Today marks the first anniversary of the making of The Footloose Pensioner. On a day like today, his employment status did not merely change; it flipped. A decisive albeit unceremonious flip from Permanent and Pensionable to Pensioner. You would have thought permanent stands for something, but no, not at The Consultancy. An early morning telephone call is all that is needed.
However, retirement, as it turns out, suits him rather well. A year earlier, The Footloose Pensioner could not have imagined a 9:00 a.m. finding him outdoors—perched on a stool of questionable structural integrity, chewing sugarcane with deliberate seriousness, and basking in the gentle warmth of the kamũkera, that soothing, optimistic morning sun that insists that all is well.
Kaaaviti!
In his former life, such behaviour would have triggered immediate panic at The Consultancy. Before he could even say “sugarcane,” Senior Management would have telephoned Mama Pesa with the urgency of a 911.
“Where is that rat?”
Mama Pesa, secure in her quiet authority and protected by the secrets of her finance office, would calmly remind him that the so-called rat did not report to her. A polite correction, but also a subtle reminder of the many unnecessary organisational reshuffles that had left reporting lines as fluid as morning tea.
Undeterred, Senior Management would then ring Screen Saver’s desk and issue the inevitable command:
“Get me that old geezer.”
But that is now water under the bridge. A distant memory of mornings that were.
Amka Kumekucha
For many, mornings arrive with the familiar strains of Amka Kumekucha by the Maroon Commandos—a song that manages, quite impressively, to soothe and reprimand at the same time. One listens peacefully until the message tightens its grip:
Uvivu ndio adui wa maendeleo. (Laziness, it insists, is the sworn enemy of progress.)
At home, this philosophy finds practical application. A mother, armed with a damp cloth and unshakable resolve, delivers an off-key but highly effective version:
“Hata wewe mwana-angu, amka kumekucha…”
Cold water follows. Compliance is immediate.
But the Footloose Pensioner never required such intervention. He belonged to that rare self-priming category – the early risers. He woke not because he had to, but because his internal machinery found work amusing. Now, however, he wakes for entirely different reasons—to sit and bask.
In the quiet glow of morning, he recalls a song from his childhood:
Someni vijana, baada ya masomo mtapata kazi nzuri sana.
It promised a simple equation: study hard, get a good job. He believed it. He struggled. He persevered. Eventually, he got the job.
What the song neglected to mention—whether through optimism or lyrical economy—is that work is not the destination. Work is the vehicle. It structures the day, gives you something to complain about, and allows you to retire once you expire.
But life, the real, unstructured, astonishing business of being, begins when you expire.
And so we find The Footloose Pensioner, a stool and sugarcane under the morning sun.
No urgency. No summons. No one is looking for rats.
If you think you understand, then you are already ahead of where you once stood.
If not—
Amka.
Kumekucha.
