Mwaka mpia. Kumekucha. Today marks the first anniversary of my retirement. On 4th January 2021, my employee status changed from Permanent and Pensionable to a Jobless and Payless employee. Senior-Management was involved in this impossible scheme. Many people have asked me what exactly transpired on this day. I have not answered them much. Perhaps I will answer them here today and perhaps I will not. I will not. Why? What transpired on that day is now in the public domain and common knowledge for those who know where to look. For those who don’t know where to look, try KLR.

Retirement is fun though. Just a year ago I could not have imagined a 9:00 a.m. finding me outside perched on a stool munching sugarcane and enjoying a kamũkera (morning sun). Kaaaviti! Before I could say sugar, Senior Management would have called Mama Pesa to demand; “where is that rat?” Mama Pesa, enjoying the safety of the secrets of her position, would have casually reminded Senior Management that the CIO (Comps In-Out) was not her report, a stark reminder to Senior Management of the many times these lazy bones have had to change uplines. Senior Management would then have called the Screen Saver’s desk and barked to the phone “Get me that old geezer”.

To many people, the soundtrack to their early morning blues is “Amka Kumekucha by Maroon Commandos”. The soothing melody would be going down quite well and inducing quite the opposite of the message….  “hata wewe nanana, amka kumekucha, kwani hizi dizo saa za kwenda  sijui kazi sijui wapi sijui na nani and the refrain “uvivu dio adui wa maendeleo”.  All would be well until the “mwana angu” line. The mother while moping the child face with cold water would croon an offkey version of the lyrics on the radio “HATA WEWE MWANA-ANGU, AMKA KUMEKUCHA. KWANI HIZI DIZO SAA ZA KWENDA SHULE.

But me, when this amka kumekucha thing came about, I was already a self-priming early riser. For me, basking remorseless in this yellow early morning sun reminds me of the song “someni vijana baada ya masomo mtapata kazi nzuri sana. Truth be told this gem, by Henry Makobi motivated my struggle through school – and I struggled. But what the singer never brought out was, work was not the end. Work was the means. Work paid for retirement and life begins after retirement.
That I can be perched on this shaky stool and not feel guilty is not a wonder.  John Ndicu had explained it quite well in his song “Mihang’o ya Mbia”. In this song, he laments that he wakes up every day at cock crow and yet he is never satisfied with the result.  “Njũkagira ngũkũ ya mbere na thina ndũngĩnyuma”.

If you think you know, my friend;

Amka. Kumekucha