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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...

She hates guest-house beds

Before it was insane to leave home and rent a house by the market it was also a sign of deviation for a married person to spend a night in a guest house. My aunt cannot get sleep on a bed that she knows not. She better lie down on a sack and spend it in the cold as she does while out for relative funerals. Maybe the rooms remind her about the girlhood days for she is not a precolonial child. I wouldn't want to sanitize her much.

Lodgings are perceived as leisurely places and those who provide the best of the services have been able to drive big cc's. Once as a staff we went for a holiday and it was a good time. When my cousin married it was shameful for him to spend honeymoon locally in his lion. My mother exclaimed regretfully that she'd have afforded them two day stay in Ambwere Plaza at Chavakali. In short she was saying.....

Necessity to have privacy do send people away even for hours. It was my cousin whom we got inquisitive on what he was doing with the lady who had visited. Peeping exposed them down on the floor. Chuckling exasperated him and he ran after us for some discipline. We were anxious to tell Mama and she looked at us in puzzlement.

With no difference to campus hostels, we grew up to know better what to do when a girl visited a roommate. It would be preposterous to ask a friend who spreads his bed at wake and changes the sheets after two days for his keys.

That aside, these rooms situated behind hotels and bars have been abused. Underage girls have lost their maidenhood by the  lure of pleasure. Believe it or not the men who ask for keys as they pay swindle in green vulvas to purify their rottenness. Underserved and stray spouses meet their needs there. No wonder increased STDs among couples.  Quickies are as short as a moment between a lady leaving to take a bus but the man piloting the motorbike overcomes her hormones. Some places don't offer a shower and the toilets too smelly.

The attending  lady, for the sake of employment is there to wash dirt and blood from sheets, close the door both after short and long calls lest a stranger silently occupies the rooms. I hate these beds, she groans. If you ask her whether nobody has ever managed to win her  in she smiles like a sheep.

Long journey travellers seek somewhere to rest. If  your car breaks on the way, you'd like to simply get over the frustration in a hotel. If bedbugs are present it's but part of a bad day. If the bar beside does not regulate vernacular music volume or drunkards who rock all night long the advice is to accept the situation quickly.
Your rich relative could ask you a night over. Always fall on that poshy bed expecting the morning arrives  quick that you go back home to the bed whose blanket and mattress is a product of your labour. Dreams be meagre and frightening.

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