Easter came around April back in the day, when the weather obeyed the calendar.
There was no talk about global warming. April was characterised by the long holidays that saw families go to shagz to mingle with blood relations as sports fans followed the (mis) fortunes of Safari Rally drivers - Easter was not Easter without Patrick Njiru, Juha Kankkunnen (a name Kenyans found familiar because of the Juha Kalulu cartoon strip), Miki Biasion, Hannu Mikkola, Ari Vatanen, Tommi Makinen, Yoshio Fojimoto and Carlos Sainz.
Easter also ushered in the rainy season and boy! wasn’t it fun rolling cars along the muddy cotton soils of Nairobi’s Eastlands? Girls made mud dolls and the rains also saw an invasion of dede (grasshopper) and kumbi kumbi (flying termites) which our lakeside friends called ng’wen.
Akina Opondo, our next door neighbours, were good at making kitoweo from ng’wen, which went well with ugali prepared in five minutes flat!
Such was Easter when climatic change was still a rumour.
