In 2006, residents of a 15 square kilometer area in midwestern Kenya decided to be proactive in ridding themselves of a noxious alcohol that had wreaked havoc and turned their young into mere reeds of emaciated beings who knew no better. to quench your addiction. Men no longer contributed to the well-being of their families and it was believed that alcohol was rendering them sterile and mere zombies. Like the drug lords, the purveyors stood up, ready to fight or buy their way out. The administrative arm of the government, including local chiefs, the DO and law enforcement officers, had closed their ears to the cries of the local community. It had become apparent that the relevant branches of government derived their share of the revenue from suppliers and vendors.
When members of the community police force that was created through a recent government policy tried to get rid of alcohol, they found that they were not getting the support of the DO, the Chief, and the administration policemen. When they searched for alcohol and the vendors to force them to stop selling the harmful beverages or arrest them, the DO and administration police who profited from the alcohol cartel and its network quickly moved to arrest the members of the community politics, citing the breach of peace and the attack on members of other ethnic communities living among them. This incident provoked a political protest that exposed the fraud of the local administration and led to the convening of the DO of the area by the DC.
The community could not look back. Community members continued their alcohol policing and the climax was a huge meeting called in their town to solve the alcohol problem, supposedly forever. And the method was a ritual that involved swearing and cursing. Known sellers were required to take an oath swearing they would never sell alcohol again after a curse uttered by a famous old man that whoever broke the oath would die.
Barely two weeks after the curse, a middle-aged woman known for selling the noxious concoction alighted from a vehicle near potholes in the road, just yards from her destination. She tried to cross and run to her place where she would sell moonshine. She did not turn to look left and right. The crossing never materialized. She was hit by a car and the contents of her basket spilled all over the road. The liquid contents of several burst polythene bags spilled out and soaked the asphalt road. It was obvious from the smell that the liquid was alcohol. The curse had begun to bite. All the alcohol vendors still selling the harmful illicit homemade alcohol were in shock and fear. They avoid selling the noxious homemade alcohol. But like the saying of the local community “he didn’t die, he was eaten by a buffalo”, the locals bought and sold in the bars of the town a more dangerous and cheap alcohol, previously illegal, but now legalized, produced by some industries. contractors
Young people attracted by cheap alcohol arrive in town very early in the morning and by mid-morning they will have fainted, and when they regain some consciousness and little strength they will go home to sleep. They would be sick and suffer from a headache the next morning. If they regain their strength by mid-morning, they would tenaciously and urgently seek manual labor to earn money and by noon they would be arriving at the dives. This time, the alcohol would start to affect them at night, and as they tried to get back home, they would fall on the way. And if they were running low on strength, they would wake up around midnight and stumble upon their house. Some have been heard yelling at a bush, saying “woman, open the door. You mean don’t open? I’ll go in with the door.”
The curse, while dramatic and successful in getting the city rid of illegal homebrew transported into the city from a neighboring ethnic community, the curse only succeeded in changing the brand that would be sold, an equally dangerous brand that has been legalized and sold through of conventional supply and sales channels. Would the curse be applicable this time? It seems that evil will always find its way back!
