Izava Walk : A river of Inzara

Izava River must have been named after a swamp. The name of a swamp is kizava. This swamp was largely not full of water always but in rainy season. There is none called Zava who can be recalled to have lived. When you ask people around what Izava means they don't know yet they call their valley bottom muzava - ( in-Zava). It is where a rough road from Lusui descends to rise to Senende.

A man fenced his farm down to the river preventing both animals and intruders like me from spying and spoiling the young trees he'd planted. Asking him whether it was noble to encroach, he said 'inzara'. To mean hunger or poverty. 

He bought his land in 1971. He had sold two of his cows at 400 each. While in Nairobi he'd saved and for a total of 3000/- he was presently owning 1.6ha. Up he farmed and down he grew trees. During rainy season the whole of his valley is inaccessible. The trees have however managed to kill reeds.

They'd buried two school going children recently who drowned. A cyclist carried three on the motorbike. Because it had rained and the motorbike falsed heavy to resist the overflow,  the chap had motored in only to save one. The rest wailed away. On dawning, they were found a distance further taken hold by stunks. Their parents must have wept great.

And why didn't you destroy the bridge? I asked. It is the only way they may fix it. You'd not have burried the kids before something was done. More lives shall be lost. He listened to say that since 71 he was still regarded as an outsider by the neighborhood. Aren't they also migrations too? Or because they spoke real Tiriki?

People have closed all water ways and directed water to the roads and paths. There remains no water speed control  means cause even the swaps are vandalised. If rain found you down there it'd take least time to drown.

He showed where the first road used to be. By the tree  in somebody's compound. How over time the road got crooked is the ignorance of the concerned authorities. Road Ways, the great sung about buses used pass there heading to Seremi and Nairobi. Now a lorry couldn't manage. The place is erodedly steep.