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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
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Izava Walk : Which Direction Ahead?

The first day (time) for any activity is usually anxious. What the mind had preconceived could turn be inferior or superior to actuality. Knowing where North is was part of the confusion. While facing East, Where is North? Since grade three I have had this unknowing. It gets unclear when you are in a new place whose moon is spotted in the wrong direction!

Mr. Levi said that Egypt is always North! You'd see the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro there on a clear day. He pointed. The sun was rising and a spring bore the first stream by the valley bottom of Seremi market. Only the tallest eucalyptus shined golden at the peak. If the tree is cut, suggested Levi, the spring would have more water. 8 gallons to the air before the sun sets in West!

'Now the dew is reduced. You came very early,' he said. He'd loved woodwork while a student at Technical High School (now Friends School Chavakali Boys). Then I did beat a path ahead leaving the carpenter sandpaping a kiti moto. Business brought me here, he had argued.

The first stream could have sourced its water further beneath had the place not turned a maize farm. Soil loosely dropped in the trench as a woman weeded. Presence of uncountable eucalyptus in the first five hundred metres showed the trenches fitly deep, heel to thigh depth, with little water yet. Nappier grass, sugarcane and Tea came close when eucalyptus excused them.

When side soil succumbs in and the water is effortless, a pathway beneath the lump is necessitated. Observing that, a Tiriki woman who had suggested we go home for tea narrated some clans in Tiriki... Vigina, Vadimburi, Vaguga, vasaria, vakhuvera, vasaina, varokhova...

Kalahari being South, we had run from Pharaoh's enslavement/upheavals in Sahara. Had we not put on a breastplate of pride while in Canaan, laughing at the lame instead of dirt, we could be still one with the creator. So where is Canaan? I asked. It is this Land. It used to be productive.  But now!!

A road crossing the river goes to Kapsotik on the left and Mungavo on the right. Jumba is the common name around. Whether the river leads West wasn't conversant because the sun did change its forward direction.

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