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The Kamnara of Sakwa are making ground to build for future generations

Greetings from the Kamnara of Sakwa! The Kamnara people of Sakwa on 27th December 2024 gathered at Village Park, Ajigo (near Bondo). Hosted by Kwaka Joseph, they hearkened to the consultative forum call, arriving in good numbers and early enough for a successful day. The gathering was chaired by Mr. Nying’ro James Onyango, a former (retired) assistant commissioner of Police. The introductions were excellent. The genealogies were mentioned in reverence, lengthy ones applauded. And courtesy of Enos Oyaya’s book, “Kamnara my people”, anyone who would need help had the documentation. Oyaya had launched the Kamnara book on 30th December 2022 at his home in Kamnara Mwalo, an event that gathered Vakamnara from far and wide. “What can we do that the generations to come will benefit from?” This was the clarion Mr. Kwaka Joseph called on all to fashion their minds to. And issues were raised in the fields of Education, health, agriculture, enterprise, politics and more that the swift dholuo would...

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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