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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...

Discordant voices within Me

From within me, dear Dad
I hear voices; clear, tense and discordant
One shouting knowledge and facts at any cost
Without pity, hate or love!

Another craving the golden world
Of power and glory, a cherishable gift
Wrapped in the velvet veil
Of blissful ignorance!

Yet another yearning for peace immeasurable
Toleration, moderation and accommodation
Beyond us, 'all laud'
With the romance of sweet longing!

Dad, what means this?
Which one is my true voice?
Which one speaks truth?
Which one is false and demonic?

Idiot, my dearest,
If to school you hadn't rushed
And swallowed up all the half-truths
Nature might have taught you - Anzigale
The meaning of voices within
They are what we are
A curious mix of competing oddities!

- Poem by Bearnerd Chahilu. 

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