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

Day 3 in Nairobi

Monday morning. The cheapest bus to the city ferried him together with chicken and noisy women with stinking sacks of omena. It seemed like everyone knew people in the bus, including the driver who could not drive without contributing to the villagers’ buzz. It was not like he wanted the driver to be arrested but the fact that the old metallic thing, masquerading as a bus, was cruising at a dangerous speed sickened him. Too young to die he thought he was. For being the good person he believed he was, they arrived safely and his cousin received him at the bus station.

Tuesday morning was a good day for him to join his cousin as a labourer at a nearby construction site. As they trekked, he thought of the previous night. Sharing a tiny room with his cousin, who had recently married, in the heart of the shanty town. Anyway, this is city life and sleeping on the limping sofa is not that bad.

The foreman looks at his scraggy arms and dismisses him claiming they only hire new labourers on Monday morning. No problem with that since a week is just but a few more days. On his way back to the shack, he spots a poster printed in yelling fonts and he cannot resist reading it severally.

'Are you a form four leaver looking for a job? Earn up to 30000/= weekly. Contact us for an interview'.

Indeed God works in mysterious ways and he does not forget his loyal servants. How else could someone fresh from high school earn more than a hundred thousand in a month? After contacting the number on the poster, he is invited to attend an interview in Westlands the following day. All he had to carry was his identity card, not even a pen for all will be taken care of by the good guys interviewing him.

When your mind is at peace you easily forget how you almost fell from the limping sofa as you dreamt of a prosperous life to come. It was too good a morning for him to think of such. He met fellow ambitious youths at the interviewing venue that doubled up as a conference hall. One of the workers from the international company that was to hire them walked in with a funny looking suit. She introduced herself and told them how they were all going to be hired as product promoters of the company’s various herbal products.


Their job would not entail walking with the drugs in streets like hawkers. All they had to do was pay two thousand shillings as an investment in the company then invite their friends to do the same. The more people invited, the more returns they would get from the company’s sales. It was not hard finding someone to buy his phone for two thousand shillings and paying the registration fee. The only hard part is finding people to recruit into the pyramid. I hope he succeeds. 
-Analo writes

Comments

Post a Comment