Devolution tastes better for a chosen few

In the last few months, you may have noticed a dearth of news in this column on the goings-on at the little cluster of buildings near my village that goes for a shopping centre.

Not a word in a long while, for instance, about our misnamed watering hole, Undecided Leisure Resort.

For the uninitiated, the only leisurely thing about the godforsaken fly-blown little place is the idlers who hang about hoping that an intelligence-deficient patron will buy them drinks.

You also must have wondered what happened to Uturine village’s most remarkable resident, the spectacularly built ‘hostess’ at Undecided, Karembo aka Momo.

I have said it before but it is worth repeating, that Karembo is not just a prized catch for my village but for Meru County as a whole.

Indeed, my main quarrel with the people who advise the devolved government on publicity is that they have ignored what, besides pictures of Mt Kenya, should be a major selling point for the county as a tourist destination.

You want to show that Meru is a land of plenty, flowing with milk and honey?

A promotional poster with the picture of Karembo will certainly do the trick.

Not to mention that for foreign tourists, the picture of an African woman so generously endowed would have them visiting by the busload. But I digress.

The reason we have given Uturine village’s commercial hub a blackout is a shortage of legal tender.

It did not take me long living in the village to appreciate the truth in what the  Governor of Bomet, Isaac Ruto has been preaching whenever he opens his mouth — that we need money at the grassroots.

This is not to say, however, that the lack of money cured me of the craving for drink. It just meant that like many other villagers, I had to adapt and innovate. After wide consultation, I realised that when crafting his laws, John Mututho did not outlaw all alcoholic substances that do not have a Kenya Bureau of Standards seal of approval.

He did make the exception of certain traditional beverages such busaa and, for my purposes, a drink much beloved of elders in my part of the country, karubu. The only condition he attaches is that such drinks be prepared in a hygienic manner.

On my parcel of land, I happen to own a few sugarcane bushes, and it did not take me long to master the crude science, handed down by my ancestors, of brewing my own karubu.

I even went one further and mastered the art of rolling the poor man’s alternative to shop-bought cigarettes, kiraiku. But recently, I sold a goat and felt sufficiently rich to venture visit Undecided Leisure Resort for an evening of revelling.

What I found there was an eye-opener. The traditional bottles of beer as well as smattering of spirits have been joined by a multi-coloured array of canned beer from around the world and casks of wine.

Karembo was lolling on a seat at her favourite corner sipping red wine from a long stemmed glass. It did not take long for these signs of affluence to be explained to me.

LOCAL BEAUTY

Lately, I learned, our local beauty had attracted the admiring attentions of a Member of the local County Assembly and, to cater for the exotic tastes of the MCA acquired in the course of extensive travels in foreign lands, the bar’s management has started stocking these drinks.

From Karembo’s appearance, it is clear that exotic tastes in wines and canned beer are not the benefit accruing from her association with this elected representative.

She has been living well and while her figure has always been plus-size and she had difficulties walking through a door, nowadays it is doubtful that she can pick herself from the floor unaided if she fell from a bar stool.

This is one lady who knows how the fruits of devolution taste and why there should be more money at the grassroots.

Related Topics

Devolution