The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization with investments in media
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Standard Group is recognized as a
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January was the month of back-to-school and with it, the mandatory visit to the roadside chini ya mti ‘barber shop.’ See, one had to or else your harsh old lady would try to play kinyozi with domestic makasi! The result was, of course, a head that resembled a hilly farmland that had just been furrowed by a stubborn ox!
Chini ya mti barber was the better option, his manual machine making that ‘kang’a kang’a’ sound all over your head as you tried to monitor his effort using a mirror hanging on a tree. The mirror was, somehow, always broken in half!
The barber, an old geezer who looked like guttural ‘Uncle Thush’ in shags, would angle your 10-year-old head with gnarled hands, that made one feel like the neck would make that sugarcane sound when its stem is broken in two using a battle-hardened rural knee.
The chini ya mti barber had different manual machines with different hair length clippers. But for school boys, ‘Number One’ was the clipper that resulted in a kipara ngoto that was the favourite of bullies who drummed their knuckles on it during break time.
The roadside kinyozi had no towels soaked in maji moto and for mahewa...well, there was a transistor radio with batteries held together with a black rubber band fleshed from bicycle tyre tubes.
