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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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He doesn't expect rain, him, son of a step-mother.

The clouds are hanging heavily low and this post may lose time if it falls before it is posted. I may be one of the people keeping the rain away. Workers who have to travel home are afraid that if a drop hits the soil, the fare will mystically shift from affordable to a luxury. Women, more afraid to wet their hair will have their moods quickly abated. And so there are people, against my wishes wishing that it doesn’t rain, at least not now.

Noisy wet wind…


If the wish of a man was his will, what a world would we be in? Norman Garbo writes that what makes human superior to other animals is their hands- not mind. Not legs. The cattle that crossed Ngong Road today to Dagoretti in search of pasture could also see the hanging clouds and in their minds, knowing or not whether it will rain, decided not to wait for death when the herder led them. To fathom the status of grass blades two years since it showered is to ignore the strive of cactus whose ancestors were lucky to receive death rains during Noah’s phenomenacal flood.

The grass can just dry. Who cares?

Our green house supply chain stocks vegetables in the market. It would be the pleasure of such a farmer that if it rains, it rain destructively. Agriculture is no longer done to feed the stomachs and cohere families. It is done to take sons to school, buy recent technology, car or enter a mortgage deal. Not everyone wants the free rain.

It won’t take a day after it starts raining that uncultivated souls will curse it to go rain in the country side. What is rain for in the city? The site of muddy roads may not be equally demeaning than the site of a dusty path. Stagnant water is an enemy. It destroys the tarmac roads, insects breed, frogs noise up, snails find their way in and movements are curtailed.
We will hate you as we hate our jobs, schools, lives, friends, parents and many other things.

And so rains please don’t come. Some of us, like in politics, do not like you. And if grudgingly you appear, don’t spoil our days. Rain in the night and let the sun rule the day. Let the poor farmers and their soil remain poor. Do not enrich them. But let us sell umbrellas and cardigans in masses. If the poor man drowns, it is his mistake. If the rich are swept away in their cars, the government did not do enough. For we do not know or care knowing if there is joy in budding lantana camara.


That is our wish. We, sons of a step mother speak. 



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