The good old late 80's and 90's.

Those are the days that I will ever cherish while growing up.

I was born and raised in Umoja 1 and believe me, it was fun.

It was the days when we used to say sakamsober instead of shock absorbers.

When we used to make motis from mkebe ya cowboy and there was actually a season for it, then make cars from wires with black rubber bants gotten from cutting the tube of a wheel (bladder), play kotolo, kati, rounders and brikisho, foot ball boys during day time and for both boys and girls during night time in what was known as mdarano.

There used to be this kid who used to speak kikuyu all the time and his parents wouldn't let him go out and play but once in a while, he would go out and play with the rest of the kids. When it was time for brikisho, he would say bititho, bititho, bititho, bititho and we used to crack up all the way to our hiding place.

Chobo ngoto. I still feel the numbness in my head when I remember how I was thoroughly roughed up when the ball passed in between my legs. Then one day, we decide to play, only this time, for one not to be roughed up, he had to touch a girl (not inappropriately). Mind you, the girls knew what was going on and they went far away from us, so you definately didn't want the ball to go in between your legs. Anyways, the ball passed in between the legs of one of the kids I was playing with and all the kids started chasing him. This kid, seeing that the girls were too far away, decides to pat one of the mama's ass while she's going home. We were all in sticthes after that incident and most probably, that was the best day of my life while playing that game.

Then came the era of t.vs where by in a block of 50 houses or so, its only two or three houses that had a t.v and the parents would hide it in their bedroom until they came home from work. For the trusted kids in block (by their parents), the t.v would be at the exact same place and those were the days of danger mouse and telematch. The t.v stations used to start at 4.30pm followed by the news and then cartoons. And the kids in the neighborhood would congregate to watch cartoons in a friend's house, so you know you had to be in good terms with your host from monday to friday, starting early in the morning till cartoons started otherwise, he would stand by the gate and start choosing whose gonna come in to see the t.v or not and you would actually see people's kids crying outside their friend's front houses becaus they were not allowed to watch danger mouse.

Maich didn't have t.v in their house, so he used to see t.v in other people's houses. So one day, one of the kids ran out of their house yelling that Danger Mouse had started and all the kids ran to this kid's house. That time, Maich was in the middle of a wheel/tire be riden by the kids but as soon as the Danger Mouse started, all the kids left him with the wheel still moving. After thirty minutes, all Maich had to show for was scars.

Time for fishing. Where?? At a trench that used to traffic dirty water I dont know from where but it used to be behind buru buru houses after at the train tracks. Now, there was this guy who used to be out troop leader known as Maich and he would come up with silly ass notions about stuff. One of the notions especially when we went fishing was that when you see a fish (tadpoles) you should not point at it with your pointing finger, otherwsie, the fish would die. So instead of pointing it with a fully straightened finger, we had to kunja the finger in the form of letter n so that the fish wouldn't die.

Mrogoto, all the way at Kenya Airways dumping site where we would come home with plastic forks, knives and spoons and even use them to eat our dinners or lunch. Then Maich would be like the mzungus who were on the plane, after they finished eating, they would throw away their cutlery while the plane was still flying and why we would find them there.

Now, Maich was a very funny but dubious character. He actually told us that his family had once flown in Kenya Airways and on further investigation, he told us that their last born was never charged a thing and that they sat at back bench. Now, I was like asking myself, don planes have a back bench like mathris??

After school, (in standard 1 to 5 or 4) we used to play bano (marbles) and stuff like crackings no payings was the lingo of the game. If you hit one's bano so hard that it cracked while at the begining of the game, one had said "crackings yes payings", you had to pay for the bano. Then stuff like tryzex or trysex, kajaribus and kachezos when you either wanted to play your bano to the pill (hole) or wanted to hit some one's bano.

Then came tik tak where one would put a small stick in a hole in a slanted position to form a right angle and use the other stick in his hand to tap the small stick into the air and hit it as far as he could. Now, one kid known as Okeyo used to be bald headed all the time and while playing the game, the stick actually hit him on his head. Come to think of it, I should have been giving him some sympathy but i was cracking up badly.

Riding a matatu back then was 1 shs from mutindwa to uchumi on Jogoo road. 1 shs used to be a lot of money for us because you could buy with it so many purus (sweets or candy but literally its dawa ya matako), coconut biscuits etc. I used to steal the pennies and hide them, then when it came to sneaking them out, I would put them in my pocket and then walk from the bedroom all the way outside slowly so that my parents wouldn't hear the pennies chickling (banging themselves on one another as i walked). Sometimes I was caught and that meant a serious ass whooping from my dad.

Then came duvo mpararo where we would go to quarry or any house foundations that we would find and swim in the dirty waters. Somebody shit in the waters and this Maich was like "a certain guy shit in the water while I was still underground and while I coming up, he saw the shit and swam to the other side". The waters were reddish in colour, so how this guy saw the shit while swimming still amazes me.

@ bomboclat- i was also raised at Umoja 1 Esto, and growing up was fun. Do u remember our house numbers were named alphabetically we used to identify ourselves by our area codes as in am so n so and i come from P hse no. blah blah. Umo was cool n still is. Thanks for taking me back..........

Grew up in the same neighborhood, only that there were no mathrees, Kenya Bus charged 25 cents to Hamza Road (where Tom Mboya Hall is), only Buruburu phase I existed (the rest was a big open field), bus number 7 ran from Jericho all the way to Kenyatta Hospital, no.23 from Outer Ring all the way to Kangemi, there was a gang of boys from Jeri called Companieros who used to beat the shit out of us, the way to the dumpsite at the airport passed through Edenvale (present day Donholm) where there were fierce dogs and it was East African Airways, not KQ.

@ Tommy
The lady who was always playing dead in tahamaki used to live one block behind me and believe me, seeing her after tahamaki was not a good experience for me for i used to have night mares about her, Mama Lui.

The only mathree back in the days was Jah Glory and it used to have loud music. We used to call it mkate nusu because it was half in terms of bodywise from the other regular mathrees that are there nowadays.

Lets just say that that maich used to be 5'8 or 5'9 and was/is brown skinned but man, that guy was a character.

@ Gordon Gecko, hahahahahahahah. Companierons. Man, thats the reason why I never set foot in Jeri.

I think I mentioned Okeyo in my last statement. So, this Okeyo being from Lakeside, didnt know how to pronounce stuff properly. One day, his step mother send him to the store to buy some panadols and when he got to the store, the masai who was the watchman was there with his dog. When Okeyo saw the dog, while waiting in line, got so scared that when it was his turn, he started saying while looking at the dog, " Nipatie chchchch panyadol". I just started cracking up.

Come to Umoja 1 primary school. Man, we were so daft. One teacher by the name of Mrs Kaniaru while teaching us, her skirt used to blend with the two sides of her ass and instead of us having sympathy and compassion on her, we would be like, " checki, nguo ya mrs kaniaru imeingia lunch". And the class would burst into laughter.

And then my mathematics teacher after the grading of the exams would be like in his Thika or Muranga accent, " Kamau, you al (are) emballasing me. Ndo (do) you know what an E stands for?? Emballastment. A ndi (D) stands for discollougement" Even before he finished what all the letters stood for, the whole class would be in stitches. This is Aquinas High School with Mr. Kiruga.

Before I went to Aquinas High, I was dispatched to Gaichanjiru High where i was aldeary conversant with alcohol. So each and every semester before school started, I used to go to mama pima where I would go with mkate boflo (unsliced bread from thika) and tell her to dip it in the changaa and then dry it on the roofs. Nairobi students by then were highly targeted by principals and as a result, they had to check each and every sanduku to see whether we brought any alcohol to school. All they could see in my sanduku was bread, juice and clothing. Little did they know that changaa was dried up in the bread. Anyways, I after preps, I used to put juice in my cup, then cut a chunk of boflo and dip it, let it soak, then start getting drunk. This went on for quite sometime until a fellow student asked me how come that boflo of yours never gets finished or never expired. He persisted and I had to give him some mixed with the juice. After 30 minutes, the guy picked up his matress and sanduku and was like " Nie ni dathie muchie" ( I have gone home). Instead of me restraining him, I start cracking up and thats how I was expelled from Gaichanjiru high school.

@bomboclat, u keep reminding me of the past. those kayole mathree's called jah glory, beach is the best and peacock made a stupid pupil abandon his kcse papers arguing that masomo sio suruali. i now know, maybe u gave him your loaf

Did i hear you say toss jars?Toss imekuja tu juzi.Lakini hata hivyo,kila mtu ana zamani yake hata kama ni leo hasubuhi.

@vin, youre right...kila mtu ana zamani yake. And they feel their days were the best.

Amani Housing Trust. Did a lot of voluntary work with the Germans and the Catholic Church.

@Bomboclat did you live my life? Sounds quite familiar. The good old days.

Manze ni mbali, remember going hunting birds with feyas round our necks, wearing khaki shorts. Spend the whole day away from home. Jioni unakipata, but come the next day, you go out and do the same. That was passion