Nobody in our neighborhood ever understood the exact day Kibwana’s sanity strayed off the straight path. But if you happened to ask his mother, Bi. Mwanahawa, while she sat on her wooden armchair in the living room, she would tell you without blinking that everything began with a foolish bird boasting a blood-red beak and green feathers—a parrot named 'Professor'.
Kibwana, who in adulthood earned the unofficial title of 'Great Fool' from virtually everyone who crossed his path, was not born spending his workday watching cat videos in an office, nor was he born with the inclination to marry three twins in a single day. He was born a perfectly ordinary child, possessing wide circular eyes and an extraordinary ability to watch his parents' disputes as though he were viewing weekend cartoons.
Kibwana’s father, Mzee Athumani, was a man of few words, yet those words ran deep with subtle undercurrents. He was a master of returning home at the crack of dawn smelling of luxury hotel soaps, equipped with masterfully constructed excuses. On the other hand, Bi. Mwanahawa was not a woman to be taken for a fool easily. Instead of hiring private investigators or trailing her husband through the night, she decided to invest in natural technology: she purchased a parrot from cross-border traders and began training it for 'fieldwork'.
The Timber Yard Incident:
Every morning while Mzee Athumani was away at work, Bi. Mwanahawa would place the parrot before her and repeat the exact same phrase for two hours straight: "Cut out your foolishness, Athumani... What is Asha from the salon giving you? I love you so much, my Mwanahawa!" Kibwana, at seven years old, would sit nearby eating boiled cassava, quietly observing this bizarre daily exercise between his mother and the bird.
That psychological exercise bore fruit on a Friday afternoon. Mzee Athumani returned home earlier than usual, exhausted, slumping onto the living room sofa to untie his shoes. Bi. Mwanahawa was in the kitchen cooking. Little Kibwana sat on the floor playing with his tin toy car.
Suddenly, from the window corner, the parrot began warming up its vocal cords. And it did not utter bird calls; it produced a voice mimicking Mzee Athumani’s own low baritone with terrifying precision:
"My Asha... That woman back home doesn't even know how to apply eyeliner. The maid's daughter will agree to everything; I'll bring you a dress tomorrow!"
The atmosphere in the living room froze like a plane crash site. Mzee Athumani turned to stone holding a single sock in his hand, his eyes wide in absolute shock. Bi. Mwanahawa emerged from the kitchen clutching a wooden spoon dripping with fish curry sauce. No questions were asked. There was no need for explanations. The parrot had delivered airtight courtroom evidence!
That afternoon, the battle in the living room involved clay dishes flying through the air like rockets, with Mzee Athumani fleeing for his life as he was chased down by a hot wooden spoon. Yet amid all the chaos, young Kibwana remained seated on the floor, staring at that parrot with immense respect.
Kibwana’s young mind formed its very first conclusion regarding adult life. He didn't realize his father was unfaithful, nor did he realize his mother possessed an overwhelming streak of jealousy. No! Kibwana learned one singular, unique lesson: "To succeed and maintain peace in this world, you don't need to use your own brain; all you must do is find another creature to do the heavy lifting while you simply sit back and watch!"
Twenty Years Later...
Kibwana was now a full-grown 32-year-old man, featuring shoulders as broad as a storage door and a deep masculine voice, yet his decision-making system remained stuck in that 1999 living room where a parrot handled investigative duties instead of a human being.
On this particular day, Kibwana stood before the high-rise headquarters of CyberTech Solutions, a prominent Telecommunications and IT firm where he had managed to secure employment a week prior as the Senior Systems Engineer—a job he lacked even a single percent of technical skill for!
The Human Resources Manager handed him a brand-new laptop and told him: "Mr. Kibwana, we are relying heavily on you. Our network security infrastructure is under imminent threat of cyberattack. You need to write new security algorithms to safeguard our database before four o'clock this afternoon."
Any other person in their right mind would have suffered a bout of panic or fled the building. But not Kibwana. This extraordinary rule-breaker smiled with supreme confidence, leaned back in his swivel chair, grabbed a cup of coffee, and recalled his mother's parrot lesson.
He booted his computer, went online, and located a small IT firm based in China. He connected with an engineer named 'Li Wei'. Kibwana typed a short message:
"Mr. Li Wei, my monthly salary is four thousand dollars. I will transfer one thousand dollars to you every month so you can handle all my office tasks while I sleep. Are you interested?"
The Chinese engineer didn't hesitate; he accepted the arrangement with great enthusiasm. From that day onward, while his colleagues sweated and suffered immense stress attempting to write complex software code, Kibwana spent his days wearing headphones, eating popcorn, and watching videos of cats playing soccer on YouTube all day long!
Whenever his colleagues walked past his desk and saw him chuckling to himself before his monitor, they whispered with deep admiration: "Look at master Kibwana... He works so intensely that his mind finds pure joy in it!"
It was merely the beginning of an adult life built upon truly extraordinary principles—a man whom society was preparing to crown as the king of GREAT FOOL. But the story didn't end there...