Drunks’ jeers stop man from buying ‘mtumba’ underwear

By MURIMI MWANGI

KENYA: In his last-minute Christmas shopping, a smartly dressed man unsuccessfully attempted to ignore two drunks who mocked him endlessly as he tried to buy a mtumba underwear along the busy Gakere Street in Nyeri Town. He ended up not buying.

Prior to the thrilling incident, it had been business as usual with mitumba (second hand clothes) dealers yelling at passers-by and proclaiming how high- quality and long-lasting their products were.

“Ni ya leo…ni ya leo…tumezifungua tu saa hizi… offer ya Krismasi (this is today’s stock…we’ve just unwrapped them…it’s a Christmas offer),” they chorused in unison.

A market stall with well arranged mitumba clothes, including underwears, stood out, and so was the young man behind the stall.

Wearing an underwear over his head like a headgear, the enthusiastic business man explained — to no one in particular — why the underwears he was selling were the best, the world over.

“My guy, get yourself an underwear today and you won’t regret spending your Sh30 on this thing!” he said in a high-pitched voice that kept necks turning towards his stall.

The noise caught the attention of a smartly dressed man who sauntered into his stall.

To his amazement, the guy ignored all the other clothes on display and immediately started rummaging through the heap of underwears. 

“Thura uiria ukwenda brother. Ciothe no thirty nginya kau kena bendera ya England (Select the one you want brother. All of them are on sale at only Sh30, including that one with an English flag),” he enthusiastically announced.

The trader had a wide variety on offer. He would rummage through, throw the heap in the air, blow a high-pitched whistle, and let them fall back in the rack.

 He would then proceed to grab one, hoist it in the air while playfully stretching the waistband, and yell out the price.

He continued doing this for some time, without any disturbance until he noticed a commotion behind him between two drunkards and a mkokoteni (cart) man.

The drunks wanted the mkokoteni man to give them way in the crowded narrow road.

In the course of the tussle, one of the drunkards stepped on the young man’s clean white pair of sports shoes.

As the man sneered at the drunks, a barrage of insults began flying in his direction.

“Yaani kiratu kieru nougure, no ngotha wikagira cia mutumba eee (So you can wear an expensive shoe but only afford a secondhand underwear, huh)?” scoffed one drunk.

Afraid of getting embarrassed in the crowded street, the man politely told the drunkards to behave like civilised men, but they would hear none of it. The drunkards, in fact, forgot about the mkokoteni chap and concentrated on the gentleman.

They hurled insults at him, leaving the crowd that was milling around the stall to catch a glimpse of what was going on in stitches.

“We have seen many of your type. They dress well but either have no underwear or have one which you can’t write home about. And who knows, the underwear you are wearing could be very old, dirty and riddled with holes,” sneered one of the drunks.

The drunkards fired barbs and salvos at the gentleman until he couldn’t take it anymore. He jogged away unceremoniously without buying the garment he had come for and had wasted time bargaining for — a mtumba underwear.