In Uswaz, you needn’t know what you eat…dog meat is ok

When Rev Darrel Wise, a Baptist missionary got so tired of villagers knocking at his door, doing what Africans ‘do best’ – begging for this or the other, he packed up and left for his Uswaz in the United States.

His beloved dog called Scooby was therefore bequeathed to me – a precious gift at that age.

As a boy, the name Scooby sounded rather fraudulent for all my friends’ dogs were named Simba, Chui, Tiger or even Cheetah.

On the contrary, mine bore a name that was foreign like its former master. Care had been taken to ensure that the recipient of the canine does not treat it the way Africans treat dogs – as dogs.

In my later age, I became a proud owner of real breathing doggy, this time given an African name.

He is answers to the name Kabaisa (whatever that means). When I bought him from roaming Uswaz boys for a paltry ‘msimbazi’ (Sh10,000 bank note), my one and only woman Bisho Ntongo shot through the roof with rage.

I later caught her trying to ‘murder’ him with rat poison as he struggled not to open wide his mouth.

I temporarily went into a fit of anger like never before. It is on record that was the only time my entire life I had slapped her.

What followed the debacle was that I had to hide away for a couple of days lest Uswaz feminists wring my neck for beating Bisho over a ‘flimsy’ reason like poisoning a dog.

The only real problem is that Kabaisa, since when Bisho Ntongo threatened to “murder” him, he got a trauma – keeps drifting between normalcy and rabidity (I wrote about it).

I would hate to imagine converting my poor canine into barbecued, nyama choma, or boiled meat like one crazy bloke recently did.

It was in the media that a very clever, but crazy man had for years been vending dog meat to his fellow villagers at a throw away price.

When they made the discovery, they were baying for his blood until a good cop prevented them from sending him knocking at the pearly gates of heaven.

That is Uswaz for you.