usually, i have the luck of remembering what transpired in dreamland when i wake up. i find it intriguing that the mind can conjure up such extraordinary and weird experiences when not under conscious control. many a times i have toyed with the idea of having a cctv camera next to my bed. this would help me analyze the physiological reactions to my psychological night adventures.

so here i was, back in the village within the most serene and tranquil environment. clean air, tasteless water and quiet silence unlike the smoky, dense and dirty air that is at the capital. water has a funny taste -mombasa is worse- and the place is always breaking the decibel gauge in my eardrum. loads of noise pollution!

i relived a section of a day that happened over ten years ago, only that this time, in the dark of the night, it was twisted. i also had a second person in me who made me analyze the way i made decisions that day. it turned weird and i woke up in a sweaty mood.

in the course of the day i was flashing back on, i had been sent to deliver some message to the mum of a cousin of my dad. effectively, that’s my dad's aunt and traditionally, that's my granny. that is the best way to understand it without trying to split dnas. actually, the cousin is not a first cousin, but some form of cousin. the relations were explained to me but for my mind, it was too much to figure out the many levels of a cousin and how we came to share blood. we do use the cousin term generally and liberally anyway. it is common to pass of a suspicious relation in normal life as a cousin unlike previous generations where a true relation could be described without a sweat or 'cousinizing' him or her.

i had never been to that village before and i had to find my way from the scanty directions i was given. to get there, through the shortcut i was shown, i had to go up a hill, down the hill, cross a river and up another hill to the slopes of that hill where my granny lived. alternatively, i would have to use two matatus to get round to the village. it was an alternative but not an option, so i had to walk all the way, a journey that took close to two hours.

the drama part occurred when i was going back home. bearing in mind that i walked a lot in the morning and later got well fed at my host's place, i was tired, full, lazy and it was getting late. a son of my father's cousin -what do i call him, cousin?- offered to show me a route that would shorten my journey back by half. i obliged and we embarked on the journey home. just before he could show me the diversions to make, we met with our reverend's daughter who was walking home from a visit to my host's parish. she had attended some youth meeting and was headed back home. we weren't very close but we were a bit acquainted with each other.

in the village, there was something about a church minister's daughter, or a chief's daughter or a headmaster's daughter that would hold the breath of the village men. we thought in our nasty minds that it was beauty but in retrospect, i don’t think so. it was great pride to be associated with such a one. heaven on this occasion opened its doors to me, and i had a chance to cover good ground as we headed home.

her home was halfway through my journey. she happened to know the short-route home. i dismissed my cousin fast and started enjoying the much cherished company. after a few minutes of ice breaking, we were merrily chatting and laughing all the way home.

sincerely, we didn't laugh all the way home. the new route shortened the distance but like everything in life, there is no free lunch. as we went down the hill through the thick vegetation and tall indigenous trees, i was having a time of my life. soon we were at the foot of the hill and what lay in front shocked me. in front of us was the ferocious river i had crossed earlier in the day. it was wider now and seemed to have gained momentum, its rapids raging madly through the edgy rocks.

i had no problem crossing it in the morning since i had used a well constructed bridge. the reverend's daughter was unwary of what i now considered a huge predicament. i shook her back to reality. i did not have to. she was already in this world and was proceeding on to cross the bridge. she had used this route more than once, it was routine for her to cross the river.

"you call that a bridge?" i responded to her.

she had asked me why i looked startled and shaken. i pointed to the 'stick' she called a bridge. the bridge, that, in an instant spoilt my moonlight date. in my view, it was a stick and not a bridge. i had crossed rivers via log or tree trunk bridges but what was before us was none of the two. the tree trunks i had used before were huge and stable, several of them running in parallel to make a bridge. it was fun doing the balancing act on such trunks while carrying a load of grass or sack of maize or potatoes on your back. i was not phobic to water or to using such kind of bridges.

in fact i used to tease a primary school friend who would not use a bridge constructed using tree trunks. he would always fear falling and hitting a rock with his head despite the fact that we had rudimentary swimming lessons every sunday afternoon at the river. it would be so hard on him, such that we would always have to wait for him to go down or up the river looking for the nearest 'government' constructed bridge!

here i was, facing disaster in my eyes. the main issue at the moment was to be a man or not to be in village terms. if she went across, there was no way i could chicken out.

…to be continued...