For my family, it took a while before my mother was convinced we needed a donkey. I believe deep down she knew we needed one, but past experiences had made her wary of having such a “dangerous” animal on our farm. How did she come to that conclusion? The Gikuyu where my parents came from, did not have donkeys, except for one, owned by a man named Mariu. My mother never gave us much details about the incident involving Mariu and his donkey but all she said was: “Ndingienda funda hakuhi nanii. Nyamu yariire Mariu”. translation, I wouldn’t want a donkey near me. An animal that “ate” Mariu. That was the declaration my mother made every time my brothers asked for a donkey. From my mothers description, you might be tempted to think the donkey ate up and finished Mariu, up to his last nail and hair. One gentle reminder though is that donkeys are herbivorous, real vegetarians; so, this fork, knife and toothpick scenario my mother painted so vividly is somewhat questionable. But without any elaboration, she made her case strongly, denying us the opportunity of owning a donkey like all the other families in our Settlement Scheme.
But finally, the woman caved. But, do not for one moment assume it was from the goodness of her heart, because it wasn’t. This is how it all went down. A neighbor of ours started trading in donkeys, bringing them from Gilgil where they were plenty and cheap and selling them all over OlKalou. One fine day, our neighbor came marketing to our parents the benefits of owning a donkey. It now makes me wonder if my crafty brothers were behind that visit; but who can blame them since everything else had failed. Anyhow, our smart salesman neighbor (I doubt he had ever seen the inside of a classroom) even threw in the shame element “every farmer has one, most are actually buying their second or third”. That did it. The next day a donkey was escorted to our home and into a nearby pasture.
The mind is such a powerful thing, and what you feed it will grow. From all the Mariu and the donkey warnings we heard from our mother over the years, none of us went anywhere near the donkey for months. The fear ran so deep, my tough acting brothers continued delivering our milk on the wheelbarrow, pushing it past the now fattened donkey that had not worked for us since it became family. All they did was shoot an evil glance at it, but the donkey didn’t seem to care. The gathering at the collection center made fun of them, wondering why they even owned a donkey.
