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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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Izava Walk: The Meru mam

There is said to have been a great pour that pushed Izava to its recent depression at kivanda cha Isaiah. The river used to pass here, says the Mumeru. Silt and deposit from up there was moved here, lifting the river bed and it took its shape there. This, she was told.

From Chogoria in Meru, this mama was married Evorogori decades now. She used to work as a banker and there met her husband who has the worst of sisters. Varikwa too make her unhappy. To have good ones, you must be very lucky. We were good friends till I came home to start utilising my husband's land. When I was away we were good friends. They sold her mabati, divined that she doesn't come home and all that. She and her husband had almost bought land in 1992 at Kitale before election violence changed their mind.

They hate me, the neighbours. They do not speak to me. They steal my bananas. They throw dead snakes and frogs here. No one is talking to me because I have dug this land. They used to bring their cattle here. Not anymore. I will be planting njahi here. Yes I will. See my neighbour with sugarcane, sweet potatoes and cabbages. But people here are blessed with jealousy! Too much of it in them. Too much propaganda and conspiracies. The people you see digging for me are not from the neighbourhood.

One thing that traumatised me was the mourning custom. I get chills when the dead is openly laid. For three days! Why that seriously? If my husband dies I won't sit there in the cold. I would quickly burry him. Just burrying? No ceremonies. Vicious cycle of death here, like some have taken it as business. Today here, tomorrow there. What one needs to do is to assert authority. Let them fear you. One just needs little space, you don't have to be a president!!

This Izava often floods depositing plastics, bottles and wear. It can be easily controlled. This is not Mississippi, she says. I am thinking of what to do alongside it.

I told her my names and that I understood her for my mama is Mukamba. Her parting shot was that i take care. A six feet cobra lived somewhere.

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