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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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The best of our elders are Beggars

The best of our ageing men and women have opted to begging and living in despondency at our own looking with least efforts in place to curb the quickly growing trend.

You knew Musakuru Nareve would now be so poor after accumulating so much of Vuyari and Vunyari while still a person wiviriga? He had a good home, children, neighbours, relatives. He was a teacher that everyone called him as truly one. During his tenure as a key person in Company Why he wouldn't fail to help here and there, and now, as he sits lonely, with no one to salute him assumes a picture as if he had lived the careless of the most lives, repelling success, cursed, outcasted and forth. No, not so. Life but turns around and with time situations happen when you most needy.

So they sit, our ageing wise men, alone, hungry, land sold, children in Nairobi, neighborhood hostile - no one cares how he woke or slept, whether he ate or showered, whether he is sick or not. By a small kind of disturbance they are repelled, these old men who never really control outbursts, no one need take them seriously but to extend a hand of love, care, understanding, engagement and general friendship.

How often haven't we heard when they said, 'I am hungry' or 'I am not feeling well' but went about our business thinking it is normal to say you hungry or their age allows them to complain of malady? We have had to chase some away from our homes such a crude treatment that have turned some of our old men to big time liars, instead of wise stories they invent money minting words and instead of wishing the young well they look at them as a foreign generation, disconnected from theirs. It is against the thoughts of good breeding, people who grow up caring for others. And those can imagine their later lives to come.

And how worth is their input if these good people were engaged in all round social sessions, giving their offer to decisions, being handled with cherish, allowed to advance their interests, respected and hallowed. Don't we lose the most refined amongst us when we disengage the elderly? Don't we rush and later stumble because we lacked experiences worth sustaining. Haven't we turned to neglect and therefore shredded social links? And don't our elders complain or feel lonely even when we are around them? We have fallen short.

May you have an accommodative day, won't you?

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