Why I never Went Home for Christmas

Among my intentions to attend the wedding of my friend there was none to do with meeting with my uncle Jay. I was getting to know the lady I have been seeing in church and have never got the opportunity to know her elaborately. She was came a bit late and left earlier than I did and so I never got a chance to know her apart from seeing her singing in the choir.
"Hey Jack" someone said a few seats near where I intended to sit on. Its the tent which was not very far from the tent where the bridal party and groomsmen sat.
"There is a seat here" she said as she showed me a seat next to the one she sat on.
"Excuse me do I know you?" I asked her as I made myself comfortable on the seat.
"Get serious for once, don't we go to same church?" She went on.
"Even if we go to the same church I want to be honest with you I don't know you apart from see you in the choir" I found myself saying.
"Okay never mind. Am still new there. Maybe a month old" she said carelessly.
"You see now! Am not an angel to know every newcomer" I could not help saying as she laughed softly.

Just then someone said behind us,"shhh! Where are your manners? Can't you see this is an outdoor church service and not just a public gathering?"
"Don't you joke we'll be excommunicated!" She replied in a whisper laughing quietly on her own. I didn't think she was such mischievous.
We sat there quietly listening to the preacher who was apparently preaching to the couple to be married.
"Oh brother no more eating in Kibanda, sister oh no more secrets to your husband, oh don't put a password on your phone, let him access it freely as he wants they way your body will be accessible to him. Oh love one another."
Inside my mind I was busy hallucinating being in my own wedding with sister anonymous. I looked at my new found sister friend come choir member and noticed how she was laughing off the preacher's remarks.
"You have not told me your name" I said to her."
"Don't worry am still here and besides I have told you we go to the same church where am a choir member and you are a ground's person" she said defensively.

Just then the ululations of women as the couple on the platform began to say "I do" interrupted us and for a moment or two we were caught up on the mix. Soon later the sound of the ululations ceased and I found myself thinking over when I would be in such a position of saying "I do". Most of my age mates and high school as well as primary school mates were married men and women. But then few of them had done it this way. I remember telling one of my close friend that I would wed in church.

A phone from my uncle Ombija brought me to the present moment. I wanted to ignore the call but my good friend told me to go answer it. I walked away from the tents to a good spot just in time to receive the call but before I could say hello to the phone the call got dropped. I began to scratch my head as I didn't any airtime to call back. Texting was not an option to Uncle Ombija, as he only read texts from Mpesa only.
"Young man, I am here" someone with a familiar voice said behind me and I turned to see Uncle Ombija walking towards me.
"Oh Uncle long time" I said as we hugged each other. He hugged me so tight till I could almost feel his heartbeat thanks to his bulging belly which prevented me from achieving that.
"It's good I was calling to know if you were on attendance when I saw you walking away from the tents" he went on.
"So Uncle what are you up to now that the wedding is not yet over?" I asked him critically.
"Gary! Stop sounding ignorant like you don't the most important thing in a wedding ceremony"
"They just exchanged their vows Uncle, they haven't ..."
"Yeah the vows is the main event in a wedding ceremony."
I nodded my head in agreement on hearing that. It reminded of days when Uncle was just fresh from the university and I was in upper primary. Uncle was always very critical in his dealings. He lead towards the parking lot without seeking my opinion.
"I hear you are a driver" he said as he handed me car keys then he pointed to a Toyota Premio. "I hope you carried your DL"
"I do have it" I said happily as he opened the driver's door to get it. I was so happy because it is not everyday I do get such a golden opportunity. It's just the other day that my neighbor in the plot where I stay dismissed me for learner and let his wife park his car for him. He is now nursing a wound on his leg after his dear wife almost ran over him with the same car. I suppose she accerelated instead of breaking.

Soon we were out of the grounds where the wedding was taking place towards the highway. My mind was split between driving and the wedding. I disliked leaving a wedding before eating food and off course the cake. Uncle was busy scrolling through his iPhone and did not see that I had been absent minded on the road for a while till some other driver hooted at me.
"What is it Gary?" Uncle asked suddenly afterwards.

"It's that driver with itchy fingers to hoot at me" I replied and we proceeded on to town. I still could not believe I had just lost a grand opportunity to spend time with a such a beautiful lady. Didn't the pastor and deacons say people got spouses in weddings? Here I was driving away from such an opportunity like a coward.

"So tell me why did you not come home for the December holiday?" Uncle asked me in a rather unexpected manner. "You promised your mum that you would come home for we were to have a get together but you called in on 20th that you wouldn't be able"

We drove silently for quite some time as each of us got busy thinking about their own stuff. On a Saturday there is no jam in town at all and you can literally go around town in ten minutes without any difficulty or fear of getting stuck anywhere.  You know sometimes the traffic jam into and around town amazes me at times as if I can’t help thinking that the fuel is cheap so that all car owners find themselves driving at the same time.

Slowly I found my fingers fidgeting with the car music player and in less than a minute some music was playing softly in the background as we drove in a moderately slow speed on Westlands road as uncle had told me when we started driving to town. He wanted us to go into Sarit Center and relax there over lunch.

Once in Sarit Center we packed somewhere and moved to get some favorite eating spot to eat a light meal because personally I had taken a late breakfast before coming to the wedding.
“So I asked you a question a little while ago?” Uncle asked all over again suddenly startling me in the process as I was already thinking he had forgotten about the whole thing. I went ahead to pretend I had forgotten about it just to see how far he could go. This method often worked so much with annoying people like ladies with inquisitive behavior. She would ask you a question and you be like “just a minute let me check something on my phone” then moments later to confuse her just bring a by the way story and cover up the former one. If she revisits her earlier story questions all you do is just pretend you forgot so that she can remind you something which may not go well with her. Very few ladies have the guts to repeat their questions or earlier topics as it makes them feel intimidated. Thank me later when you try this out.
“Uncle please remind me because I may have forgotten you know when you drive you have to assume you are the only sane person on the road” I dared him cunningly.
“I had asked you where you were on Christmas or rather why you never went home last Christmas” uncle said after a silence of like a minute.
“ha ha ha uncle I don’t know where to start answering you from that question” I defended myself.
“Feel free to start anywhere you like, we have all the afternoon” was uncle’s reassurance to me.
“You know uncle I was in a wedding when you called me and took me away”
“a finished wedding”
“And I was just aquinting myself with someone”
“What do you mean son?”
“There are people you never get to meet out here but in a wedding you meet them and you can literally have like a whole hour with them”
“Oh I see, people in skirts is what you are implying son. Oh am sorry next time I will consult you first”
“Oh uncle stop fluttering me like that”
“Ah no I can’t be the reason you fail to get me a daughter-in-law” uncle said laughing off like it was just a simple joke. Then he stopped laughing and looked serious, “Back to our story or stories of why you never went home for Christmas”

“Well you see I had a good plan of going home before Christmas as early as of 12th December.” I started. “But of all things that kept me happy was that someone was going to sponsor me going and coming back if I would agree to help take his children to stay with his elder sister in the village”
“And so did you agree with this sponsor?”
“Off course Uncle I did, I would be coward to turn down such an offer. In fact I had some mShwari loan of five thousand and the money for the tickets was amounting to five thousand one way, I was going to use it to pay my loan and then borrow five thousand and five hundred once they increase my loan limit”
“Sounds interesting.” Uncle nodded as he sipped his energy drink.
“Well this friend of mine went silent the time was due for this journey and I felt betrayed or rather downtrodden”
“With someone’s money?” he smiled.
“Not just his money but the whole plan failing to fall in place, then his sister began to call me over and over like as if she was dieing to see her nephews and nieces. I felt so bad uncle till I also started to ignore her calls just like her brother was doing to me. In the end uncle I realized time was running out for my loan so I started to plot how to get money from other sources to pay my loan so that I don’t get roll over fees on the loan.”
I went ahead to tell uncle of how the work that I was doing of online writing suddenly dropped on me like manna and all I was to do was simply work hard and beat deadlines. Those doing it know that some deadlines that are merely hours away pay off rather handsomely if you are good at them. So one job after another dropped on my inbox and for a while I forgot about my Christmas plans. I had managed to pay off my loan after my second job and everything was in order. It was on the eve of the 21st that I got a call from mum asking me what my plans were. I wasn’t sure about my answer so I lied about it.
“And you mum is not happy up to now for that lie” uncle cut me short.
“I will try to make up for it and go apologize to her about it.” I said.
“Of all sons she had you one who hardly goes home is what she has been telling people since then. You were missing out in the get together” Uncle added.
“Well we plan as human beings but then God is the master planner”
“Don’t you bring God in your own problems when you never involved him from the first point!” uncle said almost bellowing at me. For once I wanted to walk away but then I remembered I had only fifty shillings in my pocket which was not enough to get me to the house.

Just then someone started calling my phone with a new number. I excused myself to pick the call, the voice of lady chimed hello on the other end.

Just then someone started calling my phone with a new number. I excused myself to pick the call, the voice of lady chimed hello on the other end.
I went aside to talk over the phone with mixed expectations over whoever was the caller. While I would be happy and feeling good if it was the new lady from the church choir I would be wondering how she had managed to get my number.
“Gary how comes you did not come for church cleaning today?” asked the feminine voice which despite being familiar was still unrecognized to me.
“Excuse me, who is this?” I asked to kill my curiosity.
“Ah Gary how comes you don’t have my number?” she asked. “Am Deacon Petro’s wife”

“Oh my God!” I signed in surprise I was planning to say something but had to withhold it for this caught me off guard for sure. “Am sorry I didn’t have your number, as for the cleaning I forgot about it and attended a wedding instead”
“But Melinda the new choir member saw you leaving the wedding in some car minutes after the bride and bridegroom exchanged their vows.” She went on.
I wanted to explain myself but then anger for this Melinda and guilt for the church cleaning that I had promised to attend to last Sunday made me start to have verbal diarrhea, “I-i-i-i-i-i…”

“You can explain it tomorrow to the deacons,” she said and hanged up. She was normally one of the elderly ladies who never missed to come church cleaning. I came back to where we had been sitting and found uncle already standing up scrolling through his iPhone X.

“Let’s be out of this place son” he said.
Once on the road towards Lang’ata where he claimed to be staying we continued with our earlier chat on why I never went home for Christmas. Well I recalled to him how I tried to calculate travelling home on the 22nd and be back on the 3rd of January and found it rather too expensive. The one way fare was twice the normal fee. By the time I would be back again I would need to pay my rent and buy electricity tokens.

“But you are still single so you shouldn’t worry over coming back in January to pay school fees like some of us do these days” uncle asked me suddenly.
“But you know people like retired teacher Ombati at home are now beggars to people from Nairobi just like other villagers at home who can sniff the arrival of nairobians” I defended myself. “There was a time Mama Bochere came home for money when I went home driving a friend’s car when we were going for a funeral in western.”

My mum does get excited to the extent she tells whoever she mets on her way to the market or whoever calls her that her son Gary is at home and before long I will start getting calls from people like Aunty Rosina to go visit them. And off course you don’t go visiting empty handedly lest she “curse you”.  “While there some problems begin to produce their children and grandchildren.” I went on to explain to uncle who was visibly amused laughing softly. “Lots of people may turn up while am there with all manner of requests to me”
“Someone like Mzee Chwara might come along saying, please my son from the city come advice your jobless brother stop drinking. His wife is fulfilling the commandment of filling the earth” I didn’t finish what I was saying because uncle was laughing uncontrollably at what I had just said. Maybe he had been confronted by such scenarios. I wanted to tell him more like of some women introducing the daughters to me or other boys coming asking for career advice from me because their fathers have sent them to me, “Go to Gary he wants to talk to you on getting employed”

Just before we could turn to Lang’ata road at the Nyayo round about our car scratched or got scratched by some car in front of us. A lady stepped out of the car and started to take photos of the two cars. Her dressing mode was as provocative as Akothee while her angry look reminded me of Shebesh when she got slapped “aiyayayayaya! You slapped me!”

“Young man where is DL before we begin to assess the damage you have done to my car?” she bellowed at me as soon as she was done with taking photos which I could not tell if she was posting on instagram, twitter, facebook or whatsapp. Uncle was visibly angry seeing me shift on the driver’s seat searching all my pockets for the DL. He got out and started to go around the two cars taking photos too.

“Don’t tell me you forgot it at home” he said when he came back to me in vernacular. By now the lady was making calls and I could see a traffic officer approaching from the other side of the road.