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Luanda Reggae Defenders - what is your long term agenda?

Luanda Reggae Defenders is a now a popular movement with roots in Vihiga and border Siaya and Kakamega counties Attention is brought to the manner and conduct the movement has gained fame and followers, mainly the Youths. The movement capitalizes on funerals. With a poor culture of putting the dead to rest, the Reggae Defenders have taken it by storm and rebranded the infamous ‘Disco Matanga’ – disco at funeral. Reggae Defenders on move. Pic: Charles Rankings: Facebook They mobilize quickly on the day the dead will be discharged from the mortuary. They have this huge old school sound system that is over buzzing to no clear reggae song - that they hire a pickup to carry - and it has a young DJ mainly standing there than mixing anything. Often, against the rules, the casket is grabbed from a hearse vehicle and tied to a motorbike. There it will be swayed and jerk breaked between other motorbikes on the narrow roads. That, is, how a fellow soldier, often a young dead, is mourned. ...

Joy cometh in the evening

Mirembe! Mirembe sana! Ngurindi mpaka ndakuruha sana. Gariki? Nondi inzira indambi Musakuru. Pole korogendo. I came early here. Quite early and I have been walking around like a mad man. Was wondering what people would say, arechi murogori wavo nagota, nakuba kivi. I laughed. He told a guy nearby that I was the expected visitor. The guy looked at me and say I was good. He used to go to Kisumu and back on bicycle.

Shivering, cold wind blowing, we took for home on a motorbike. Mzee Ogova had come to the town centre with a bike and had I arrived early we would have merrily cycled home together. It was muddy and darkness was approaching. An old man, two years to eighty was not to be in cold when he could avoid.

'People hear about Kitale and think that we all came to a single village on migration. That is how we cut it short in talks. When you come over it's a long journey. Nangili is far from Kitale and Kamoiywo, the village we were heading to quite far from Nangili. Had he just told me to get to Nangili and later Kamoiywo I'd have failed the day. Who would have been my host?

Mukere ayanzi kokorora, ichai nareta na mazi mashyu nigava mwibafu. Ndamanya ninzisambasamba rigari, ninzikura rogeri rwosi rwu mbasu, vukindu vwari vwidikii mkegodo vutura na kari engolo ya nzari nayo nikama. Vwaha amayenyaa kumara kwisinga vwangu nanyoye tuzi tushyu? Kari niva urindwanji musafari si muwenya kwanguhiza.

We thereafter chatted long, how people were eating maize in Evorogori. Maduma vadidimbaa. It was also raining equally much. He said how in his youthful days he would cycle long in Maragoli villages finding out what he had in his book. He said how hungry he would go, how broke he was. But now he was settled in admirably quiet environment with cows and hens. We ate a hen!

Kuramoroma manyingi mugamba, he said. And I was ushered to a netted bed, cosy. Out, the moon shone bright amidst the stars. Sleep took me.

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