Death of Nyamwezi the Watchman

             

There was a time when being a security guard wasn’t considered a job or work, you were just a security guard. My bad, the name wasn’t fancy either you were a Watchman! You could not hear of anyone who worked as a guard.it was such a downtrodden and undermined activity and so was its association. Ask anyone their occupation and one would answer, “Well, I am a farmer” and may be add “but in the evenings I do look over that school”. That was before the security and courier services firm G4S came into the country and made being a watchman a thing.

Nowadays watchmen attend some kind of training, have fancy uniforms and get paid through a bank! After all they are no longer watchmen but security guards or ‘solders’, men and women alike. You ought to even have attained some level of education and has the qualms to introduce yourself as having a career in a big security company headquartered in Nairobi. Back in the day especially in upcountry only schools and coffee factories were guarded, in most cases only at night.  The work wasn’t liked could be because one was only armed with a club, a bow and arrows and a machete against better armed thugs , no uniforms or had had handouts instead of salaries in  some godforsaken institution  that never valued him enough to build a shack to shield himself during the rains. That such a job never attracted young men or women of any ages isn’t a wonder. The characters were men in their fifties, sixties and above, mostly as a side hustle and not a full time job.

In Meru School were had four or so watchmen, they worked in shifts of two at night and two during the day. The work in the day shift entailed checking vehicles, attending to visitors and more importantly checking in or out students who were either suspended, expelled, sent away for school fees or out to do some shopping or ‘shopping’. ‘Shopping’ meant just being out and about in town checking out the ladies (more of ogling than checking out) at Uchumi Supermarket entryway, going to Wind View pub to imbibe some third generation concoctions or burning a music Compact Disk. The movie shops were making such kill then, imagine music CDs were burning at between Ksh 150 and 200 and movies were more expensive my buddy Kimto bought the Lord of the Rings at Ksh 350. It was in 2005 therefore that like Ksh 1,500 in 2018, damn expensive! There were guys who were out every weekend doing that shit but I never mastered the guts to seek that permit, I was a mischievous but shy boy. 

Enough! Back to Nyamwezi, he was among the four watchmen I can at least recall by name in Meru School. In the company of Ngatia, Boss and the other guy who had sideburns, Nyamwezi stands out because of his character a mean cold-hearted son of a bitch! You see the watchman on duty had the responsibility of opening and closing all the eight dormitories as well as ensuring nobody was hiding in the dorms before he closes them or anywhere else in building during assemblies, preps, class time or the stupid weekend challenge. I despised morning assemblies and weekend challenges so I would hide in my dormitory Njuuri Ncheeke alias Barracks before it is closed or in the vast ceiling of the Multipurpose Hall. The lanky Nyamwezi had an eye for details and he caught me almost every time in hid in the dorm and had had somebody spread my bed while lied in it as a disguise. He was not fooled by that time old trick, the best bed for it was a spring’s one but it would also sag and Nyamwezi’s eagle eye would always spot it. Once caught Nyamwezi was so uncompromising, no amount of pleas, bribes or threats would stop him from dragging you to the ‘Office’.  Save for the papers and not knowing anyone that watchman could probably have made the best Anti-corruption Commission chair Kenya has ever had.

 Now my crew of mischievous boys had grown tired of having the best of six regularly courtesy of Nyamwezi. We had to teach him a lesson. We were big boys now in form three and there was no way in hell a mere watchman could make our lives more miserable than the Snakes (prefects and captains) and Mr. Ithinji the deputy principal were already.  So sometime around the June of 2007 a bunch of very nutty boys met at the cubicle of the Sports prefect Cos Kavinda at 9:45 pm to plot how to bell this cat. We gathered Intel about the rounds he makes at night, to where and at what time. It was discovered that Nyamwezi ate his supper at 2100 hrs. And spend an hour dozing off near a fire. Beating him up was extreme. The following day in the evening at around ten minutes to ten the considered criminal gang of seven or so boys walked out of evening preps for varies reasons but with a single mission Nyamwezi! We fetched water in ten metallic buckets, three in soil and ballast in two and ended towards the kitchen area where the enemy would be warming himself by the fireplace in the kitchen annex. The intel was reliable and the operation a go. Unceremoniously Nyamwezi was hit by a cocktail of bucketful after bucketful of cold water, soil and ballast, for a minutes or two the poor broke tasted the wrath testosterone raging teenagers. Before our victim could gather his composure we ditched the buckets and run toward the classes, fortunately the end of preps bell rang at 2200 Hrs so we joined the crowd ending to sleep. In the morning I was very attentive in the assembly since I knew we couldn’t get away with crime. We had assaulted a watchman who was famed for noting visogos (what the heck is the English for that part of the head anyway?) not facial appearances only.  

That the case was not mentioned was a surprised and we thanked our lucky stars for it, but I guessed it was because Nyamwezi had too many enemies and the timing was ingenious, many boys would end out minutes to ten so that by the time the bell ran they were at their dorms’ doors.  However he caught a nasty cold and had to take a week’s leave. It happened that the snitch suffered from Diabetes and later that year dead while at home. Rumours spread like Ebola virus that attack by the gang was the real cause of his passing on. It became one of those indisputable legends and myths in a schools in spite of facts proving them contrary. That dude could have died anyway attacked or not. In the words and voice of William Ruto let me state without fear of contradiction the gang had nothing to do with this death, Nyamwezi paid the wages of his uncompromising snitch habit I the ambush and mother nature is trying to kill us every damn day till we die.

I know there are folks especially in the #Classof08 who hold the shit true. Anyone who believes the legend that we anyway accelerated the demise of Nyamwezi then he ought to be one of the many who believes the far from true miracles Mrs. Ntoiti the C.U patron was fond of telling on Monday mornings. “Boys on Friday I prayed to the lord and said do not let the disco near my home which is spoiling young people go on. And there was a black out all weekend long. My lord is faithful and answers players, so don’t joke when I say the C.U music system is cleansed by the blood of Jesus and can’t play dirty songs. You try it!”