The pineapple project

Mzee Viboko my father controlled 90% of what he called family business. It involved plantation farming of maize and beans in our 3 acre piece of land. My mother was supposed to ran the remaining piece by growing such stuff as millet, yams, sweet potatoes e.t.c .What they call a kitchen garden in Nairobi.

 Having seen my great potential my mother decided to allow me to manage a small portion of her portion. There was a condition though, I was only to work on this personal project after providing free labor to Mzee’s farm. Failure to do this would result to a Syokimau situation.

To avert demolitions or destruction I promised to comply with the directive.
Before I could embark into my farming project I did my maths to make sure the project was viable. I therefore considered the following.

1. Market.
I used to like pineapples so much and unlike many other fruits that were locally available these ones were scarce. Everybody else at home liked them and I assumed this was the case in many of our sounding households. To me this was ready market.

Another market was the class nature table. Let me introduce this first.
I attended primary school at Pitasana primary school. It wasn't a very good school but at least we would beat the nyakiminchas of our time.

In Pitasana we always maintained a table at the back of our classrooms where we displayed the gifts of Mother Nature. We used to call this bench the nature table. We would clearly labeled every item in English, Swahili and Kikwetu languages.

The idea was to perfect our linguistics but it ended up being more than that. I intend to leave the politics surrounding this table for another day. I will only focus on the fact that supplies to this table formed part of my target market.

2. Source of raw materials .
There was a jamaa who my sister Gatune insisted that we refer to as Uncle yet the blood relationship couldn’t be traced. This guy had secured a job in Thika – or rather his influential relative had done it for him. Something to do with a pineapple growing and processing firm but from the size of the pineapples he brought with him, I could tell it was neither Delmonte nor Kakuzi.

 Am also confident that he wasn’t involved in any processing let alone the office job he claimed as his face was always relaxed into the insolent smile that is the mask of the insecure and uneducated.
This guy used to pay as regular visits.

 At that time I thought he was just a philanthropic pinapple guy. Only to learn later that he was trying to convince Gatune that he had the genes of a good husband. Since Gatune’s engagement and subsequent marriage the guy has never stepped foot on our homestead.
 All the same whatever his interests were he brought with him a number of pineapples during his visits.

What remained after consuming the fruits was what I would plant in my farm.
3. Competitors
I knew I was getting into the same business with such big names as delmonte and Kakuzi but I hoped nitapita katikati yao. After all, our target market was different.

The plant took enough time to mature and the end product wasn’t very encouraging due to the dwarf species type and poor crop husbandry.

There was one thing that never occurred to me during the planning stage, security. Since I did not have a security budget I decided to take it up myself. It wasn’t easy though. Despite my regular patrols to the farm a few fruits would still go missing.

 In one occasion I suspected my Gatune  was carrying a number of my fruits and I decided to search her bag as she left the homestead. I wasn’t lucky though she pulled my nose and asked me to know people.

 To prevent further loses I decided to take 2 measures. Start an operation I dubbed Linda Matunda and form a commission of enquiry to investigate the past loses. Unlike Linda Nchi , Linda Matunda was to be secret. I would hide on top of a leafy Jacaranda tee and watch over the farm all day.

The operation was very successful. I compiled the list of every one I had saw setting foot on my farm. I put these names in a envelope, sealed it and started threatening everybody that I would hand it over the envelop to Mzee Viboko.
 By the kind of debate these threats elicited I could tell my list was not comprehensive enough.

My mum was of the opinion that I go slow over the matter. She very well knew that all my siblings were in the list and therefore she was opting for a "local" solution.

 She wanted to be left to deal will the case herself.
My brother Kazimingi was very sure he was in the list and he knew he was not in my mother’s good books. He therefore insisted that the suspects should be tried at the Hague , I mean by Mzee.
He also knew that Mzee Viboko was always busy in the farm i.e. when he is not away drinking and therefore he would have no time to deal with the matter.
To be continued....
Njagi Munyi