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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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Bike Fall

The elbow hurts and if I do not take care, one day I shall not have the hands to type an article. The bicycle is the simplest and safest mode of transport known if you know to apply brakes before a bump, to manoeuvre on stones and alight when you don't trust yourself.

Cane transporting trailers passed slowly as I cycled on gear one. The first had no place to hold. The second had. Quickly, my right hand got hold. Being the first time ever, I had a quarter a second moment of adapting. Easy! I was being pulled along nicely for people to see!

The trailer driver had zigzagged to signal discomfort with my act. Tonnes of canes were aboard and my holding was insignificant. I could not have understood that till I was bruised.

A tractor was slow descending to Lunyerere. I overtook it like a pro. Across the river I changed the gear. Quick cycles but least propulsion, I went. A guy with the old phoenix was pushing as required. Ahead, a green coloured mountain bike was reachable. Legs increased their revolutions.

But before I reached the guy, the tractor trotted behind and the intensity of its engine signalled a fast speed for it. When it neared, I assessed for points of  grasp. I saw a hook point when it was already a metre ahead. Two gears more and I had caught it. The bike guy may have seen a joker of a biker.

The hill was being tamed. Fast, the chimney gritting, I controlled the bike with the left hand. I passed people quickly. Bumps lay ahead but the ride was too joyful to take a moment of thought. We were now passing Mbale Boys gate.

Up down, up down and I had lost control. It was late in letting the tractor go. Uncontrollable motion, I fell painfully. A lady quickly crossed over to catch a matatu seconds after fall, unconcerned. The tractor had opaqued my agony in the short time I was up to beat dust. Good I was up.

I'd have entered Bliss Medicare place for spirit wipe but thought against it. I only had a hundred bob and it was better to be a customer at the cyber than be given elastoplats unnecessarily. And so I soaked a toilet paper as I googled.

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