Mbuke: The Goat Herder

Abstract

It was  nine o’clock one June Morning. The air nippy, the horizon moist and usually unclear for this part of the year. Fela village where Mbuke grew up was about fifteen kilometers from Smith Sound, which is a tongue of water extending south from Lake Victoria. The locals prefer to call it Lake Nyanza.         He was standing   on  top of  a huge    rocky outcrop near his home. Smith Sound was seen to be partially covered with mist. As he descended these huge boulders, the resident guinea - pigs ran helter skelter while Chuwa   the herding dog barked incessantly. Mbuke, the Sukuma boy         looked bigger for his fifteen years of age. He smarted a rice straw hat embellished with guinea-fowl feathers. But instead of a long stick and a spear favoured by herders, he had a catapult. He had managed to shoot a guinea - pig which Chuwa was now holding between his teeth. Chuwa relished guinea-pig meat and a haunch of boiled maize-meal called "Bugali" which was also relished by the Mwanaweja family to which Mbuke belonged. Chuwa was still licking Mbuke's shoes made out of old motorcar tyres and popularly called the "Katambuga" or bush thrashers. So called because the tyre sandals are tough enough to resist prickly thorns, spiky pebbles and hot sand especially during the long summer months when cattle herders travel up to twenty kilometers in search of pastures.  Chuwa came back from home after delivering the guinea- pig to Mbuke’s elder brother…..