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.
