Gatundu weeps for a generation of sons who see their future in drinking day and night

I have been on the move over the last few weeks, because I’m obsessed like that, and some of the vivid trips started mid last week. I returned to the village from whence I came to bury the dead, as has been the case in recent months.

But this hit home particularly deep because it was a nephew who departed at the tender age of 45. He was a grandfather already, several times over, because his daughters have borne their own daughters, which means I am a great grandfather already!

Despite the funereal gloom, the trip was quite uplifting: the sun was shining, not scorching; the road to Gatundu is newly carpeted and seamless; the trees that line the roads are in full splendour after the recent rains.

Ichaweri, the fabled symbol of Kenya’s independence, the homestead that has produced two of Kenya’s five presidents in 63 years, had a meretricious veneer around it. It was spotlessly clean, almost sterile, but no motion whatsoever. Not a sign of life.

We soon got to Gatundu township and sought directions from a passer-by. “See, see that road, that murram road over there,” the man stuttered, staggering close enough to the car’s window so I could pick his alcohol-laced breath. “There, where the small truck is standing…” It was 11am.

The young-old man that we had come to bury was mtu wa rodi (man of the road), because he operated a TukTuk.

He had taken to the tipple, too, it was whispered, and the preacher spoke candidly about the perils of a generation that sees no hope out of their squalor.

At 9pm, at the last stop before my departure, I was accosted by a young man who purported to be a clansman. He, too, was inebriated. A few questions later, I reckoned he was a neighbour, not a relation, but I guess in the village we are all related, one way or the other.

The young man asked for Sh70. Very precise. I established that was the price of a methanol-based concoction. One was enough to knock you off for several days.