CRAZY GUY FROM OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD!!

I'm about to share a little life experience with you all, so let me know if anybody can relate to this here. I'm going to tell you all what it was like growing up in a neighborhood that has a crazy person in it.

My guess is, most people that weren't privelaged to live in some kind of rich gated community, probably had at least one, maybe two, crazy people living in their neighborhood. Hell, some of the folks in gated communities had crazy neighbors, too. They just call crazy people "eccentric" when they're rich. But where i was born in eastleigh nairobi had its fair share of them.

Well, growing up, there were a number of people in my neighborhood who fit the desription of crazy, such as a few drug addicts and messed up guyz (some used to say they have been bewitched), but there was one guy who literally struck fear in everybody that walked past his part of the neighborhood. This guy's name was MOGAKA!!. When we were kids, everybody in school was scared shitless of Mogaka. He was about 6 feet tall, slim, really darkskinned, but he had some of the scariest eyes this side of Satan. I never saw them any color other than yellow or bloodshot red. Mogaka wasn't some big muscle bound extra strong dude, but everyone feared him because you could look at him and know that brother was CRAZY. What really made his scary is you never knew what to expect when you saw him. Plus, sometimes he would show up out of nowhere like some kind of crunchy-black ass evil nigga demon from the 5th level of Hell. Just wreaking havoc and whatnot.

There were so many urban legends floating around about that guy, you never knew what to believe. It's said that he stabbed a kid before and did prison time, which may or may not be true cause he was about 30 years old when us school kids used to see him wandering around the neighborhood like the Ghost's of mombasa..I mean, The Ghost of CHANG'A Past. Another story was that he always carried this big ass knife with him. I don't know if he ALWAYS had it on him, but I once saw him with some Crocodile Dundee shit on his waist on the 7th street in eastleigh runnin' after a cat. Tell me a sane reason to carry a Crocodile Dundee knife on your side when you're runnin' after a cat from about a block and a half from your house, and I will leave it alone...but right now it adds up as INSANITY to me. Another story I heard was that he would have sex with anybody or anything, depending on his mood. I wasn't about to find out if that one was true.

All I know is, if you happened to be in any mathree(kenyan buses) whenever Mogaka walked in, that shit got quiet in a hurry. Folks would start ducking in the aisles talking about "Oh shit! it's Mogaka!" Nobody wanted to get shot, stabbed, robbed, or raped out back behind the bus, so we gave that evil-looking wierdo the utmost respect. Sometimes's he'd nod and say "Hello"...others, he'd be like "Fuck you little motherfuckers." Regardless of what was said, he always had the same evil expression on his face. That nigga was harder than NWA Jheri Curl Ice Cube.

The funny thing is, folks would talk shit after he left, and someone would always be like "You ain't say all that shit when Mogaka was in here!"

And you know what? That person would be right. It was library silence when that dude came around. The boldest kids would get up the nerve to yell out something like "Fuck you Mogaka!" or "umbwa wewe mogaka!"(you dog) out of the moving bus window as it was driving off. Even then, that person and everyone sitting near him would duck down in the seat so Mogaka wouldn't see who did it and wait at the bus stop after school.

Nairobi has it's share of crazies, but I still have yet to see anybody that feared dor just being crazy. It's different in a place like Eastleigh, though. That fool Mogaka would have probably gotten shot by one of those kids he terrorized at some point had he been here till today. The only memorable crazy person I see all throughout the city(mostly in haile sellasie avenue or Gill house) is the one guy who always walks around in a fireman's hat and yells obscenities at people walking by. The secret to him is to not look scared. Most women and old people speed up their walk or try to cross the street to avoid him. His secret was revealed one day when this 19 year old somali man(i think he had just arived from somalia and didn't know swahili) got really angry and ran up on him. The guy in the fireman's hat took off up the street looking back to make sure he wasn't being chased. From then on, I realized that he could dish it out, but he can't take it. Plus, he's not THAT crazy. Ol' boy probably thought the young guy was a member of SHIFTA or something.

Either way, if you can relate to these stories about the crazy fool in your neighborhood, please share in the comments section.

Also, if you know Mogaka(since I know one of my readers grew up near that man's street), and if the rumors of his demise aren't true, don't tell him I wrote about him. I'm a grown man now, so I thinkI might can take him if he tries something...but still. I don't want to walk on 7th street in eastleigh one day and get stabbed with a Crocodile Dundee knife by some old-ass red eyed nigga just for something I typed here. If you love me, you'll keep Mogaka from seeing this.

Once again, not that I'm scared...Cause I ain't no damn punk.........baadhen basi!!