Won’t ever forget the day a rabid dog tore my butt

Hip Hop artistes have always been in love with dogs. I will bet my last coin that the next song in the pipeline awaiting recording will have something to do with dogs. Lyrics will carry something like “who let the dogs out” and the choruses will feature vicious barking dogs -- “woof, woof, woof” and the artistes will make thousands of “msimbazis”.

Artistes, maybe out of self-adduced notions will discard their conventional names such as Ally or Juma and will instead be baptized something like Snoopy Doggie, Doggie Man or something doggish! Their stupid singles will be entitled “Dogs Day in Dog Heaven”. I am averse to dogs. The last time I owned a dog was many years ago when I did not know whether I was a boy or a girl. Later, the poor dog was finally hit by a speeding car and dispatched to dog heaven. At the time, I believed that I will meet Cujo in heaven and will hug him. Now I have changed my views. I think that when we finally cross the vale of death, reincarnation takes place and we are born as one animal or the other – sometimes as dogs.

My ordeals with dogs did not end with his untimely demise. Around my teenage, when I had just finished high school, I found myself between a hard place and rock simply because a certain dog saw no use of being friendly to me and actually sank its teeth in my flesh as I ran for my dear life. My Bisho Ntongo whose father was a very stern policeman then had caught my fancy. You know how teenagers behave when they are head over heels in love. Prior to that day, I had written numerous letters saying that I was so in love that if she rejected me, I would dive into Lake Victoria.

I wrote in the best English I could master and drew a heart that had been pierced by an arrow. I was simply infatuated and my stupid head was spinning like a yoyo. Bisho Ntongo would reply, but before sending over the letter, she would either douche it in perfume or spill a couple of water drops claiming it to be her tears from her love struck heart. One day, I was a hundred metres from Bisho’s house and could see that her father, known for terrorizing young men was home. I hid in a bush. A menacing growling of a dog greeted my ears a few minutes after. A few metres away from me was a huge, ugly dog baring its canines was threatening the whole life of me. I did not know whether to fear Bisho’s dad or the dog. Even as I pleaded with the dog not to bite, it bit my buttocks as I ran away.