Pests and Pets

Many people had dogs/cats; dogs were typically called Simba, Chui, Shaka (as in Shaka Zulu) and they were either friendly/ useless in the face of thieves, or they were kali and unreasonable. Maze those dogs probably had rabies, lakini the important thing was for them to protect a hao. Mnakumbuka those signs on people’s gates: “Mbwa Kali” with a picture of an Alsatian? We used to stand outside the gates of such haos and irritate the dog, so one person would be standing behind the hao making noises and the dog would rush from the front gate to the back gate barking like mad.

There was the belief that if you fed your dog raw meat it would become even more kali, so people would feed their dogs nyamas with blood on them mpaka the mbwas contracted tapeworms. There was medicine which dogs with worms were supposed to be given lakini no dog would kubali to take it, even if it was laced into milk. Aah dogs used to lenga even wash-times; people used to chase after them with soap and a brush but then the minute the dog was rinsed it rukad into the dust and rolled in it.

Dogs used to have a sense of community amongst them and oddly they would bweka in unison in the middle of the night (like in WereWolf). When mbwas reached their on-heat cycle there was nothing that anyone could do to prevent them from heparing over or under the fence and finding the nearest female/male dog. In such events the whole Esto would kimbia to see them – woi we were so juvenile, and when the dogs’ tails got caught up with each other no one went to okoa them we just stood in a huge crowd laughing and cracking jokes.

Cats used to be elusive and mysterious, like they would just be in the hao for breakfast and supper, after that they would toroka. One time a strange cat started coming to our hao to spend the day (yani cats haven’t got any fidelity?) and we fed it excessively mpaka it was nono kabisa. The purpose of cats was supposed to be to kamata rats/mice (actually I don’t think there are any mice in Nai), but those cats were piceful like “I’m not eating that” so rats would run loose. There seemed to be fluctuating populations of panya; several months could pass by without seeing a panya then boom, two hundred would unleash themselves on the Esto. Those things used to hover everywhere and have a heyday. Our housie was so scared of them, she’d jump on a chair and tetemeka when she heard one (like that woman in Tom & Jerry).

Then there were geckos – urrggghhh I hated them. They would be away during the day then they would tokea at night and creep on the wall wherever there were lights on. Eurrgh I’m feeling thithi just thinking about it. Even if you locked the windows 24/7 they would still find a way in like Freddie Krueger. They would then creep onto the ceiling and you’d change seats just hoping the thing wouldn’t fall on you. Imagine if a gecko fell into your mouth whilst you were asleep! Uh-uh those things should be exterminated from Nai. One day in chuo a gecko crept out of some boy’s bag – the girls screamed and ran and from then on I kept my school bag in a cupboard. Now I’m even more squeamish about them than before, hata afadhali a lizard – kumbuka those dark ones with white stripes, they just used to mind their own business and stay out of the hao.

The birds of Nai were hardly sweet, chirruping things. They were hawks and crows (the jet black ones with white patches which used to mwaga waste on peoples heads). Those hawks were Machiavellian. If you happened to be eating or holding a samo or sausage or something with meat in it (hawks can tell from miles up) they would just swoop down and kamata it, scratching someone with their claws. In chuo and in public parks they were all over the place, perched on trees kama vultures, just waiting, watching, and preparing to swoop on your nyake.

At some point rabbits became pets of the year, and people rushed to buy them. A society in our seco kept rabbits to breed and one morning the person feeding them found them all dead. A troop of siafu (safari ants) had malizad those rabbits. Woiye it was so sad. Those siafu are deadly, not like the black ants that used to climb into haos in a mlolongo when they sensed the presence of sugar. Nothing could keep sugar and black ants separated.

The more dangerous side of Nai creatures was the nyokas. Hakuna mambo ya ati “some snakes are harmless” but at least Nai is not too hot like Nanyuki or sides of Voi where nyokas apparently pumzika in people’s haos. There was a small field of grass in our Esto, and the grass had overgrown with bidii. We were playing near there and our ball fell inside the grass. For several minutes we stood kando ya the field arguing because no one wanted to go and retrieve the ball, lakini there was a chick new to the Esto who didn’t know that nyokas lurked in that grass, so we told her to go and fetch the ball. Obviously she was reluctant but she couldn’t toa fujo as she was new, so she went in. Hiyo nyasi ilikuwa waist-high at our age, so she almost disappeared. After several minutes she hadn’t returned (we couldn’t see her either) and we debated on whether to go and find her (“Labda ameuliwa na nyoka, tutatell paros zake nini?”) but still no one was willing to go in. Suddenly she came running, screaming that a nyoka had swished her legs with its tail. Heh-heh we all kimbiad away, and that ball remained there until someone cut the grass one day.

Other wanyama included frogs, which croaked relentlessly. At some point we found tadpoles swimming in a pool of water after the rain and we thought that fish would tokea from them. One kiddo went home with them in a plastic bag and waited. When churas grew from the tadpoles she screamed. There wasn’t any mambo of ati animal welfare; we used to mwagia salt on slugs and snails (lakini snails got the message and they stopped showing up in Nai). One day a chura was kanyangwad by a car and our science teacher brought it to class with its intestines hanging out ati so that we can see the internal body parts of a chura. Aah tabia mbaya hiyo. Oh and who kumbukas those insects which used to emerge whenever it rained? They were like maggots with wings, really big wings, and after the rain they would lose those wings and we’d find them lying around. I wonder what they’re called.

People who lived near a forest like Karura or Aboretum used to see monkeys regularly and some would toroka with their clothes hanging on the washing line. I loved going to Animal Orphanage, but thinking about it now I hate the idea of animals being caged up like that, woiye if you just look into those lions’ eyes you feel bad for them. There was also Giraffe Park, where the giraffes would try to busu people and lick them with their long tongues. In Nairobi National Park rhinos would kimbisha cars and there was a place whose name I forget where peacocks would hepa when you tried to approach them. Na je that huge elephant sculpture in the National Museum? Aah I loved going there. Kumbuka snake park, which also had crocodiles? One time a vet daktari with a white coat was walking on a wall surrounding a crocodile and you could just see the crocodile eyeing him intently like “ukislip kidogo tu ...” Then the vet threw nyama at the crocodile. Aah someone could go on Safari right there in Nai.