By Murimi Njorua, CEO Mutukanio Farm International
I hear it is the era of making peace with those who have wronged us. Mediation committees are being formed to broker peace among adversaries. I am here to do the opposite if I find it necessary to form a committee. My committee would be warn to warn one Kimata from my village that I am coming for him with all kinds of punishment.
If you are wondering what he did, Kimata who considers himself my close friend came to my Mutukanio International Farm (MIF) last weekend and told me he wanted to take me somewhere to enjoy ourselves. It was not easy leaving my farm because everything depends on me here.
You see, I Mr. Murimi Njorua is Mutukanio Farm International and Mutukanio Farm International is me. I am the head here, or what Kimata calls CEO. I am also the ngirigaca who says what is to be planted, when and where but nobody should ask me why. Ngirigaca were people sent by the government when I had the energy to swim in Tegu River and Njima dam to go around ordering people what to plant and what to uproot in their farms. I later learnt they were from the department of agriculture and their title was agriculture officers. To prevent an accident between the tongue and teeth, we called them ngirigaca.
I am the one who fixes things here and I don’t know the correct title for me because I fix the old tractor when it refuses to do the job (mechanic), I fix the forks, jembes, spades, axes (blacksmith) I treat my livestock when they refuse with milk (veterinary). Let me just say I have a lot of experience than you. Sometimes I think the old tractor refuses work to protest because I don’t treat it the same way Mr. Baru used to treat it before he went back to Britain and gave it to me as a token of appreciation. I will tell you another day what work we used to do with him. (He used to say his name was Mr. Barrow but that was tormenting my tongue so I called him Baru).
Back to Kimata. He carried me in his car to a place called Pork Centre. The only pork centre I know is at my farm where I rear my pigs. I thought he had brought me to see another pig farmer before we went to enjoy ourselves and we entered the place. It was filled with people and my experience as a chef made me conclude there was some pork cooking somewhere. The place was teeming with people but it was big. He ordered and some roast pork was brought to us. Everybody was eating pork and more people were coming in. I ate in silence because inside I was hurting. After the meal I told Kimata to take be back to my farm because I could not stay there a minute longer.
If you are wondering why I got angry, this is the reason. In the whole of Mathira area I am known as an expert in pig farming. I got my first pig from Mr. Baru who advised me that I needed to have many animals in my farm apart from cows and goats. I followed his advice and today Mutukanio International Farm is a mix of everything. I was the one who introduced pig farming to my village mates and my kin across the ridges. We are not many pig farmers in the area and I am always referred to as the Chairman of pig farmers in Mathira. I have champion boars that offer services across the region no matter the distance. I have mastered the art of walking them to any destination provided my pockets come back full after service. So next time we meet don’t ask me where I am taking my pig.
Now, the first time I slaughtered a pig in Mathira and sent word around for people to come buy pig meat (we didn’t know the term pork then), I nearly got sick. This is because only five close friends came. Three of them promised to pay after a week which never happened anyway while two later told me I owed them money and now we were even! In conclusion we feasted on the pig with everyone in the farm from dogs, cats, and some visitors who just appeared after two days enquiring on something about farming yet they had never consulted me in my whole life. In short I suffered a huge loss and after some research I realized many people didn’t have money in cash and also didn’t know how to cook pork as it was not common then.
Being the wise man I am, I Murimi Njorua worked on a plan. I informed people two weeks in advance that I would slaughter a pig and booking was going on. That way, I gave them time to look for money and those who wanted to take on credit had enough time to convince me how coffee money was just about to be given out. I also offered lessons on how to cook pork during the slaughtering day, I had some “samples” of well cooked pork for them to taste.
This strategy was a master stroke as people bought everything though I had to deal with debtors for a long time. I later perfected this by writing notices and placing them in strategic places around the village and to make sure everybody understood, I wrote them in my local language. The notice read something close to this “There will be slaughtering of pig at Murimi Njorua’s place on such and such a date. Price 100 a Kilo”.
This worked so well and was later taken by other farmers in the area and beyond. If you came across one, here is the inventor. I was now slaughtering pigs regularly using this strategy and the returns were good. In our culture we say “that which is in debt never rots” This means no matter the time somebody stays with your debt, one day he/she will pay. Therefore I had no problem selling pork on credit though some guys have never paid up-to-date.
But things changed recently when I had to postpone twice my highly publicized pig slaughtering ceremony. You see, when I put out notices and sent word out there, people would come and book their portions and I always knew my profit. Recently, nobody came to book for two weeks and I had to postpone. I gave out a new date and still nobody appeared until Kimata made me realize he was behind all this.
How could Kimata, somebody who considers himself my good friend conspire with others to bring me down? I have done some research since last weekend and realized there are so many pork centers and this made me realize a friend can turn to your greatest enemy. So Kimata had become jealous of my popularity as a pig farmer and now he wanted to bring me down with other people by opening the fake pork centers? I call them fake because I, Murimi Njorua still has the original pork center at Mutukanio International Farm where I am the CEO. How could he conspire with others to make pork so common and imply that one can eat pork when one feels like it? This is unacceptable!
Kimata even had the guts to take me to a pork center in order to show me that my era of pig slaughter was gone. He had to inflict the pain of seeing people pay for pork in cash yet I had a dozen 32 pages exercise books filled with the names of those who took my pork on credit over the years. That is why I am sending you to him. Tell him I will not form a committee to seek justice but I will deal with him and his business partners. And if by any chance you are in that group of pork center owners, or you frequent there, just know I am coming for you. Unless you people sit down and organize for me a nice compensation package for loss of business, I will close those pork centers. And if you want me to leave the business, organize for me another retirement package.
I don’t know who leaked this to Kimata because he has not been at his farm for the last one week. If you see him kindly notify me, you never know if your relatives appear in my credit books. We can work out something……
