Owning a hut makes the village teenager hero

Nikko Tanui

Ideally, every village teenage boy should own a hut, where he can enjoy his privacy.

However, not many parents in the village have the means to build even a simple hut for their boys.

As such, many of the unlucky boys — who think that sleeping in the kitchen or old grain store is unmanly — are forced to seek alternative accommodation from that fortunate friend who owns a hut, or what the Kalenjins call sing’ oroino, Kikuyus thingira and Luos simba.

At night it is common to meet boys with old battered blankets hanging over their shoulders, walking along the village footpaths headed to a friend’s home.

For privacy, thingira is always located some distance from the parents’ house and always hidden behind over grown shrubs passed as flowers.

The mud-plastered walls of the grass-thatched cubicles are normally decorated with newspaper or magazine pages, especially those with splash pictures of pretty women.

And to make the walls brighter, the cubicle owners usually add their own unflattering photographs in strategic places where there is a chance that it will attract the eyes of neighbourhood girls whenever they visit.

The cubicles are hardly swept and if they are, the dirt is left in a heap behind the door. Under the beds, are battered shoes and one can even spot a rat as big as a cat dart from one end to another.

But when a girl is expected, the dusty floor is sprinkled with water, swept and the bed, which usually remains unmade for days or even months, is made and kept neat.

Date with a village girl

The huts are always shared among two or three boys. And when one of them has a date with a village girl, it is usually an inconvenience. The roommates would uncomplainingly seek alternative accommodation.

Since few village girls have the courage to visit boys’ cubicle, they are usually fetched by the boyfriend, armed with a rungu or another crude weapon, at a pre-arranged place and often under the cover of darkness.

As the other boys give room to the two, they can hardly wait for the next day to be regaled with the accounts of the escapades (usually exaggerated) of the lucky boy.

Since no one would want to sleep on the floor, one may not be surprised to find more than four boys squeezed in a bed.

To maximise space, some sleep facing upwards and others downwards despite the fact that some may have stinking toes from athletes foot.

During the rainy season, the boys are lazy to find firewood but since in one way or another they must keep warm, they in the cover of darkness uproot a neighbour’s fence poles and sneak them to the cubicle as firewood.

Many are the times villagers are heard swearing by the name of tribal gods that one day they would burst the brains of anyone interfering with their fences.

Vandalise neighbour’s fence

"I did not erect my fence for rascals to harvest it for firewood. The day I will catch someone messing with my fence I will fry their manhood," they would warn.

However, witty boys manage to vandalise the fences.

Once caught, the hefty fine in form of money and other valuables imposed by the no-nonsense tough-talking chief and village elders, quickly cool down the fence owner’s temper.

The situation is worse when it is the rainy season and maize have matured. The boys invade the neighbours’ farms to get maize to secretly roast in their huts.

But the worst comes when the fire is uncontrollable and razes the hut. Only then do they reveal the illegal ‘businesses’ that have been going on in the thingira.

One would be heard saying: "Musa alikua akijisikia na haka ka-thingira; tutaona ataleta hawa washichana wake wapi tena." (Musa has been boasting of this hut we will see where he will now take his girlfriends)

If you were brought up in the village, surely this won’t sound as an exaggeration to you.

[email protected]