Robbed!

I don’t wear caps or hats. Not because I look bad in them or anything, I think I look damn good in them but life happened.

One of my earliest memories as a child is having a cap snatched right off my head by a chokoraa in town. I must have been around 8 years old, walking with my mum, sister, and cousin in town. We may have been coming from one of those kids’ days out. Mum had bought the caps for us and we were in top feel-good mode, walking up Ronald Ngala Street.

I felt the violent pull on the hair in the sensitive middle of my head as I saw the caps fly off my sister’s and cousin’s heads. What bastards steal from children? I remember my mum trying not to laugh (she is mean). Looking back, it was hilarious but, that was it for me. Fear of the devil was put in me. I will not give anyone the satisfaction of snatching the cap off my head in broad daylight on a busy street ever again.

Getting robbed is one of the most humiliating feelings in the world. If you have never been robbed, please inbox the exact words of the prayers you say complete with directions of which side you face when you do, thanks!

Growing up in a village was a lovely experience. Sunny days, green grass, lots of trees, lots of friends, and a beautiful sense of community. Nights were a whole different ballgame. Thieves and robbers took over to teach us lessons for acting so happy in the daytime. Almost every night, there was a home getting robbed.

If one of the rich neighbors was getting robbed, sirens would be heard as the rest of us cowed and huddled together in bed, scared but grateful it was not our home that night. If the less rich were getting robbed, human sirens got to work.

Another beautiful memory I have, was my neighbor getting robbed and calling out to my mum from across the ridge,

‘Nyina wa Nyawira duge mbu!!’ Mama Nyawira please scream.

My mum obeyed and quickly got on top of the dining table, flinging the window open and opening up her lungs,

“Uuuuuuuuuuuiiiiiiiiiii MUTIUKE!!!’ Uuuuuuuiiiii PLEASE COME!

Not sure how else to translate that. Why do Kikuyus scream like that anyway? Do other tribes have a screaming language like we do?

Anyway, my mum was an amazing village siren and I hope someday she gets honoured for the services she delivered in those years. This wonderful woman can scream!

Another time, robbers came to our house. As they stared each other down through the glass, the leader  demanded of Mum,

‘Mama nasema ufungue hii mlango.’ Mama, you better open this door.

‘Wacha nichukue funguo.’ Okay, let me get the keys, she said making her way to guess where? Yep, the dining table top!

My sister, Monique, takes after her in the lungs department. One time a merry band of robbers followed her home in the middle of the night as she came home from her waitressing job. I heard her hysterical knocking on the metal door and knew something was wrong. My instincts rushed me to the door and I opened it just as fast as her knocking. She shot through the door and yelled,

‘Wezi!!’ Robbers!

I shut the bottom latch of the door as a dark arm slid open the top latch of the door. Isn’t there a God in heaven? We ran to the bedroom together, my sister and I. My bedroom faced outside where the merry band of robbers roamed freely so I grabbed my sleeping toddler by the leg and dragged her out of bed with superhuman strength. We all hid in the second bedroom like the scared baby girls we were, our hearts beating louder than nyabinghi drums as our loud breathing filled the room. The confused toddler stared, wide-eyed and probably wondering if the adults had gone mad. What followed next is something I struggle to understand up to this day.

Monique opened the window and let out the loudest scream I have ever heard in my life; nothing compared to the ones Mum let out on the dinner table years ago. One merry robber flung an equally flabbergasted rock at the window and we all hid in the corner. We slept in that corner, huddled together and shaking like leaves in the wind, just like in the good old days.

Robbers and thieves will have you questioning why practices like beheading no longer exist. Why we are no longer allowed to stone robbers and hang them in public squares? Why their hands cannot be chopped off in public anymore? Getting robbed makes you feel smaller than the smallest ant. You question God. Why you, out of 50 Million Kenyans and 7 billion people? It is degrading and traumatizing. If you are hurt in any way, it gets worse and the scars remind you every day.

My used-to-be taxi driver once told me a story of how one evening, taking a romantic stroll with his girl, they were accosted by a group of robbers. Maybe I should say, HE was accosted. Before he knew what was happening, the back of her white dress was flying through the night in front of his and the disbelieving robbers’ eyes. Faster than Omanyala on steroids, she was gone. They kicked him around a bit and took his phone, his money, and the meat they had bought to end the perfect loving day together. They kicked his butt one last time and told him to go home.

He was seething with anger and embarrassment that he had been robbed and even worse at his girl for outsmarting him and the freaking robbers. It must have been awkward when he got home.

‘Why did you run off and leave me?’ he would have asked her.

‘I didn’t leave you, I left the robbers. I ran to call the police so they could help you,’ she said. (He told me that this is what she said to him.)

‘What did they say?’ he asks

‘I did not call them,’ she says.

You have to have a little doubt when your person swears to you they will never leave you. Someday they might, to call the police.

I will tell you for free though, if you are ever in a robbery situation, don’t try to be a hero. Those only exist in Marvel and DC movies. Co-operate and do everything the merry band of robbers asks you to do. Not doing that could cost a life, yours or someone else’s. Never look at the robbers’ faces, look anywhere but at them, preferably down.

A few years back, I was at Langata Police Station in the middle of a Friday night, bailing out a friend after he threw a beer bottle at a barman. As he was being booked, he continued to be a real bastard telling the cops that he knows his rights and they do not know who he is. Everyone knows you do not tell this to the police if you are not Boniface Mwangi. Seems like he had to learn the hard way. When my friend Joyce and I went to bail him out, the policemen at the OB desk looked at us with contempt on hearing who we were bailing out. One of them said rudely to us,

‘Ghetini hapo mgoche hii changili yenu.’ Sit there and wait for your idiot.

For hours we sat there as they served everyone but us, not even looking in our direction. I hated that guy at that minute. We were good friends so we waited. We kept ourselves busy listening to the crimes being reported.

Two watchmen came in; only one did the reporting.

‘I drive a taxi. I carried a passenger to Langata and his destination was somewhere near the cemetery. Once we got there, three other men came out of the shadows and accosted me. They took all my money and threw me out of my car. They told me to take off my clothes and walk towards the cemetery,’ he narrated with a voice stronger than I would have used had I been the reporter.

‘So did you walk without clothes? I can see you have clothes on,’ questioned one of the mean policemen. Stupid question.

‘He gave me his other set of work clothes,’ replied the poor taxi driver pointing at the real watchman.

I may have been a little high or just young and stupid because I felt a bit of laughter rising in my throat. I looked across at one of the policemen and saw the same thing in his eyes. We smiled or laughed with our eyes. I felt ashamed and looked away. Why would I laugh at such a terrible situation? My parents would be so ashamed of the child they raised.

Anyway, several hours later, our idiot friend was freed. Joyce suggested we get a drink and wait for the day to break. I just wanted to get home, sleep, and forget about that whole ugly night. Also, a guy named Karma was calling for me so I insisted we go home.

We made our way to the CBD and got a Kinoo-bound matatu. Sitting on the backbench, I pleasantly realized that the third person on the seat was my friend Njoro. He was a club manager and was heading home too. Another friend Kariuki Thige also boarded the matatu and it was looking like a fun little ride home until it wasn’t.

As the rickety matatu ricketed its way past Mountain View, I was narrating the events of the night to Njoro. Mid-sentence and mid-laughter, he lifted both his hands in the air, with a look on his face I had never seen on a man before, fear. The passenger riding shotgun had knelt on the seat and was facing the back, pointing a gun straight at us.

Another thing about Kenyan robbers, they will insult you. These were no different.

‘Maumbwa nyinyi, mnyamaze na mtoe kila kitu ama niue mtu!’ You dogs, shut up and take out your belongings or I will kill someone.

Three more ‘passengers’ took out guns and continued with the insults. I honestly may have blocked out most of what happened after that because I don’t remember much except that they took us to a shamba somewhere in Ndumbu-ini. I also remember praying to God.

‘Father Lord, I am sorry I laughed at the taxi watchman. Please spare us and don’t let them ask us to take off our clothes and walk into the Shamba.’

He is a merciful God because our clothes remained, they are the only things that remained. They told us to lie down on the ground face-down as they took off in the semi-darkness. The sun’s rays had started peeking through the clouds as we shakily made our way home.

The trauma from that incident was intense. Two days later, standing at the bus stop trying to assess which matatu looked robber-free so I could go home, I saw Kariuki ahead of me. He was going in and out of different matatus trying to pick up robber-free vibes so he could go home early too.

I didn’t tell him I saw him that day. I laughed quietly to myself as I hopped into a robber-free matatu.