Uncle shops for his dream pickup truck Murima style

Despite the gloomy headlines and the nation weeping about the Kasongo economy, there’s a quiet coffee boom brewing in the mountains.

It’s not exactly the 1970s golden age, but let’s just say, farmers are smiling to the bank, tattered caps flapping in the wind.

So naturally, some days ago, I asked my uncle how his coffee farming hustle was going. He squinted at me, machete dangling from his hands, and muttered, “No kugeria.” 

Translation: We’re just trying, my boy. Just trying.

Later, he gave me a call, shouting into the phone as usual.

“Come home,” he said. “I want to buy a car.”  I was genuinely baffled. This is a man who walks for fun all the years I have known him. A car would deny him the chance to dangle a machete around.

“I need a clean bikaff,” he declared. Now, for those who didn’t grow up in our neck of the woods, a bikaff is our local lingo for a pickup truck.

So, we met at our favourite kibanda, ordered some bone broth, and got down to business.

I whipped out my phone and started showing him slick, modern pickups-big engines, Bluetooth, cup holders, reverse cameras. You know, Nairobi-level luxury.

“This one even lets you play Kamaru classics as you cruise to the coffee factory,” I said proudly.

Uncle just stared at me, seemingly bored. After my shallow attempt at selling him a modern pickup, he took a deep breath and said, “You’ve talked a lot, but you’ve said nothing.”

Then he leaned in like a man about to drop a secret. “Search for me a car called Toyota Hilux Millennium.” I typed it in. Nothing came up. “That car is out of stock,” I told him.

“It’s your brain matter that’s out of stock,” he replied, and just to rub salt in the wound, he pulled out his swanky smartphone and showed me five of them, sent to him by a broker on WhatsApp.

Old-school beasts

I gawked. Those pickups looked like they’d survived the Mau Mau war! “Why does a car built when Moi was still president cost nearly a million?” I asked.

“Kijana, you know nothing,” Uncle said, shaking his head in disappointment. “Let me teach you.”

He proceeded to school me on the sacred specs of the Toyota Hilux Millennium: iron-clad body, fuel economy tighter than a miser’s wallet, and the kind of raw power that could tow a stubborn bull uphill without breaking sweat.

“This one sips fuel sparingly the way a cricket sips dew,” he said, eyes twinkling. I had clearly lost my pitch for a brand new pickup for uncle.

There are car brands our people love for very practical (and slightly insane) reasons.

Old-school beasts that rattle, wheeze, and wheeze some more-but still conquer our rugged hills like champions.

Top of that list is the legendary Toyota Hilux Millennium.

A pickup so revered, thugs will steal a rusted model and leave a new Mercedes untouched. If you think I’m lying, ask around.

I can’t wait to go home one day and find Uncle in a godpapa, leaning against his beloved “bikaff.” 

The one that sips fuel like a cricket and chews the hill of Murang’a like githeri.