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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 : Wa Mmakaya

Wammakaya is a place that once was inhabited by thick guava bushes and misorongo. Undergrowths of vikemiakemia and zinzagayago were many. Rutavati made paths called lung'afa. Lung'afa is such a path that a person cannot easily pass through. Time has seen them cut, burnt, die and extinct. The fit for survival Mr. Eucalyptus doesn't grow better Wammakaya.

A beautiful kind of grass adorns Mmakaya's bottom. Bare feet enjoyed the carpet. When mama gave us a break from wood fetching, she'd have seen mmakaya with 300 or so for a thin tree. Mmakaya would be very philanthropic to add a msorongo. Had the leaves been of value, nothing would stop them from being carried home.

One vivid day, those days when the household had no food, Milly and I went kotenya. We were busy trying to get sticks of firewood where Parapiku had made a fence. He is also called Malongo. When he saw us, he threw his panga towards us for he could not catch any. I looked Back and the motion Milly was in is a picture in my mind. Whether we went home terrified or cooled to pick firewood elsewhere is what I can't recollect.

I can also recall how Joshua could climb huge trees mukivanda cha Kibisu and only go home soon with respectable but countable dry branches. I was weak in climbing. Legs trembled, height fright, a poor son of woman. Joshua had a carefree sister called Leah whom swum with us in Izava.

Kibisu the politician borders Mmakaya. He took power from Mudavadi senior in 1969. For thirty shillings I'd clean a large area of his compound in his retired years. Mama used to pick tea there. His thick kivanda was clear without undergrowth. The water from Wandovo spring flowed open. What used to make it a mystery for the young is not there. Dense bushes were fearful to approach.

Something more about Malongo is that he used to sell firewood. Mama could have bought instead of having children roam valley bottoms. Malongo also had a wife or a friend I may say called Reside. Reside was mad, walking along valley bottoms. She picked stuffs on the road. She talked to herself. We called her Reside wa Marongo. Don't ask me more.

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