A TEACHER'S DIARY : How I fell from grace to grass

What you need to know:

  • The great day of moving into my brand new permanent state of the art bungalow – whose design, size and grandeur remains a dream to many and an inspiration to all the children.

This was supposed to be one great celebratory weekend for my great family and I. And yesterday would have been the day the Lord made for us.

The great day of moving into my brand new permanent state of the art bungalow – whose design, size and grandeur remains a dream to many and an inspiration to all the children.

And everything had been done in preparation for the great day: Loan applied, granted and disbursed; professional fundi identified, hired and assigned duties; materials selected, paid for and transported to site.

Invitation cards designed, printed and delivered to guests, tents and chairs identified, booked and paid for; and food already bought.

All that remained was to complete construction of the great house.

But it was never to be. It seems God had other plans for me. A few weeks to the date, you will remember how Nyayo, my trusted and reasonably priced fundi announced that he needed more materials, and that he also needed to be paid.

No problem, but I rushed to the bank only to discover that there was a genie that was also withdrawing a similar (or more) amount of money after every construction-related withdrawal I made.

As such, the loan had ended faster that Usain Bolt’s race. Next time I take a loan or I stumble upon a jackpot like SportPesa, I will withdraw all the cash at once and properly manage it from my house, out of the genie’s reach.

With no option, I suspended construction, and cancelled the celebrations altogether.

I even stopped going near the construction site, and completely changed routes to avoid seeing the condemned construction. A man must not try to do what a man was not meant to do.

When she arrived from college, as expected, Fiolina was pleasantly surprised to see the progress that had been made towards completion of the house.

Though I told her that the project had stalled until further notice she was confident that we could still complete and move into the houses this weekend.

And to prove that I did not marry a fool, she did not just hope, she acted, through her chama, she raised some money that was handed to me.

But even before we could count the money, Fiolina went a step further: she called the fundi, and went ahead to remind guests that we were still scheduled to move into the new house this weekend.

What was more? She even invited more guests for the “House Entry Ceremony”! The money they raised was not enough to even pay the fundi but she could hear none of that. She asked me to be a man and top up the difference.

As I would later learn, I had made one big mistake that a married man who has any respect for himself must never do – take money from their wife. More so money for a sacred development project like building a house.

No sooner had she given me the money that the whole world knew that my wife had given me money to carry on with the construction after I had squandered my loan.

Your village must have many sayings but Mwisho wa Lami has one saying that is forever true: That the worst way to keep a secret is to tell it to my sister Caro, the undisputed Minister for Information!

The mistake Fiolina made was to tell Caro that she had given me some money. That same day, by the time Nyayo and I arrived at Hitler’s, word that Fiolina had given me money had already arrived there before us.

“Kuoa mtu alisoma ni kitu mzuri,” said Hitler as he served me my pick up – funded by the chama money. This was uncommon from Hitler. Because he usually serves customers without speaking to them, unless it is a very sensitive matter. “Chunga usikaliwe,” he warned me.