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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
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The madness of poor electronics.


Would you please help me know what the problem is with my phone? A man who happens to be in his forties asks. The touch of the phone, its weight and glimmer confirms that it is not an original handset. If you make a mistake of asking him of the shop he bought it, it would go to lacking, carelessness, necessity and robbery linked stories. 

The phone chimes like an alarm after every few minutes only to indicate a low battery. The chiming does not cease even if it were connected to power. He says the problem started a few days from the time he bought it. He wonders if there is any phone repairing centre around. There is none. 


He is not the only one. My father bought himself a good Nokia phone those days and bought a lesser Siemens product for mom. After a few months, despite constant warnings that children should not handle it, we came to nick name it Chi Chi Chi. It is from the tone it used to make a short time after taking it from the recharging place. 

We used to pay ten shillings for every time the phone was taken. It would require one of us to wake up early to find room. There were no enough chargers. Your battery would be put on a universal recharging devise that would see it bloat. Before twilight, the time we expected dad to be calling from the city, Chi Chi Chi was dying. World Bank had it then that anyone living below a dollar a day was poor. We must have been the poor of the poor. 

This post is about the psychological torture that comes with cheap gadgets. You will blame the seller, manufacturer, repairing man, yourself and just induce hatred in self. You will wake up on false hope that once you purchase the battery things will be good for some time before you find out that the earpiece is faulty. If you are not clever enough the corrupt boys and dealers will be doing less to keep it struggling just to get coins (notes I mean; coins got no value) out of you. 

It is not your problem that a fake thing is in the market. You could only access an item to the extent of your money. You could have bought a better gadget, wouldn’t you? Let us leave that to the digestion of economists. It is but war and you happen to be the victim. The war may not end soon because your will enrich the soil for better minerals and nutrients to sustain it come your day. 

To avoid being a victim, keep your appetites satiated. There are better gadgets, good to the cause that you need and affordable. The other day she wanted me to put music on her memory card. Video music! She kept on calling latter that they were not working. She expected that phone to allow the format? Ignorance is not an excuse. 

Be like Professor Mwanzi whom I asked an email from and said that he is not part of that civilization. What I should do is to send what I want via the postal address. For it is better to live without that stubborn gadget. It is peace that comes above all, isn’t it?

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