Sleep escaped me at 2 am. I have been having this stubborn cough that refuses to go and attacks me always at night or early mornings. I remembered the story of the chief of Ngunyumu and a spitum collection exercise that went horribly bad.
Chief Runyenjenjes was a man obsessed with cleanliness. He wanted everything to be spotless. Even in his house everything had just to be right. No dusty seats and everything was where it was supposed to be. Whenever guests visited his house, his wife would come out with a polythene bag and ask them to deposit their shoes and socks inside it. The guests would then proceed into the house barefoot. Meanwhile the domestic servant would be ordered to clean the guests shoes thoroughly.
The chief wanted his chiefdom to be the cleanest. But still there were things that were done that did not please him. One of them was the habit of spitting saliva and sputum anywhere the villagers wished. The chief racked his brains for a solution to this problem for days on end. One night he experienced a eureka moment. Yes!!!! he shouted as he lay in his bed with his wife. What is it? asked her wife. The chief explained to the wife that he had finally come up with a solution for the problem that had stalked him for almost a month.
The following day he called for a meeting for all the residents of his village. They came from all corners of the village to listen to their leader, chief Runyenjenjes. The chief ordered for a large tank to be erected at the middle of the market. The tank was to be constructed with stones and cemented, yes a septic tank. All the villagers were awed at the brilliance of their leader and anticipated a relief to their water woes. The tank took a whole month to construct, and the chief called yet another meeting to explain to the villagers the purpose of the gigantic tank.
The chief smiling from ear to ear announced that the new project was to solve the problem of people spitting saliva and sputum all over the chiefdom. Any person found spitting saliva or sputum anywhere else apart from the designated tank would be put into prison. Chief Runyenjenjes ordered the law enforcers to make sure that his order is adhered to.
It takes time to kill a habit and of cause several errant villagers were caught on the wrong side of the law. But for the majority of the villagers the law was followed to the tee. Soon, the tank in the great village of Ngunyumu was almost filling up to the brim with saliva and spitum.
To celebrate the auspicious occasion of cleanliness in the chiefdom, the chief called yet another mammoth meeting. In this meeting the chief himself would demonstrate his involvement in the whole exercise by depositing his sputum into the tank to indicate closure. So the chief cleared his throat and searched for some good quality sputum. grrrrrghhhhh....... ptuuuuuh he spat! But the sputum did not completely come off so he thought he would take it back in so that he could spit it out properly. When he tried taking it back in, it collected all the sputum and saliva that had been collected for the last one month. The chief sucked the whole project inside his stomach! The wife could not believe what she was seeing. The villagers fleed from the tank fearing that the chief would explode. Many women fell sick at the sight of Chief runyenjenjes taking in all the saliva he had ordered to be collected. The chief's stomach got so huge and he died.
Chief Runyenjenjes is fictional
Ngunyumu is also fictional
Please, if you ever felt like spitting saliva or sputum when in the middle of town, don't. The spirit of chief Runyenjenjes of the Ngunyumu Chiefdom might posses you.
No comments:
Post a Comment