Home Horizon

Lord, Please Make Me A Chicken!

Sometime in August last year, I boarded a matatu to Busia, western Kenya, heading to the Anglican Diocese of Katakwa, for an early-morning service to perform godfather duties at the baptism of my friend Rev Duncan’s child. The driver, an amiable young man in his mid-thirties, was visibly hungover. His bloodshot eyes and the reeking smell of his previous night’s decisions initially made me question my choice of boarding his public service vehicle.

But somewhere along the road, we became unlikely conversation partners, our dialogue beginning from a curious perspective. He started by marveling at the forgetfulness of animals which he considered a blessing. He observed that animals don’t carry grudges and they don’t replay offenses. They just forget. I objected that some animals remember. But he insisted they don’t.

I was about to let go of the argument when the confession came: “I wish I had the mind of a chicken then I’d not bear this weight of memory.”

Startled, I asked why! And the narration finally came.

His parents had died when he was a little boy. He was their only child, left alone in their grass-thatched hut while his uncles and their families lived comfortably. His own meals came hard: many nights he secretly watched them throw leftover fish heads and bones to dogs, then he’d sneak and grab the remains from the dogs to eat himself.

There were darker stuff too. At night, he heard mysterious co-curricular activities, sometimes involving a snake being brought into his hut to crawl over him as he slept, then mysteriously summoned back. Whether all of it was witchcraft, trauma, or a child’s terrified interpretation of adult cruelty, one thing was certain: he felt unwanted.

Eventually, he left his home in Oyugis for Kisumu. He lived on the streets at first, then became a matatu tout. There, he learned to drive and eventually found work behind the wheel.

But the pull of home was strong. He determined to go back and build himself a proper house. Problem? His father’s land was still under the control of his uncles, and the one who remained guardian of the estate denied him access. He begged. He consulted elders, the chief, the county commissioner. Nothing moved.

But as they say, the streets always have answers. Some time later, an old man from Siaya heard his story and offered him some “medicine.” “Medicine and its roots” is what they call an effective remedy where I come from.

The prescription was wonderfully African and suspiciously ridiculous. He was to visit his uncle on any day of his choice, and be cheerful, just enjoying his company. At mealtime, water for handwashing would be brought. He would then tactfully get the water the uncle had used to wash his hands and secretly drink it.

Our driver did exactly that. He then waited for some time before returning to the uncle to restate his request: he wanted to establish his home on his father’s land, and he wanted his uncle to stand in his late father’s place according to Luo custom.

Strangely enough, this time, the uncle listened. And agreed. Not only did he hand over the land title, but the same previously immovable uncle came and performed the customary duties of the dead father as required! Our guy eventually had his home.

By the time I reached my stop at Busia, the narration had already ended, and a few passengers and I were lost in that peculiar silence people enter when a story has unsettled them. Personally, I was wondering what exactly had happened. Had the medicine been handwashing water, the ritual, psychology, coincidence, or something I simply did not have the vocabulary to name?

As I walked around at Korinda looking for a connection to Malaba, something else stayed with me. The “miracle” had happened, but the bitterness had not gone away. The young man still lamented the pain his uncles had caused him. A question he had kept asking bothered me a lot: “Who might I have become if my uncles had simply been good to me?”

That’s such a brutal question because it can’t produce any answers. We can survive so much injustice and pain in this world. But wondering what we might have become if someone had loved us properly can be a haunting thought for decades.

That’s why his wish to have a chicken’s brain eventually made sense to me. Chickens may not be wiser than humans. But maybe they are spared the terrible human ability of remembering everything.

I have wondered whether the mystery of forgiveness can be properly understood without being seen as the grace of refusing to let yesterday live in our heads today. Joseph had every reason to remember and to become what had been done to him. Yet he found grace to stop his memories from being his prison. He even named his firstborn son “forget” (Manasseh), in reference to his past misery in his brothers’ hands (Genesis 41:51). He’d famously observe:

“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” (Genesis 50:20)

I have also wondered whether the gospel is not partly this strange invitation to remember without becoming bitter, and to let God decide what the ruins will become.

Maybe that is what chickens know that we don’t. Or maybe they just forgot. As we would.