Bunge Chronicles: Our wahesh got other talents like battling with water bottles

Their display on Wednesday last year - shedding blood for the love of country, sparing no punches, burning the midnight oil - prove that we hit the jackpot with this bunch. Or did we? [Courtesy]

What could better assure that 2022 will be a 'Happy New Year' than the fact that in our wahesh, we have warriors who can sit in for our defence forces when the moment calls for it?

Their display on Wednesday last year - shedding blood for the love of country, sparing no punches, burning the midnight oil - prove that we hit the jackpot with this bunch. Or did we?

We would have if Kenya had functioning sports systems in place. The lack of such explains why the volleyball talent of wahesh John Mutunga (Tigania West) and Peter Masara (Suna West) went unnoticed all this while. Looking at how good they handled water bottles, one wonders what they could do with a volleyball.

Had CBC been in place long enough, perhaps, we would have figured out that David Ochieng' (Ugenya) was better off playing Romeo. He took a bottle on his face for Masara better than any person would take a bullet for their lover.

So maybe we got it all wrong. Bunge is supposed to be a house of decorum.

In 220 days, we get the chance to right that wrong and, in effect, liberate the wahesh. Some, by their own admissions, are more interested in being cows - an undemanding job that does not involve any thinking. 

Their incessant mooing on Wednesday was, most probably, a cry for help. "Let us get out of this wretched place!" they must have been crying in cow-speak.

Others, Speaker Justin Muturi assures, are garbage. Being the environmentalists we are, we have done our deed by recycling them every five years. But even recycling has its limits, and it's about time we took the trash out.

But that comes at a cost. For one, we would have to forfeit our titles as the country with the loudest and greediest parliamentarians in the world. 

And that will be a gamble, too. With the bile gushing out of the mouths of politicians, it's doubtful that whoever takes over from our wahesh would be any different.

But if Wednesday offered any lessons, it was that things could change. Who would have imagined Tangatanga MPs, once devoted followers of Uhunye, would conspire to bring him down and that ODM chairman John Mbadi would defend the president's honour with his fists?

Tables could turn, as they did on Tangatanga, who filibustered in the hope that the sitting would end at midnight. And the once orators, who made long speeches, would get a taste of their medicine when the Handshake side discovered that they, too, could dream of being Martin Luther King Jr.

So, will 2022 be a happy new year? It depends on your choices.