Skip to main content

Featured

Posted by

Heavy responsibilities for elder aunt among the Logooli

With Seenge Fonesi. She is the elder grand daughter of Isagi and elder daughter of Amugasya. She is often present in functions involving the family of Amugasya. Pic taken on 18/4/2024. The elder sister soon becomes the elder aunt. It is this “seenge munene” (elder aunt) tag that she is tied to many cultural responsibilities – back home. To her marital family she may appear as any other woman, but she is not so in the eyes of her people. Marriage does not steal her away as it would happen with other daughters of the old man. To her, as days go and the old man and woman of the estate are dependents, she becomes increasingly present.  Her brothers also need her for almost all traditional markings. They are marrying, she needs to welcome the new wife. They are giving birth, she needs to come to midwife or “bless” the new born. They are paying dowry she needs to lead the women delegate. There is a conflict she needs to come for a hearing.  And many others. Traditions does not expect her to
Post a Comment
Read more
Posted by

When Gor meets Ingwe (06-03-2016)

Gor is the name of a powerful medicinal Luo man who lived more than 80 years ago. Established in 1968, the club reincarnated the fading reputation to presently a famous soccer team in East Africa and beyond. Ingwe, on the other hand is a Luhya name for a Leopard. The wild animal, largely in Luhya folk tales was considered a disaster that devoured people as it did to reared animals. The hard times that the ancestors went through now live in our age as a football club. With a pre-colonial interaction history of marriage, trade and peaceful neighbourhood, the Luo and Luhya, Nilotes and Bantus respectively,  nick name each other shemeji (in-law).

Our forefathers welcomed war as part of their social life. With our present lives seeming more precious and sacred, we participate in war in form of sports and politics- the war of words. The loud shouts at the field to encourage the soldiers controlling the ball to shoot directly in the heart of the goal posts is followed by a loud cheer of enormous victory when the time ends, one side up.

When Gor meets Ingwe the match is greatly attended, motorist become cautious of approaching the fans, trees and objects are vandalized, a super weekend is awaited and the Kenyan Premier League hype increases. When Gor meets Ingwe there is tension about which in-law will go away with his head up and who will lose appetite days after the match.

The love of the game is more to do with something of our fathers. A son feels good in participating in what his father used to talk about while he was young. A son feels good when he participates in something that he knows he isn’t the author but lurks deep before he was. And it would be easily welcomed as a defiant when one is warned not to attend the match known in the past as a cause for injury and even death. For sons will forever be sons, and risk, a deliberate thing we do in wait for punishment from our parents who may no longer be there to pinch us can dawn on us in the form of a teargas, stone fall or lose of personal items.

The two communities hail from a region of high population and increased poverty levels on a national scale. In the capital, employment and social amenities increase their desperations of a nationally unequal distribution of wealth. The fans knowingly attack the majority kikuyu tribe and insult the police whom they view as the government in words and acts. Attending the match is a way of releasing frustrations from a son who is in a far away land, a slave to an Indian master, desperate of his future dreams. The middleclass men drive in and get out quickly missing the best moments.

The best moments are welcomed when luckily the match ends without major hitches. The drummers are revived by their responsibility to evoke the women and men to a higher notch. Luhya drums are exorcised and shemejis, not minding about the loss or win join in dance and singing. Such moments are witnessed in the rural during circumcision and death ceremonies but continue to fade. To experience the moment in live day in the midst of kinsmen is like a time travel into the unpolluted past, mocking the present with songs, being home at least for a moment and forgetting oneself for the long distance that the drummers will go.

When Gor and Ingwe meet, fans do not really know the names of the players. When they meet, they settle for a tussle, like a dowry discussion knowing that it is not the end yet the outcome matters a lot. When Gor and Ingwe meet, fans look forward to a similar meeting.

(Here is a previous post when the match could not continue)

Comments

Post a Comment