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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...
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Writings on a leso - dignified clothing.

Proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten. Palm oil is tappped and the best tapper does not tap lowly- he climbs up. To climb up is to go round a woman's lesso when she is not looking. It is searching for the sentenses on wirelines when no one is looking. It is to stop by and window shop while reading. The lesos are endowed with swahili proverbs- one of the rich most African literature. 

A leso is a woman's half clothing- from the waist to the toes. It resembles Kikoi though I find kikoi a littled heavily cottoned. Lesso is light and 'free' though if someone explained it better I'd take that as a description. I know it as my mother's convenient clothing she used when doing house chores, hiding her inner trouser from us- it was disgusting to see your mother in one, and letting us use it to sit in the open grass.



Whoever invented writings on the clothing- not the things youths have on their T-shirts- is presently serving a high position in the council of ancestors. Someone must have started it before others adopted. He ranks among the rare species in my list. 

Proverbs aren't cliches. Just read it severally and you will understand. Like meditation, it increases with concentration. It also depends with one's imagination- our greates curse. Good that the words aim no ill. They are a language at its peak- no fouls; no profanity. You can close your eyes while buying any and it will reflect well in the recipient's eyes. Memorise the verse and it will do good to your brain and life. 

As a woman's clothing, it goes beyond what it writes. The words reflect well- humbleness and goodness. A society whose women are in struggle to 'overcome' men is a chaotic one. We can blame the system- not the women. We are also too many to treat one as human. But that does not keep off the proverbs- whoever sticks to the good ways will surely harvest good.



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