Kwaheri and Asante to the Family Chef

‘Chef, I’ve done enough. I want to go home.’
Musa Ezekiel is the first person at Angama who has retired from work and gone straight home without doing another job. He’s retiring, going to his family, and enjoying life. Right away, when he told me that he wanted to leave, we sat down with him, guided him, and showed him what retirement would mean.

When he first started at Angama nine years ago, he got a nice, good-quality knife. He said that over the years, he would be coming and going and he would never leave the knife behind. So he had to make a sheath for it like a Maasai’s traditional blade called an enkalem and he carried it with him always. So, of course, he had to take that Angama knife with him into retirement.

We did a party for him where we gave him a service certificate from each and every department. You see, he served the whole Angama Mara family. At his party, every Head of Department gave a speech because, without him and John Munyenye (his fellow canteen chef), none of their teams would be able to work. Every department contributed to a retirement fund as an appreciation and so many people gave him money to say thank you.

It’s a big, big job that he has done for us, for our team. He would always make sure that everybody was fed, especially in Peak Season, he always went out of his way to make sure everybody ate — even making food specially for those people who missed their meal because they were working. Every day for seven years, he and John cooked more than three meals for up to 120 people. We order 14kg of flour per day to make ugali so you can imagine over nine years how much ugali Musa has made.

John is Musa’s best friend and he gave a speech at the party. John was over-grieved when speaking, he was so sad to have his friend and colleague leaving him. I will translate what John has said about his friendship with Musa from Maa to English:

When we were young, our lives would meet on and off very unexpected. First we went to primary school together and when I left that school, Musa stayed. Later, we met during warriorhood and after eight years of being warriors together we graduated into junior elders for the community.

We had to separate then because we were all looking for a job, we were about 34 years old. I started working as a canteen chef for Olkurruk when it started. When I was working there, Musa worked at lodges in the Mara not too far and we would meet up on our off days. When Angama started, we met each other again. Musa had come first and when I came, I was amazed to find my friend there.

Musa has always been a great friend to me, actually I love him. After all those years working together, we have mostly just been cracking jokes. Since childhood, we have never fought. We have been in this canteen for seven years just me and him and I’m going to miss him.