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The struggle with many a rigid Logooli cultural practices

  The Logooli community is one of the deeply cultured societies – with near everything supposed to have been done as per custom – to allow another custom to follow. One example is that for a mature man (with a child or more) to be buried, there must be a house structure at home. Another is that a boy must be circumcised and nursed in father land. If maternal family decides to, the boy will have a hard time reconnecting with father people - a dent on his masculinity. There were two children who got burnt to death in a house in Nairobi. The single mother had left for night work. Elders were told that one of the children was Logooli. The other, the woman had sired with someone else. The Logooli family wanted to burry their little one and long discussed the do’s and don’ts. Of a man who died childless and the grave was placed as if he had died as a man with children. It should have been dug on the sides, the grave. A real thorn should have been thrust in his buttocks, his name go...

No Ngugi, Vernacular is PAST.

I am talking like a foreigner as I answer to Ngugi's thoughts. But foreigners are not killed for their opinions. It is the responsibility of the sons of soil to decide on their fate now that things are no longer what they were.

To propose vernacular languages is to confine one's world. To learn a language is to live- identity. And to live is to time. And time in the global world is a scarce resource. There is therefore no time for identity and hence language. 

The reason as to why the global world is against identities as boundaries, morals and culture is because of the diversity and thinking of a greater world to discover. Language is therefore a minor thing to chase and any mode of communication and emancipation is welcomed. Learning is more than a language.

The fact that there are many languages- mostly ethnic- make it harder to suggest. My mother is a Kamba and father is a Luhya. Do children still belong to the father's land? Time has changed. Did Luhya men know of Kamba women? They were aliens. Therefore I am a born of a wrangle. 

Not that I am a city born. I now my vernacular but that should not be a bragging point (or politics for Raila). I don't now how vernacular is helping me but I often source distinct ideas and words from there. The denial speared by Ngugi that those who now only of foreign languages are a betrayal is a sign of sheer shallowness. Once I have communicated in whatever manner and my needs are catered, what next? It is not about language (morals); it is about personality and intuition that makes a behaviour.

The world is continuing to grow smaller and we should celebrate it. Languages are things that made it big. And as we go to Mars, with whatever language, I hope we are not confined to emancipation ethnicity.

Thank You

Professor on stage. Picture source; Web


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