Bedbugs
in my Navel
Synoipsis
Bed
Bugs in my Navel is a story of Cyrus a graduate working in he office of mjengo
, a common hustler life contrasted to the high profile hustler like DP Ruto.
The story is shared with a house mate who frequently exiles cyrus but are
united in fighting bed bugs. Enjoy reading
To this, day Cyrus still calls himself a graduate
with a first class honors despite the working conditions at the Office of
Mjengo. He has refused to accept a name that his colleagues have adopted,
hustler. This name has been adopted by many in his friends’ network and even in
by senior government officials such as the Vice President William S. Ruto. Cyrus
and his friends have been mocked severally by those who work in the Office of
Prime Minister. This office has adopted another name, Sufferer. Although the
difference between hustler and sufferer is too minute, suffer seems to be doing
well in the struggle for survival. Cyrus
once said that he would rather be a hustler. In his view hustling is aimed at
becoming better while suffering allows one to be comfortable at the face of
problems. Cyrus believes that he is neither a hustler nor a sufferer. He calls
himself a human being who will become successful in the days to come.
Cyrus is more concerned with his character as a
human being rather than his reputation as a hustlesufferer. This is because his character forms who he
really is, while his reputation is merely what others think of him. To him,
reputation is just an estimation, which his comrades generally hold about him.
He is focused on his way of thinking, feelings and his behaviors. Unlike his
workmates, Cyrus has refused to think or even live the way he was supposed to
live as a Mjengo man, he had chosento behave like a person he ought to be, who
he really was, a graduate. This made him stand out among his fellow workers as
he perfomed his duties with diligence and came out as a graduate in Mjengo work
too. Only that there was no scale that could be used to rate his Mjengo work as
first class upper or lower. Out of his outstanding performance, the
construction manager got fond of him more than the fore man. This made him miss
out work whenever the manager was not visiting the site.
When out of the Office, Cyrus was organizing his
small income so that he could start a small hawking business whenever he was
out of work. This was different from hustlesuffers who take up drinking,
chewing muguka or just being at base. Cyrus used to sell what was needed such
as umbrellas, caps on rainy and sunny days respectively. He would sell anything
just to keep his small hawking business going. When his thinking was loud, Cyrus
used to say,
“One day am going to be big, either through business
or a big job with an income that does not allow me to only live, but will be able
to support my lifestyle. To me the means of doing Mjengo work and hawking
justifies the big end that I will be having. I also believe that am going to be
the head and not the tail. Above all, I know that one day God will raise me
from the cement dust and make me seat in
a table among the high in the society. All these I believe will come very soon,
I just have to do my best in these responsibilities and bigger ones are going
to be entrusted to me.”
Cyrus was keeping his words, “Reputation is what you
have when you come to a new community while character is what you have when you
go away .I will leave a good reputation in the few days I will be a
hustlesuffferer, before joining the International community as a diplomat.” In
addition, Cyrus was keeping his word on making his life better each day, week,
month and year. In this New Year 2014, Cyrus had purposed to improve his life
by moving into a bedsitter in Zimmerman together with his friend Otero.
Although he never shared the same principles with him, Otero was a diploma
holder and he was also the store manager. Unlike other hustlesufferers, he was
able to raise Kshs three thousands to cater for house rent after drinking. Most
of hustlesufferers he used to work with would consume the weekly pay with girlfriends
and on Monday they would be too broke to treat the hangover. So the nearby Swts
Wine and Spirits would give them an advance ya kutoa lock (remove hangover).
Otero hated
being broke. He used to save some of his pay and just drink beer to celebrate his
work and to thank himself for surviving the week. From his savings, Oterorist as they used to
call him, he was also to raise an extra two thousands for shopping. This made
their lives better since they were able to cook in the house and remain
healthy. The other hustlesufferers would skip supper; get breakfast from pombe Na maroho (Wine and spirits) in
order to survive the day. Later the foreman would cater the half cost of lunch
so that the workers would only take thirty minutes instead of one hour for
lunch. Despite being able to deal with
hunger and privacy, Oterorist and Cyrus had another problem. This problem would
affect Cyrus more since he spent more time in the house writing applications,
planning his life or just relaxing in the house. Oterorist was outgoing, most
of the time he was out of the house unless when he had given Cyrus an exile. At
this time, Oterorist would invite his galfriend in the house. This made him to
easily ignore bedbugs their other companions.
Kama used to blame Oterorist for the bedbugs; he
accused him of bringing them from his friends’ house in Githurai. However,
Otero had an embarrassing answer to his accusations. According to Oterorist,
his friend used to wet his bed, his urine had high content of spirits and had a
bad odour that would always chase the bedbugs away. The spirits were believed
to kill all insects and worms that came across it even in the stomach. Among
the hustlers, Spirits were used to cure stomach and chest problems due to their
strong medicinal value.
These two house mates used to sleep in their
original suits to avoid habouring bedbugs in other clothing. In spite of this,
bed bugs used to hide in the navel, ears and any other place they would find a
cover. The bedbugs’ problem in Zimmerman and Githurai had also been reported in
the area County Representative office but no action had been taken yet. Some
time back the same problem was in the daily papers after students in Kenyatta
University had threatened to strike due the increased numbers of bedbugs in their
hostels. At the moment Cyrus thought spirits in the urine was not the best
pesticide for bedbugs, he was of the idea of using some of the chemicals used
in KU to permanently terrorize bedbugs.
Apart from chemicals and urine, the duo had received
many other suggestions that they would use to curb bedbugs including using
petrol, diesel and kerosene. Spraying all these only multiplied the population
of bed bugs. On the other hand, the option of spraying Spirits directly was
highly opposed by Oterorist and other hustlesufferes for the reason that these
would enrage the ancestors. The wamunyota
(thirsty ones) such as Oterorist opted to take the spirits for free and sell
their urine to the troubled Cyrus.
Every time they sprayed , Cyrus used to be optimistc
that the bedbugs nightmare was over. On the other hand, Oerorist used to be
pesmistic, “Like Jesus these bedbugs have a way of resurrecting. When we spray
they pretend to be dead and after a few days they come back fatter. I wonder
what they eat when they are temporalily dead.”
“I also do not know what they eat because when I
kill a resurrected fat bed bug, it has a
black residue unlike the usual ones that have blood and a bad smell.” Cyrus
would respond.
“The bad smell is a defense. I think the smell alerts
the rest of bedbugs that there is danger. Just like a cat that pretends to be
dead when hit hard to avoid being killed, the bed bugs lie flat with their legs
up. Am told they do these to release eggs like us human beings…….” Oterorist
never finished these kind of sentences.
“The common thing between a cat and a bed bugs is
that these two are the hardest to kill. Their spirits are very strong. So I
think we should get the free spirited urine. But on a second though, mens urine
on my mattress is impossible. It is Cyrus’s bed you are talking about ! ”
Cyrus decided
to start a research on the source of the bed bugs that had found a home and
food in his body. The house was not infected in the view of the fact that the
first few months they used to sleep on the floor; the bed bugs were nowhere to
be seen. After further research, Oterorist established that the second hand
shop had lots of bed bugs. It was believed that people used to get rid of their
beds and mattresses at a throw away price once they found out that they were
infected by the bedbugs. For these reason, the second had shop was the origin
of bed bugs in Cyrus’s house. Oterorist made a conclusion that they were not
going to buy other beddings such as blankets that were being sold from the same
shop. This was against Cyrus’s proposition of purchasing blankets at the end of
the month.
Adding spirituality into the bargain of the origin
of Cyrus’s bedbugs made him to start praying that God will take poverty away
from him. The findings on these cause dictated that bed bugs are an indication
of poverty, in these case it was true given that the only asset that Cyrus had
was his unused degree. From the time that Kama and Oterorist realized the
existence of bed bugs in their bed, it changed from an asset to a liability
that was costing them every now and then. To meet the frequent cost of the
discomfort caused by the bed bugs, they reduced the food budget in order to buy
anything that would kill bed bugs only that they completely refused the free
offer of urine. Even if the bed bugs were not poisonous, their implications
were straining their pockets, image, character and food.
At the Office of Mjengo the situation was getting
worse. The manager had ordered Cyrus to be a permanent casual worker. This was
bad news to the foreman and he had to create a different predicament for Cyrus.
The foreman was complaining that Cyrus was having a go slow since every now and
then he would stop working to either scratch or remove his shirt in order to
kill the bed bug that kept on biting him without any intervals. Although the
foreman did not come up with the bedbugs, had managed to magnify them to a
calamity. Cyrus’s performance at work had reduced drastically since he moved to
a bedsitter in Zimmerman. The foreman had issued a threat to fire him if he did
not comply with the Office of Mjengo resolution on bed bags. This resolution
required that all the workers from Zimmerman to come thirty minutes earlier so
as to get ample time to smoke their clothes. Cyrus refused to comply since he
was not ready to smoke his trousers and shirt, the ones he was likely to wear
for an interview. He preferred to hang them on the fence where the sun will
heat the bed bugs till death.
On the other
hand, government offered bed bug repellant through the county government, since the
struggle against bedbugs had increased after the awareness created by the
county representative in Zimmer and Githurai. Using bed bug repellant the county government was able to cater for
the rights to life for both hustlesufferers
and the bedbugs. Other than using chemicals that would kill bed bugs and put
into high risk the human lives. Using the bedbugs repellant, Cyrus was able to
protect all his body parts but the bed bugs were smarter than him, they
continued to hide in his navel, nose and mouth among other places that the bed
bug repellant could not reach. Cyrus
other using his degree, he found enough security while sleeping next to
Oterorist at his bedsitter in Zimmerman while bedbugs had used his body for
their security and comfort.
Written
by
Jacqueline
Kamau
0724216046
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