Ofwang'a's dad was a stingy man; every time he bought meat, he counted the pieces before his wife stuck them into the pot and allocated each person in the house a fixed number of pieces so that, once everyone got their share, an exact amount of meat remained for the next day.
Ofwang'a's dad was a stingy man; he had three wives and twenty-seven children and they all lived together in a big two-storeyed mud house which he had built at the foothills of Marakoli.
Ofwang'a's dad was a stingy man; he had twenty-seven milk cattle which gave him two litres of milk a day each and four bulls which he wrestled every day at Wepukhana where his people held a public market every week.
Since he and his sons had good hands for rearing warrior cattle, Ofwang'a Senior, for that was Ofwang'a's father's name, his prized bulls won every fight that they entered against the most ferocious animals his people and their neighbours from as far away as three market days from their area.
Every time his bulls won a match as was customary, Ofwang'a Senior was entitled to a hind leg from the losing bull, which was usually so severely gored by the victor that its chances of survival were low indeed.
Ofwang'a Senior's sons would then take turns carrying the meat and herding the bull back home, passing by relatives and neighbours who stood aside respectfully as royalty walked by, for that was their status in Musembeland; apart from being a gifted cattle farmer, Ofwang'a Senior also has twenty-seven acres of land upon which he grew mrenda and millet to great success.
BUT OFWANG'A SENIOR WAS A STINGY MAN!
He always supervised his wives when they cut the meat and counted the pieces himself - including the bones - as he three them into the pot so his wives would not pinji pieces while he was not looking. Or so he thought.
Ofwang'a and his siblings were all born within ten years of each other and when they sat at table to eat, it always looked like a feast was going on.
Half of the siblings were teenagers now, and hunger raged in their bellies like the infernos that cooked their ugali and one piece of meat, which was usually what anyone got, was no longer enough. Ofwang'a Senior's children wanted more - nay, they needed more.
But Ofwang'a Senior was a stingy man who paid no heed to his children's pleas for more meat. "Take your bulls," he would say, "and go win a few fights for yourselves if you want meat." Of course nobody had bulls, so they shut up and kept eating.
Ofwang's mothers were very clever; they always added plenty of water to the meat as it cooked so everyone could have a taste, dip their ugali inside and pretended they had many pieces of meat.
Ofwang'a was very clever; as he grew older, he noticed that there were always two or three pieces of meat remaining after every meal which no one seemed to eat, so he resolved that he would be passing with them because at the end of the day, he was the one who fed the bulls which brought the meat.
Should I tell you what he did?
I will even if you do not want to hear.
This guy decided to expropriate the remaining three pieces of meat when everyone was not looking.
Being a pragmatic meticulous chap, he knew that asking for the meats at the table and taking them for himself would earn him beatings faster than he could say "Ng'we", so he decided to intercept them on the way to the kitchen.
Since the children were so many, it took at least three of them to clear the table after supper, so the mothers sent one each of theirs for obvious political reasons.
Ofwang'a carefully observed who took the pot with the remaining pieces of meat. It was Naliaka the snitch dauggter of the small mother. He sneaked out when everyone was busy talking and timed her at a dark spot near the chicken coop then, as she was passing, he pretended to be running from the toilet and accidentally knocked her so the pot fell. That is what she saw.
Ofwang'a intercepted the pot in midair and swiped the pieces quickly then let it fall near her feet.
He stuck the meat quickly in his pockets and since everyone else was in the house or kitchen being noisy, no one noticed the incident. Naliaka went back to her mother crying saying Ofwang'a had knocked her while he said it was she who was not looking where she was going and it became a big argument and everyone forgot about the meat, everyone but Ofwang'a Senior.
Later that night, after the women had slept, Ofwang'a Senior called his sons to him and said, "My sons, sometimes what is available will not be sufficient to meet your needs or desires. When that happens, you have a few choices to make. Make the right choice."
Ofwang'a got the message.
Phew! This one almost became a long story.