intense as the team had now a new goal, the national trophy and they not only wanted it but they knew they had the capability and talent to win it. They were also in great form both mentally and physically.
A team’ s ecosystem includes its supporters and the school was solidly behind their team and as a bonus their sister school indicated that they would avail themselves as supporters during the national tournament. The stars were aligned.
On the eve of the qualifying match, the girl school sent in fifteen blue ribbons for the team including the reserves and the team got a day of rest in readiness for the match that would be the gateway to the nationals. The spirits were high.
Then disaster struck! No one was able to remember what it was that the team ate at lunchtime but by the evening six members of the team were admitted into the school sanatorium with severe food poisoning.
By the morning it was apparent that three of the players were not going to even be able to be discharged and those that would be were so dehydrated and weak that they were unlikely to even be able to be in the starting lineup.
To cut a long story short, the school was able to put up a patched-up team of players to honor the match but all the fighting spirit was gone and the team was humiliated as the opposing team scored at will against a disheveled team.
What was more exasperating is that the opposing team that Ochieng knew they could easily beat went on to win the national trophy. It was like Ochieng’ s team handed over the national trophy on a silver platter.
The following Monday was the most difficult day that the team had to walk in the school as Ochieng felt that they had collectively let down the school by dashing their hopes of a glorious year as the champions. The school was crestfallen and sad.
Ochieng believes that is how the Mrima voters must be feeling two years after they thought they won the lottery by voting in a winner who within the year had relegated them into a political oblivion they had assumed was only reserved for Baba.
What makes this political pill especially bitter to swallow is that they matched with the arrogance of those who know
How infuriating and embarrassing it must be for the Mrima to have worked so hard to keep Baba out of the government and to have to contend with the fact that currently he may be actually the de facto leader as he is the glue propping up this abominable regime.
that victory is theirs and they went ahead to trash their own in a mad rush to make a pact with the devil.
This marriage made in hell was strenuously opposed by the sitting president, who should have been the Mrima kingpin, but who was laughed out of the region when he tried to warn his kinsmen that they had invited a serpent into their midst.
To mention Jubilee in Mrima was to risk public ridicule as the region moved out wholesale following the pied piper of Sugoi. Leader after leader in the region informed the president that the ground had shifted and the region was now UDA.
The leaders uncharitably questioned how a drunken son of the dynasty was qualified to give opinion about the direction the region should head and asked the‘ kamwana’ to have another whiskey and leave national matters to those who knew them.
Among those who knew was the man from Wamunyoro, who after he was selected as the running mate took the position with gusto and started dismantling the character of the sitting president among his own people.
His vile tongue did not spare the president’ s mother who he wondered where she had been when the son espoused alcohol as his best advisor. So, when the president warned about the unsuitability of his own vice-president for high office, the region laughed.
One has to remember that the genesis of this scornful dismissal of the president was because he was fronting Baba as the ideal president to succeed him and the region flatly informed him that they were willing to vote in a goat rather than Baba.
So, when his own vice-president joined in the chorus to trash him it became impossible for the son of Jomo to step in the region in sharp contrast to the vicepresident’ s frequent forays into the region
where he was met with thunderous applause, he was invincible.
Ironically, the fact that the president did not punish the disloyalty of his sitting vice president was interpreted by his clansmen as proof of his weakness and irresolute behavior and the man from Wamunyoro reveled in his newfound celeb status.
There is a saying among the Mrima people that the shame of a clansman is the shame of the clan, but uncharacteristically, as if the whole region was caught up in a stupor, they abandoned their own and celebrated in what was by all counts, anathema.
There are Mrima elders who tried to warn that they were inviting a curse by reviling a leader but there are those mavericks who unearthed rival elders who were more than willing to install the vice president as a Mrima elder at a small token of appreciation.
While this orgy of self-immolation was going on at the slopes, Christian churches of various denominations were tripping over each other in the rush to anoint the ruler that all to a priest claimed had been prophesied for Kenya and the golden age was afoot.
To add oil to the holy incense that was burning from every altar, we were reminded of the double blessing that was the lot of Kenyans since the spouses of the anointed ones were a powerful combination of a prayer warrior and a practicing pastor.
If there was a time when all the celestial bodies in the heavens had aligned for Kenya, it was now and we didn’ t need the wise men to read and interpret the signs since the hosannas to the mighty were being yelled from every pulpit.
The forbearance that is the hallmark of Christian teaching was replaced by the chest-thumping assurance of those who