It is not uncommon for the Peasant Shamba to host visitors, all who come to gain a thing or two. Some come to copy our methods, others to purchase our produce at a discount and others to waste our time.
It was in this regard that the Peasant Shamba received a call from a couple who can best be described as wazazi wa Facebook! Apparently, their five-year-old daughter — unsurprisingly named Princess — had heard them discuss the Peasant Shamba and was now keen to spend time there. Would I be kind enough, the Facebook parents asked, to host Princess for two weeks? “Princess is adorable and obedient and charming and fun and respectful,” they claimed. So the Peasant Farmer, being happy to impart farming wisdom to children at an early age, agreed to have Princess visit for a week.
Wololo! This would turn out to be the most challenging visitor ever. Immediately Princess was dropped, she asked to see the banana, mboga ya kienyeji and rabbits of the shamba. She didn’t even bother with the fresh juice we had so painstakingly prepared for her. No sooner had we pointed to her the portions, than she sped fast, starting with the banana crop. We followed her and watched in wonderment as she examined the hanging bananas, one after another.
Facebook parents
She keenly inspected them as if looking for something, frowning after checking each. Seemingly disappointed with the bananas, she moved on to the mboga kienyeji plot and, despite our protestations, proceeded to walk right in and, shoving the plants this way and that as if searching for something on the ground. At one point she uprooted a few mbogas, shook them and then intently checked the ground to see if something had dropped. By now she was getting mad and angry and we were beginning to worry about disappointing a child.
Princess then went to the rabbits’ cage and did the same baffling search and got angrier.
She stomped off and asked that we allocate her a portion where she could plant her own crops for the week. We allocated a ka-eighth and, without hesitation, she picked a miniature kids’ jembe and started digging holes in four rows. She put a spoonful of fertiliser on each hole and produced a piggy bank from where she separated 5, 10, 20 and 40 shilling coins and started planting them into the holes, each on its row. We couldn’t believe our eyes! “What are you doing, Princess”, I finally managed to ask her.
“I overheard mummy telling daddy that there is money in bananas, mboga kienyeji and rabbit urine but I have checked all yours and found not even a kobole. Now because I want one million shillings quickly, I am planting my savings so that in a week’s time I will harvest enough money to buy all toys in the world,” Princess answered and then sprinkled water on the newly planted shillings. Well, the Peasant Shamba, after conducting several teary counselling sessions with Princess and working with her throughout the week to sell bananas, mboga kienyeji and rabbit urine — for which we quadrupled her savings — has henceforth banned requests from Facebook wazazi who do not explain their parables to their Princesses!
