By David Ndirangu
Worth Noting:
- Now Fellow was an interesting guy who was always telling funny stories and anecdotes that would make people laugh, but at times he would go on and on dramatizing his stories leaving his audience a bit embarrassed.
- The matatu fare to the work -place was then around five shillings but Fellow and I sometimes found ourselves without the money.
- On such occasions, we had to walk to work. Walking to work meant moving across two ridges though two coffee plantations, a forest and crossing two rivers. One of the rivers called Chania was big and had a real bridge. The other one called Kamūringato (don’t ask me what this means – I also find the name a little strange) was a small, slow flowing river with brownish water.
When I got my first job many years ago, I was working at a place called Nyeri.
Nyeri is a town near the big mountain that some Kenyans especially from that neighbourhood these days refer to as Mrima.
It is the same Mrima that one ‘Truthful man’ dares anyone to touch at his or her own peril.
Yes. I know it should be something like Mlima but remember our tongues have a small issue with R and L. And… stop laughing – we try.
My place of work was about six kilometres from Nyeri town where I resided with a friend and colleague of mine, let us call him Fellow.
Now Fellow was an interesting guy who was always telling funny stories and anecdotes that would make people laugh, but at times he would go on and on dramatizing his stories leaving his audience a bit embarrassed.
The matatu fare to the work -place was then around five shillings but Fellow and I sometimes found ourselves without the money.
On such occasions, we had to walk to work. Walking to work meant moving across two ridges though two coffee plantations, a forest and crossing two rivers. One of the rivers called Chania was big and had a real bridge. The other one called Kamūringato (don’t ask me what this means – I also find the name a little strange) was a small, slow flowing river with brownish water.
To cross Kamūringato, one had to follow a narrow footpath through a small thick forest called Kīa Nūgū (of monkeys). For a bridge, there was a tall tree that had fallen across the river some seasons back. The villagers had decided that it should remain there and act as a bridge. They had cut off the branches and peeled off a bit of wood on top in a bid to make the surface somehow flat. Nevertheless, there was a clear ten meters drop between the log-bridge and the Kamūringato water.
One Monday morning during the long rains, we found ourselves with no fare to work. So we had to walk. It had rained heavily the whole night. So we had a relatively ordinary muddy walk until we came to the Kamūringato. The normally innocent, slow moving water was a raging fast and furious river almost as big as the Chania. Fortunately, Fellow was quite courageous and without much thought just stepped on to the log-bridge and started slowly walking across. The log-bridge had a length of about twenty metres.
I also carefully stepped on to the bridge and with my eyes focused on a spot on Fellow’s faded blue jacket, somewhere between the shoulders, I was able to start walking but with my arms spread on the sides for balance. I was doing quite well until about halfway when the devil entered my head. I decided to look down into the raging foaming waters. I instantly become aware of the thunderous noise it was making and the deadly ten metre drop. I started losing my balance. Many thoughts flashed through my mind as I spread my arms out fully and slowly went down into a crouching position. I managed to regain my balance. I took a few silent moments to chase the devil from my mind. I reminded myself that the only swimming I knew was the ‘dry’ swimming we used to do as boys while growing up in Tetu. Swimming for us was lying on your stomach in a muddy puddle in the stream and splashing with your hands and feet and all the while keeping your head dry.
Armed with that level of swimming experience I knew I couldn’t stand a chance in the raging Kamūringato.
I managed to slowly get back to my feet, refocus on the spot on Fellow’s back and started walking across the bridge and in a few moments we were on the other side. Interestingly, Fellow did not notice my little interlude with the devil.
And so it is with life. It is an integral part of life to encounter challenges and there is no way of avoiding them. Some of the emotions experienced when one is dealing with life’s challenges include sadness, anger, loneliness, resentment, anxiety, fear, panic, stress and even depression. However, one has to focus on a higher, positive aspect to manage to navigate through. Just like in my incidence in the Kamūringato saga, if you lose focus in life, you will as a result lose balance in your life. I read somewhere that ‘life is like a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.’
We should spend a few minutes each day to train our brains to focus on the present moment which can help us to concentrate on the challenge at hand when need arises. A great mind is the one that is calm and balanced. Therefore, when confronted by life’s challenges, maintain your focus and keep moving, for life without challenges would be a long, monotonous and somehow boring stretch in time.
David Ndirangu BSc. International Business Administration (USIU- A) CPA (K). Business Management Consultant and Author of the book; This is DAVE. Email: ndirangudavid2023@gmail.com
Anila Bukhari