Sweet Tails

By James Kemoli Amata

You come from a humble family and you become a celebrity.
How did Toto Mwendwa and Mudanya wa Rusubeta become celebrities in Lugari?
Lillian must be the pillar but how?

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Kemoli Amata
• Release date: Jul 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301980833

James Kemoli Amata

I am a retired secondary school teacher of Kiswahili (and Christian Religious Education) and an excited preventive healthcare marketer with Green World Health Products Company.I am a 1976 University of Nairobi Bachelor of Education [Arts (Hons)] graduate and a freelance content writer with a passion for writing and indeed I am a farmer-like author with many titles.I published my first book in 1985, by traditional publishing. I have tried self-publishing and now I am in great heat to explore E-publishing.However, I will never forget my Taaluma ya Ushairi (with Kitula King’ei) from which the publisher ate fat alone, and happens to be an E-book without my knowledge.As I do my business, I worship God in African Kenya Sabcrynnsk of Soi (Prayer and Healing) Church.

Book preview

Sweet Tails

James Kemoli Amata

Other books by this author

Tuchambue Tamthilia: MSTAHIKI MEYA NA Timothy Arege

Siri Kali

Sweet Tails

James Kemoli Amata

Physical Address:

Tiens Specialty Shop

KVDA Plaza, Mezzanine Floor

Eldoret

Kenya

Postal Address:

PO Box 2-30105

Soy

Kenya

Mobile: [phone]

E-Mail: [e-mail]

Copyright © James Kemoli Amata, Tuesday, 18 June 2013.

Published

By James Kemoli Amata on Smashwords, Monday, 22 July 2013

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedicated to

Nelson Mandela Madiba who taught that people should never quit and must know that they are capable of living a life that they deserve and are capable of living!

My thanks go to Vitalis Kechula of Soy Youth Polytechnic for typesetting the manuscript for this book.

Cover design by Edward Odoyo

Acknowledgements

Were it not for Jeniffer Chepkirui Lihasi, of Modern Professional Centre, Soy and Beatrice Amwayi of Japtech IT, Kogo Plaza, I would not have managed to format this work. She has ever been with me when it comes to computer services.

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Sweet Tails

James Kemoli Amata

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13

CHAPTER 1

Will God ever look in my direction? Why can’t He hear my cry and see my tears? I endlessly buried myself in deep dark wonder. I did not I know that God had already set my day of change long before I knew what would ever happen to me in the end in my life. I was seated under a tree wondering why I was born by a humble mother. I did not know my father. I hated myself. I kept on wondering and sympathizing with myself.

I was a young boy, ten years old. My mother made baskets which she took to the market once a week. The market day was Saturday. If mother sold some baskets we celebrated. We ate meat on that day. The meat we ate was different from the one that our neighbours ate. They ate soft meat which looked like a round fish. But it was red. It had no white lumps of fat. In some areas it shone like glass. I never knew why mother never bought that kind of meat. She once in a while brought us meat that was black on one side. It looked like a towel while some other pieces were like a book and others red, like sponge. In addition to those, the other piece or two were like pink rubber.

We had another neighbour called Kali. He owned two huge dogs. The meat that mother bought for us was the type that he bought for his two pig-like dogs. Almost everyday the lucky dogs ate legs and heads of animals from the slaughterhouse. Kali used to boil the legs and the heads. He served his dogs with soup before he invited them to gnaw at the bonny meat and tear off skins.

One Saturday we were lucky. Mother came home with fish. It was dry fish. It looked yellowish but with hardly any meat. It was more or less a thick skin with thin spikes glued on from just after the head to the tail. How shall we eat ugali with these bones and skins? I asked myself in my heart.

Mother had all the solutions to our problems. She boiled some water and washed the two dry fish she had managed to get at the market. On this day she had not been lucky. Nobody bought any of the five baskets she had taken to the market. However, many people took their time asking her, At how much are you selling these baskets?

It depends on the size, mother answered, hoping to sell at least one. These big ones are worth twenty shillings each. You can take the small ones at ten shillings each.

The whole day that Saturday she sat under her usual place receiving the same questions and giving the same answer. The day was monotony itself.

Mother was not alone. She had never been alone. Every market day was never the same for everybody. Each trader had their own day. It was normal for some traders to go back to their homes with nothing in their pockets. However, they were as loaded on their heads as they had gone to the market. On such days they did have a lot of silence. Their mouths were dry with thirst and their stomachs on their backs.

Just before mother made her decision to leave the market, her counterpart at the far end of the market gave up sitting under a tree to sell her dry fish. She had been there since morning with a large winnowing basket on which she carried a mountain of dry fish.

On that particular Saturday, Adema stood up. She had been under the tree the whole day hopping to sell her dry fish. She sold none on that day. In the morning she had left her three daughters and seven sons with a pot of porridge. She had hoped to sell her fish and go back with a basket full of ripe bananas.

If I sit here like a spider I will not sell a single fish, Adema bombed her brain. I have to be a lioness. She walked from place to place in the market telling people what they could see without being told. I have fish! I’m selling fish! After making countless rounds in the market, Adema reached where my mother was. She broadcasted in an explosive voice, I have fish! I’m selling fish! My mother looked up. She was crying tears like blood in her heart. She had her baskets and an empty small bag in which she kept her money. At that same time she had a wish for fish. Adema looked at her hopefully. She hoped at least my mother would ask, May I look at the fish?

You can only scratch your back up to where your hand reaches, my mother calmed herself. She looked at Adema motionlessly. Adema saw coldness instead of calmness in my mother.

Are you sick? Adema was concerned. Even in her failure she had a human heart.

Why are you asking me that? My mother struggled. She was under a heavy burden of fear. The day was nearing the end. She had