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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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When you die POOR in the city

Grandmother took a digging bend to wail upon the death of her son who had died while she was away for her daughter-in-law burial. The owls had hooted in her mind, stomach and abdomen alike. The god of death was lengthening her physical life as it destroyed her soul. Her son, the only highly educated, the only who could do her a shopping when he arrived home, the only who had a future lied on a cheap bed on her house, with uncountable children in the city, going, gone, went.

Oh death, where is thy sting!


Among the preparing-to-wake up thoughts in some random mornings include the possibility of a fatal day that may lead to death. A preventive measure would be to avoid waking up and going away. But don't we say that problems search for you? What if death came today? Who will attend my burial and who will not? How will I be celebrated? Will someone cry? Have I done anything so far? Oh death, wait for me to accomplish something. 

Death has listened to me. 

Death does not listen to everyone. It may not have listened to me- just a personal conviction that it listened. It dint listen to the parents of the orphans in the slums. It dint listen to my uncle. It dint hear the cry of the one who lay on a Nissan carrier, under taboos to be taken to the rural side for burial. Groans, moans and it will be over, life moving on.

We have the minds of chickens- only an enlargement.

As she narrated the failures of her son, she poured her heart to the whore his son married. A whore that cherished city life. A whore that would be forced to sleep in a quickly raised cold muddy structure. A whore that has brought shame to his son. A whore that gave his son the deadly disease. Poor daughter of the other ridge. She won't step in the compound again; never. No matter what. Once he's buried she'll leave. Leave for once and forever cursing the disgusts. 

The lack of inheritance will destabilize the family for a generation. Or viciously another generation. Or forever.

The contention to squander that we fall victims of once in the city blinds us. Sometimes the money can help us live to a certain margin- never having much to invest. At the time of crisis, there is little for the family. Death arrangements swallow the remainder. Children are torn into living in the country side or going to the city streets. It is like if you saw yourself poor, unable to have your family contained, you would rather never sired and died lostfully to have a governmental escort in a local cemetery. A win

For days are not what they were, and I, Ezeulu, can witness to that. 

A Nissan carrying a coffin and a few belongings. 





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