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MOMBASA, KENYA - My court appearances always used to coincide with those of a sick man with whom I would share the dock. He was a pitiful sight. he would spend the whole session racked by coughs. He was in remand at shimo la tewa and he seemed to be suffering from tuberculosis. I kept thinking that he should just be acquitted and go home. One day he pressed a piece of paper into my hand - I knew he did that because he'd noticed that I usually came from home for my mentions. Later I opened the crumpled note. (I am a dying man. I see you have a Lawyer. please ask him to come see me though I have no money and no family here.) I was so saddened.
Moraa Gitaa Later I handed the piece of paper to my lawyer. He was stunned. "Moraa, your case is proceeding very badly as it is, and I don't have time for such. But I'll see what I can do."
I don't know what he did. And I've never asked him ... all I know is that at the next mention the Magistrate acquitted the man ... The man thanked me when we were leaving. I was really happy for him.
Something else bothered me. Why was it that the court sessions seemed to bring out the verbosity in everyone? They were even falling over each other just to perjure themselves.
I looked at my workmate as she stood in the witness stand. The conniving bitch! How dare she be in cahoots with the security officer? She knew there was no way someone could leave the club in such a way as was described in my charges, unless one is an acrobat like Spiderman or plastic man!
The way the proceedings were progressing I knew that manna was surely confined to Canaan! I thought that the only thing that could save me now was not my innocence but for someone on the prosecutions team of witnesses to walk or drive home via Damascus! Perhaps I should have coughed up the lost money, I thought as I sank wearily onto a filthy broken cement bench at the Makadara grounds (These are historical grounds cum gardens in Mombasa.) . I didn't even seem to notice that the bench was covered with kunguru (black crow) droppings. The public toilet nearby was stinking.
Several times in the coming months my case would be put off because my file could not be traced! My file had started the famous antics that Kenyan files in court are known for! I was proved right when, during one of these file-disappearing-and-re-appearing act's, I was approached by one court clerk who told me that a beautiful lady like me should not waste time in court corridors, and that "niongee na wazee vizuri" ("Talk nicely to the elders." A thinly veiled reference to suggest I bribe officials so that my day of judgment would arrive sooner.) Or perhaps this might make my file disappear permanently and then I would not have any case to answer.
Days Of Ruling
My Mum had come to my place early in the morning to give me even more depressing and disturbing news. Some one called my father at four in the morning to suggest that he sees the Magistrate privately at his residence before the ruling. And that he should carry something small "for elders" because the ruling was going against me. And that they should not let me go to jail when there was a way out.I always go against the grain and maybe that is my Achilles heel. I had looked at my Mum aghast. How could they even think of such a thing? I told her to go and tell my Dad that if he bribed anyone -- it didn't matter who -- I would never speak to him again. And if I'm sent to jail, they'll take care of my daughter for me. I told Mum I was leaving everything in God's hands, and she told me they'll respect my wishes.
Later in the day my faith did serve me in good stead. The magistrate had looked at me. "I understand you have a little girl. Don't you have anything to say?"
What did he want to hear?
- Should I tell him about the time I lost my job because my boss had sent me on an errand to bribe a c ustoms official and I'd refu sed? Or the way he'd freaked out when I went on to explain to him calmly that it was a principle of mine not to bribe anyone and that I was not going to start then?
- Did he want to hear how one "expatriate" boss had drawn a gun on staff at a casino I worked? And had only gotten deported after the press highlighted the incident?
- Should I tell him how we'd gotten a worse (expat' ) Manager who would not increase my salary because I'd refused to go out with him? How one morning he called me to his office to collect the days float money only to find him in his boxers, watching pornography on his computer, pretending at the same time to be working out on his dumb bells? And how I had to put my foot, jamming the door and screaming for the security personnel?
That Manager had started to hate me then. And he'd not given me my increment. Yet some of my Colleagues (the self-same ones now witnesses in this case) had gotten theirs.
I only got to understand this when I accidentally bumped into him with one of my workmates on his arm when I was having dinner at the Tamarind with some friends from Nairobi. Or how he kept on deducting money from my salary every month claiming my computer had reflected a shortage in money?
I looked at the Magistrate. I was so tired. What did he want to hear? I could not bring myself to speak. My chest burnt with suppressed tears. I thought I was going to choke. I shook my head and signaled to my lawyer to talk on my behalf.
He did, going through all the injustices I'd suffered and rested his case.
And then the Magistrate was ready to deliver his ruling.
Time stood still as I reminisced on past milestones ... The labor ward at the Aga Khan hospital ... the delivery room as I had gotten ready to have my baby ... how the nurse had found me sitting on the floor stark naked ... how she'd scolded me saying that I'd get an infection ... how I'd told her I liked the cool surface as it dimmed the pain ... how an entire Asian family had come to watch one of their own bring a baby into the world, and how they had to be shooed out ... ... The only memory clear, and one I hold dear is the green Agakhan prefects uniform hovering before my dazed eyes -- my baby sister Lillian -- maybe that is why she is so close to my daughter ... And that cherished moment when I held my baby for the first time. ...and more recently forcing my daughter to take sugarless porridge because there was no money ... How I would walk to Mama Ngina Drive (an historic and picturesque sea frontage in Mombasa, named after Kenya's former First Lady.) I would stare so hard at the passing ships and then start meditating. I've always loved the sea and the beach ... such tranquility ... I would get on my knees and cry to God for a job ... which seemed hard to come by ... all I encountered all day long was a disillusioned people with a free-falling currency, a flagging economy and an impoverished population growing into its millions. Yet the gap between the rich and the poor kept widening into a huge chasm.
I remembered a friend who'd also lost her job. We would go our separate ways in the morning and then meet in the evening to compare notes or console one another. Then one evening she comes to my place and tells me that she got a job offer as a Telephonist but she was not very comfortable with it and the salary was twenty thousand shillings. Now, I've lived in Momabasa my whole life and I know the salary scales like the back of my hand and there was no way someone was going to offer you that kind of money in 1998 as a Telephonist. That was almost double [the going rate]!
So she told me to go check out the prospective employer and ask for a job also and then give her the feedback later. The following morning I go to the bureau. On one wall is a sticker that proclaims "NO JOB WI THOUT SEX." I don't give it a second glance. I find this Asian gentleman. He looks sick and has sores all over his face. I also don't give it a second thought. I enquire about a job and he interviews me and then offers me the job.
He looks at my r»sumé and asks about my daughter. I always indicate on my Curriculum Vitae that I am a single parent with one child. I answer him, and then he says that I will have to work odd hours. I don't understand him, because I had passed by that bureau on several occasions and they operate normal working hours. His next question started the warning bells in my head. "Mimi pana taka mambo ya matoto" (" I DON'T LIKE THESE CHILDREN PROBLEMS") in heavily accented and broken Swahili. "Wewe nasema nakaa na matoto peke yako,.mimi tapata hiyo maneno ingine namna gani?" ("YOU SAY YOU STAY ALONE WITH YOUR CHILD, HOW WILL I GET THE OTHER FAVOURS?") he asks looking pointedly at a the location of a particular anatomy below my waistline.
To say I was shocked is the understatement of the century! I didn't even answer him. I picked up my papers hurriedly and tumbled out of the bureau, literally running. But I paused long enough to enquire at the business next door (a boutique) on the nature of the bureau. The owner told me that the bureau rarely operated and the ladies employed there barely worked for two months. As I went home, I kept thinking of the sticker in that office and the sores all over the man's face and hands.
Later I linked up with my friend. She shocked me by saying, "So he tried that on you too? I just wanted a confirmation."
I told her we should hold on to our dignity and integrity and God will open ways for us. She wondered how I survive with a child and no job, and I told her a lot of prayers and the fact that I'm a Virgo!
Sometimes it was hard putting on a brave face when encouraging a friend and recalling that Romans 5:3-5 says " ... suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, character produces hope and hope does not disappoint ... " only later at night to be so confused when reading a quote by Francis Bacon, " ... hope is a good breakfast, but a bad supper ... "
After a month she moved house and we lost contact, meeting two years later on the streets of Mombasa. At first I passed her and she had to run after me. I could barely recognize her, she had lost so much weight. I was in a hurry and I just told her to pop in at a shop I worked. She did not have a job again, soon she became a regular visitor at the mobile phone shop I worked. She was always sick, but would insist she was not sick. She told me she had a one-year old daughter, and her baby was very sick. She would always come to ask for bus fare and money to buy medicine for her baby, and I would always give her whatever tips I'd managed to gather that day.
One day she had to pass by the shop with her sick child. I was shocked. Not by how much the baby looked sick -- but that the child had Asiatic features. All I could say was "Oh, Mary! After we parted ways did you go and work at that Asian's bureau?" She looked at me with tears in her eyes and nodded, her movement barely noticeable. That was the last time I saw her. She didn't have a phone and never told me where exactly she lived, only that it was in Likoni, an area in the South Coast of Mombasa.
I'd give anything to know where she is ...
The Magistrates droning voice brought me down to earth. " ... .one years probation ..." and he rapped his gravel and stood up bowing.
The Security Officer from the casino walked out in protest at the ruling.
After all he'd been doing the rounds in town saying that he would not rest until he makes sure that I end up doing time at Shimo la tewa.
I looked at my Mum, relief in my eyes as she gave me a thumbs- up signal. We walked over to my lawyer and he gave us a very simple explanation as to what probation meant. That I'm under surveillance for the duration I've been placed on probation. A probation officer will be assigned to me, and that I will have to report to the probation office once a month. I should also stay out of similar trou ble for that duration ... blah ... .blah ... blah ... Little did I know that a term of probation in corrupt Kenya had a completely different definition from the standard one you and I know.
It was like another mini-trial at the hands of an un-cooperative probation officer. A horrendous nightmare! Of all the escapades I've ever been involved in, some cases at extremely risky rendezvous, my probation ordeal takes the cookie!
[TO BE CONTINUED]
MORAA GITAA says of herself: "My names are Moraa Gitaa. I am a Kenyan Lady of African descent in my early thirties born to Kenyan parents. I am a single parent with an adorable nine year old daughter (Tracy) who is a blessing in my life and keeps me going as I struggle to carve a niche in the world of writing, but to no avail, especially here in Kenya where even getting a call from a Publisher is like manna from heaven." This is her first article for The World's Magazine.
© 2004, GENERATOR 21.
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