New Year? Really!
It is just yesterday, in the early hours, that I heard that customary shout…
“Happy New Year!”
“Happy New Year!”
It was all over the air. Out there. I could hear the sound of fireworks. I could hear some random noises. Some shouts here and there. It was late night, but the darkness of the night could not keep the folks quiet out there.
That was not all. I could hear the singing. The music. The preaching! It was all there. In the dead of the night. So, what was going on yesterday in the dead of the night. In the wee of the hours? I was just on the late-night watch…. Doing nothing but watching. I have made it my custom to take a ‘real’ holiday when times like this come. Times like a holiday break that I was having at the moment. A time when I do nothing… but look at the screen. I inter-switch between the live and the recorded. I sit on a designated seat. In the middle of the living room and stay put for over sixteen hours. The only break I do take is to the restroom, and then back to my seat.
I enjoy my holidays to the max. I get my maximum rest during such times. I usually do not even know which day or date it is once I start the rest. Everyday is just any day. I just know there is day and night. It could as well be a Sunday or a Monday. Well, it could even be February or October for crying out loud! When I take my holiday rest, I do take the holiday rest… doing nothing – technically, taking a rest.
So, when those noises of the wee hours erupted, I was kind-a-taken aback. What was happening? How can the environment, the darkness of the night, just erupt into noises and sounds of fireworks and singing and music and preaching and praying and chatter? In the middle of the night? I had to halt the watching. This halt must have been on the tenth-hour of events occurring in real time, out of the expected 24-hours of watching 24.
Well, this must have been quite something. To interrupt ‘real time’ screen time was quite something. So, I took the break, opened the door of the second-floor apartment and stood out at the front verandah. I could see the dim light of the streetlights just beyond the apartment block compound. I could just make out something like a firework in the horizon of the Eldoret town. There was nothing else visible in the dark, just some flashes in the sky, and the sounds and noises that whiffed through the darkness and stillness of the midnight.
I got back to my seat and unpaused. I was re-immersed into the real time on screen and life continued.
That was just yesterday. It is now a new day. It is today. It is a Sunday, so they say, since from my seat it could as well be any day of the week. It is January – another thing said, which may be true or not. Tomorrow, I am told, schools reopen, same as offices and the rest of businesses for something called the start of the year in the month of January. Then we shall count another twelve months of anticipation and waiting, to finally get to another such noisy night like yesterday. Another day like yesterday, when we make resolutions on what we want to happen, simply because it is a new year. What would happen if we made that resolution say in June? Will it change the happening of the resolution? What is this new year obsession thing?
I am now seated over the eighteenth episode, determined to get to 24 by the end of the day as I wonder what is the obsession that we as humanity have with this New Year Day thing? Let me disclaim that I have nothing against celebrating the New Year. Go ahead do it. Enjoy to the max! I would celebrate myself if I got to know when it was and was convinced that that was the real start of a new year. Therefore, please, celebrate New Year as you deem fit. Who doesn’t like a good celebration, even if it is just once in year? I am not against anyone celebrating. Just do it. I am just wondering aloud why this is such a big deal and a big day, than say today? Don’t the different days all have 24… I mean 24 hours?
Let me even disclose that I was an annual new year celebrant. During my primary and secondary school days I did participate in New Year celebrations on the date, on the day! Life at the rural areas did not allow us to celebrate in the midnight as it is done in the urban areas. At shags we could not afford to light the midnight oil. We should have gone to bed by eight to conserve the kerosene in the lamps. Nights were (and still are) quiet and still. No noises are made in the night. The night is for quietness and darkness. Nothing should interfere with those two whatsoever. That meant that we would celebrate the new year on the new year day morning. We would start with an early morning congregation at the local church, followed by loud resolutions of what the new year should bring forth. Then we would move from homestead to homestead just feasting and reminding all that we had made resolutions. Good old days, but unfortunately, New Year is no more!
Anyway, let me not keep you guessing for long. I will go ahead and tell you when New Year ended. New Year ended in 2020 when a virus called corona virus hit the world and people started suffering from the disease caused by that virus. This disease, called COVID19, has since become the defining moment for the human race. It has caused closures, shutdowns, curfews, lockdowns and everything bad. It was led to cancellation of events, days and dates. The 2020 Olympic games were even held in 2021 for crying out loud! With all that disruption of events as we know them, do you really believe that we still have New Year? With 290,054,489 infected* with the virus in the world and 5,459,176 dead? 5,384 of which are dead in Kenya?
*source worldometers website
Have yourselves a Happy New Year 2022.
WWB, the Coach, Eldoret, Kenya, Jan. 2, 2022
