THE TALE OF UGALI

Once upon a time,there was a land called Kenya.People loved eating and eating maize at that.They ate maize on the cob(boiled,roasted on a charcoal grill and rubbed red with a lemonhead dipped in achari),maize as popcorns,maize as free seeds mixed with beans etc.But the best kind of maize was that which was ground into flour then systematically worked into a paste under heat.That was not maize,it was ugali. Ugali went well with everything,except the things that did not sit well with ugali.Ugali fish,ugali beef,ugali terere,ugali matumbo-golden rule is to never mix your ugali with another starch form.Some liked it so soft,but never the mashy form cooked down south of Africa.Some liked it so hard that you could be charged with assault for hitting someone with a piece of ugali.

A good wife knew how to cook your ugali right.It was the litmus test if you were not these borntown boys who abscond the blade by the river for that of the clinician. It has been postulated,though not empirically proven,that the quality of ugali is to blame for marital strife(a quote borrowed and modified to edify the urban pizza hunters & gatherers).
Now ugali spiked the demand for maize so high that it became the staple food of Kenya.To qualify as a breadbasket,acres and acres of Zea mays had to be witnessed.Man(in the strict sense of gender) shall not thrive on rice or cereals at breakfast,he shall thrive on ugali the whole day.Unless you work in a mjengo,ugali at lunchtime is a sedative that renders you unconscious.
Then it happened.People politicised ugali.There was talk of famine,there was talk of drought-silos had no cereals to sell. The price of maize flour scaled to Yego heights and it became unaffordable to cook ugali. Can you imagine serving 3 packets of spaghetti to attain the satisfying value of 1 packet of ugali?People talked and grumbled,it was 2017,an election year in Kenya. The Gvt & opposition ping-ponged the issue,their armies on the ground did likewise.
Then the Gvt subsidised the price and the consumption as well.1 packet per household?Might as well serve tea for dessert too. Sugar and milk prices high too?Eish,they have finished us.The end is here.
If you thought things were worse,brace yourself. Soon there was no maize flour at all...GOK or baller's version. My child we ate chapatis until we developed an allergy. We formed cartels with supermarket attendants,as soon as a new shipment arrived we were in the know before it ran out of stock in 15 mins. Each family member bought their separate packets at 90/= Kshs and we secured enough for the week. Those were hard times that brought out the worst in us. Imagine some supermarkets had funny rules like"spend 500/= to get 1pkt of unga" or "buy 2pkts and we will ship it to you at a cost of 400/=". 
That is the myth of ugali,our long lost friend.