Sanana
When Sanana was a policeman he was known by his given name, Stephen. One day, Stephen and his colleagues left the station house to go hunting – looking for opportunities to steal and women to rape. The plan was for Stephen to stand guard outside the gate of a residential compound while the others went inside. He stood in a small road. The sun was hot and the air was smoky from piles of burning trash. Nobody was around. Stephen got tired of standing. So he sat down with has back against a wall and his gun at his side. Suddenly, a group of armed men came out of nowhere, grabbed his gun, and gave him a beating.
When Stephen returned to the station house with his colleagues, he was told to go back out and not to return without his gun. He walked all over town. He asked people, have you seen men with a gun? Nobody was friendly towards him. Nobody would help him. After some time, he went to see his girlfriend, but as he was leaving her room her new boyfriend came in. The boyfriend attacked him and beat him terribly. This time, when he returned to the station house he was limping. His eyes were swelling shut, he was cut on one hand, and he had lost his boots. No gun? They turned him out. From that day he began to change until, after some time, he became the man you see today, Sanana, the gentle but crazy musician who plays guitar on the streets of Maralal.
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When Sanana was a policeman he was known by his given name, Stephen. He specialized in raiding the houses of women who make and sell changaa, an illegal alcohol. He was vicious. He drank the changaa, and what he couldn’t drink he took or poured out. With the power of changaa in him he stomped on the metal pots used to make it until they were so crumpled they could not be hammered out. He forced the women to reveal where their money was hidden. He was not above hitting children, and even raping. He took whatever there was of value, and he ruined wheat he didn’t take, leaving the women and their children destitute. Of all the policemen, he was the worst. After some time, the Changaa women took action against him. They got together and cursed him. That is how it happened that Stephen, the cruel policeman, became the man you see today, Sanana, the gentle but crazy musician who plays guitar on the streets of Maralal.
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When Sanana was a policeman he was known by his given name, Stephen. He was no better or worse than the others. When there was opportunity, he stole and even raped. When they arrested someone, he helped do the beating. One day, a shopkeeper went to the police. He had been robbed. Someone told him that he knew who the thief was, that it was so and so, and that he was staying in a manyatta in the hills outside of town. The shopkeeper took this information to the police. The police knew the man. He was a drunk. A musician. You might say that he was a beggar. So, a group of policeman, including Stephen, went to pick him up. It took an hour to walk to the manyatta. When they got there they found the man. He was sleeping. They pulled him out of his house, and they began to beat him. They only hit him a little much because it was too far to town, and they didn’t want to carry him. But as they got closer to town, they hit him more and more. They began to hit him too much. He fell to the ground. They kicked him while shouting at him to stand up. They kicked him over and over, even his head. The man went limp. They carried him to the station, but he was dead.
A few days later, the thief was found. It had not been this man after all, but it turned out that the one who had turned the dead man in owed him some money, couldn’t pay, and had used the police as a way to get out of his debt. Stephen had also been kicking the man, even his head. After some days the spirit of the dead man began to visit Stephen. He began to have nightmares. Then he began to loose confidence. He would be given a police assignment, but he would say, ‘No, I can’t go there.’ Stephen had played the guitar when he was in secondary school but hadn’t touch it for a long time. Now, he again wanted to play, and to sing. In fact, more and more, music is all that interests him. He stops going to the station house. He stops wearing boots. He begins walking around town with a guitar, singing. Sometimes people give him money. You might say, he is a beggar. This how Stephen became the man you see today, Sanana, the gentle but crazy musician who plays guitar on the streets of Maralal.