YVONNE CHAKACHAKA SONG:

He was the most sought after by the girls. He was always the well-dressed among the three adolescent ‘dwarfs’. His shirt, sweater and khaki shorts were always clean – sometimes ironed. When students were going for C.U. functions or ‘team’, he was the only human who could, without batting an eyelid, ask a shopkeeper for a Soda ‘madiaba’ and gallop it with zeal; a commodity that not even the teachers could afford. He was the only one who could wear sports shoes on Mondays, moccasins on Wednesdays and polished leather boots on Fridays.
Ask around and you will be told that Victor Chepyegon (V.C.) is the man I’m hereby descrining as he was the envy of all students, all girls, all ‘other’ parents and most of all, all ‘other’ teachers.

Our second character was the most timid and unpredictable among the three. Though he used to be beaten up by classmates (most of them girls), he never shed a tear. Though he was shy, he was the most notorious in his private capacity. He was the school’s latecomer who used to wake up at 6.30am and arrive at school way past 8am, when fellows were already in the assembly grounds. At these times, he used to jump over the standard one classroom window and hide there until the assembly was dispersed.

When trapped by the TOD, he would proudly say that he had been reading in the room since 6am and out of too much concentration, he didn’t hear the bell ring. Unbelievable! A standard eight candidate studying hard amidst 6-year old standard one toddlers. (Call it empty intelligence. But weird as it may seem, the teachers often believed him).

Kangogo Kibet (K.K.) was the name of this character and one thing that need not be ignored about him is his school uniform. Forget about his humungous sweater that looked like a raincoat and had more holes than its cotton fabric. Let’s not even talk about his dark-blue (turned brown) shirt that had so many holes that it looked better on him worn as a vest than a shirt. It’s imperative for us to note that his shorts had been patched with all sorts of coloured fabric that it was more than impractical to tell its initial colour. These same shorts moreover had been so worn out that it had two big holes behind; so big that half of this nigger’s black hardened buttocks were visible 200 meters across the road!

The skeleton of our story here revolves around this third character who wielded such immense power that he could convince a farmer that grass is red, a butcher that blood is blue and a dairy man that milk is purple!

Notorious is the only word fit enough to describe this boy. He lived 20 metres away from the school compound but was always 20 minutes late for lessons. His character and ability to play around with words made him ‘slippery’ with teachers even after committing atrocities worse than hugging a girl – (For in those days hugging a girl was case that could only be handled by the school committee – in presence of both parents).

Apart from him being blessed with the ability to make even the most feared red-eyed man crack his ribs out of laughter, his talent and creativity in making polythene-paper balls was unrivaled in Kasisit Primary School. As if to confirm his unequaled power, Christopher Rutto (C.R.) upto date still boasts of initiating some of his classmates into drinking busaa for lunch at 12 noon and telling them that it’s ethical to go to class staggering at 2!

The millennium was still a virgin and it was neither by accident nor was it by coincidence that our characters were classmates in upper primary. They repeated standard six not because they failed but because of one sole purpose – to work together to form a football team strong enough to beat a Std 7 and Std 8 combined team. Though our young character K.K. was the slowest of them all, he still brags that he was the only one of the three who managed to score a goal past the then invincible goalkeeper, Kibet Abubakar!

Courtesy of his convincing powers, C.R. had earned himself a sort of a unique reputation and everything he said or did or sang was treated as sacred truth not only by V.C. and K.K., not only by their Std 6 classmates, not only by the entire Kasisit primary school, but also by the teachers and the elders from the surrounding village who drew inspiration from him!

I don’t know whether we should call it a habit or an obsession but C.R. had developed this norm of giving mysterious lyrics to songs unknown to his friends. These lyrics were often funny if not abusive and obscene if not humorous. Apart from ‘Kalenjinising’ “Bumba Train” by E-Sir, ‘Tugenising’ “Fagilia” by Mr. Nice, Christopher Rutto had also ‘Arrorised’ the song “Umkomboti” by Yvonne Chakachaka!

He alone (and perhaps his God) knows where on earth he got the words “Yekwai Sami…Tenten Kiptenten” in the Chakachaka song. One striking thing however is that within a week, the entire primary school was singing “Yekwai Sami…Tenten Kiptenten” like a national anthem! The lyrics were so effective in sense that one would be forgiven for asking to be shown the Kalenjin man who composed the ‘circumcision song’!

The victim of C.R.’s naughtiness was none other than K.K., the fellow who used to be shiver even when girls whispered.

K.K. later joined high school, and it happened that on the evening of his day of reporting, there was an audition to recruit new members for the school choir. As a requirement, the interested student was to sing one song he/she knew best. K.K said why not? He gave it a shot.

So there he was. Our shy Kasisit-bred folk standing ready to audition in front of those born-town girls who blow chewing gum to the size of a ball and say ‘Mscheeeeeew’, together with those city boys who wear heavy chains and clad in baggy sagging trousers; those who can hug and kiss one’s daughter and tell the parents to go to hell!

Surprised? He wasn’t.
“Go ahead.” The most sophisticated of the auditioning panel signaled K.K.
“I have an interesting song that will impress you.” He said. (Let’s just leave the deep Kalenjin accent that K.K. used as a story for another day).

He cleared his throat in readiness…

The panel counted: “One…Two…Three go…Start!”

“Yekwai Sami…Tenten Kiptenten!”
“Yekwai Sami…Tenten Kiptenten...!!!!”

I’m
Murenoni Kangogo.