The things we lost in the fire

There is no sound like the percussive resonance of a hide drum, its faces taut and true, in the hands of a drummer, especially one in the grip of the spirit and completely sold. And it was in this context when I met Eliud Njuki and his wife Zipporah Muthoni in the main market in Kikuyu town.

Later, I would come to the conclusion that one couldn’t hope to find a more equally-yoked couple.

It was the music of their drum, haunting and distant and arresting that summoned me; in the cloth of the old tale of the Pied Piper playing his flute as the town children followed him in a trance.

Njuki and wife carried several drums each, touching them ever so skilfully with a stick. They both wore the signature turban of the Akorino — a Christian sect whose repertoire of dancing, accompanying loud drums and the distinct past-the-ankle dresses of their women followers, sets them apart from other Christian groupings.

Njuki wore glasses dark as the night, but not out of fashion: he lost one of his eyes to cataract and could have easily gone blind altogether but for surgery that salvaged his left eye. But the damage had already been done, and Njuki was forced to drop out of school while in Standard six.

FAMILY TRADE

As a young boy, Njuki apprenticed under his elder brother, a skillful maker of hide drums. The brother later abandoned the craft for better paying work. But the seed had been planted and young Njuki would soon become a master in the skill.

Njuki took up the trade as a commercial venture in 1990. “I had the talent all along just that I hadn’t put it much to practice,” he said.

“Once I decided to use my knowledge, I have never looked for a job,” he said. “I would buy the hides from slaughter houses, dry them then weave them.”

Six years later he fetched himself a bride and proceeded to recruit her into the craft, reckoning that two hands would help rake in more income. There arose a snag; the young woman hadn’t signed for this.

Njuki would hang his still-in-the works to dry inside their rented one-room house, and the smell would foul the tiny house and that was unacceptable.

There was more. Laughing at the memory, he recounts: “I had no choice but string the hides outside to dry.”

One night, dogs, on the trail of the sweet smell snatched the drums and spirited them into the night. The dogs chewed through the drums, leaving only the metal cylinders over which the hides are woven.

On a good day, Njuki and Zipporah take home nearly Sh7,000, said Njuki, while adding that barren seasons are also part of the transaction.

They walk everywhere; from Kikuyu, Dagoretti, Karen, Kinoo, Kawangware — never boarding a vehicle. This way it is easier to catch the eye of potential customers. Plus it allows the couple to accomplish their other vocation — preaching. The drum is the news; the good news.

Njuki, who hails from Mukurweini in Nyeri, says all five of his children are also skilled drum makers.

“My biggest investment — other than educating my children — is training them in the business,” he said.

“Well, they might not follow in my footsteps, opting for other careers, but I feel it’s my duty. It is really their decision to make.”

The family has set up a small workshop in Dagoretti where the work is done. The couple plans to diversify and grow his business to include building leather chairs, coffee tables and stools.

DRUM-MAKING

In the early days, the palm-hide drum was a key accoutrement in church music, especially in the Pentecostal movements. But the appeal has waned over the past decade.

Modern equipment like the guitar, keyboard, and drum sets are now the preferred accompaniments. Hardly are there parishioners wearing out the hairs of hide in the church.

“It takes a lot of work to make a single drum, and so patience is part of the process,” says Zipporah.”

“I have had people come to me wanting to learn about drum-making, but none of them stay on,” adds Njuki.

After our conversation, Eliud and Zipporah wade back into the market, announcing their presence with the sound of stick on taut skin and a smile; stopping now and then to explain the central place of their merchandise in worship, the story of this particular member of the percussion family.

Later, riding the bus home that night, I looked out the window just as the bus climbed over a road bump at the point where the City of Nairobi surrenders to rural Lower Kabete near the Kenya School of Government. It was dark, but there it was: a tiny post office. I had seen it countless times before, but I was seeing it for the first time.

The lights were on, eerie and ghostly as if from another time; as if there was a wake being held in honour of the departed. And as I looked at it, I thought about Njuki and his wife, hanging on stubbornly and completely to a craft slowly disappearing from the land.

In the surrounding ink of night, the light bulb outside the tiny post office was brave. But it was clear that against the wall of modernity and technology and the slow death of the art of handwriting, one could comprehend the absence of what once was.

Njuki’s drums telegraphed news of God and the promise of music; the post office signified an exchange: utility bills and the promise of love. And now there was-or would be the threat of a terrifying absence.

There was, I remember, a kinship between the two: in the old days, the drum shouted news and important messages coded in each beat, yet understood. So did the post office.

Soon, there would be silence, and the onward march of humanity into the future. In the horizon was fire, the inferno upstaging everything, in its place a new order. Njuki, Zipporah, the post office, the news, the taste of gum, the promise of love.

Gone. The things we lost in the fire.