordered me… ”Take a stick…” I took orders, and emerged into my boyish world. He claimed he sent me to work, but it was fun to me.W From the very day I was capable to pursue my elders, taking care of the cattle, I spent most of my days at, Sakila Savannah. The Savannah combined with; Masasanja swamps, lakes, bushes, and wells. Here was the scenic spot of Sakila.
Both domestic and wild animals scattered all over. It’s the place where my father with his neighbour, speared rhinoceros to death. Myself, unlike my father, I was not a warrior. However, with my fellow boys, we were stoning birds from the bushes.
Most birds were beautiful. We mentioned them by their names; “Mansero” is one of the birds we sang about. “Irwai” “Uruu” “Ulukoviru” were other kinds. “Isombwerere” was the bird with the long tail, so we had the second name for it “Manjia.”
We would also hunt by chasing antelopes, rabbits…: With the assistance of our dogs. One of our fast running dog those days named, Sisa.
Once in a while we were lucky. Sometimes we came home empty handed. Nevertheless, people of, Sakila and Meru, in general didn’t care for rabbits. We ate antelopes and the dogs took care of rabbits.
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Chasing a rabbit was fun, than chasing any kind of a beast. As a boy, I never saw once, a rabbit running straight. A rabbit always ran zigzag. And, it could halt instantly, and leave us keep running ahead, with our dogs, as idiots.
With rabbits, faking was the name of the game. They used their heads more than their feet.
While rabbits ran and faked, we chased them, and threw everything we could, from our hands.
I don’t remember how many times we missed. Some of us were smart not to throw, but waited a rabbit with long sticks. We waited (as we compass around the rabbit) until a rabbit came to our direction then held our sticks up high, ready to hit a rabbit.
A rabbit will come and we would be alert and smart to calculate, when to hit. We normally wait until there was one step in front of a rabbit before it reached there. Many times, a rabbit would stop timely, as soon as we started hitting. Ironically, we ended up hitting the ground, in front of a rabbit.
Then, before we could think of lifting up the stick, to hit again, a rabbit would step over the stick and move on. ”What a creature…!” We wondered.
No wonder, we had a slogan “As clever as a rabbit.”
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To be continued
