The Local:The inevitable night out in a 'mtaro'

You will rarely find a tax paying sot without a drinking problem crossing the Thika Superhighway at night then, suddenly, being inspired to sleep smack in the middle of it.

But the mtaro, which is stinking by the roadside, is where drunkards find sleeping quarters after unga ukizidi maji.

Indeed, it has never been clear what science limbs employ in propelling a God-fearing, but inebriated Kenyan, towards the ditch during a cold, rainy night. Those who survive snuggling in a mtaro pass through it, missing the narrow mbao bridge, and soiling clothes with greenish water and black cotton soil, disturbing croaking frogs in the process of staggering home to the long-suffering wife.

It is not uncommon to mistake one’s shadow for a thief about to execute a ngeta session and opt for miguu nisaidie via attempting a run only to fall back into the aforementioned ditch shouting: “Ngai fafa! ni saidie!” in the middle of the midnight and nowhere.

The funny, or not so funny thing about a mtaro, is that once the drunk is in, no matter how shallow it is, getting out becomes one of those herculean tasks, while regretting ni shetani mgani alifanya ni kunywe.

There are many regulars at Wa-Hannah’s who were discovered on Sunday mornings by passersby as they went to shame the devil at the Bare Chest of Christ Tabernacle.

Take Kang’ethe for instance. His wife saw a crowd gathered around this baba mtu whose zip was open and decided to chungulia who the careless man was, only to notice the ‘Godpapa’ next to his head was familiar. She issued a scream that woke up Kang’ethe from the mtaro as onlookers scattered.

Diameter, the political analyst, had gone to rarua mashuka at Raha Yangu Bar & Lodging, but halfway through the night, decided to amble home. He ended up in a mtaro. His wife, who has pitishad the two-child policy by the Jubilee government, was given the heads up by a nosy neighbour who discovered Diameter did not remove the condom from its pole position.

His wife had a field day calling wazee for a meeting to tatua the matter with Diameter hanging on to ‘memory loss’ as his defence, arguing that falling in the ditch “damaged my corpus collosum in the cerebral hemisphere!”a