Only a handful of villages livened the quiet Vihiga, a North Kavirondo geography, before the Friends Africa Mission in 1902. Guava shrubs competed in height and breath. Birds loved their fruits. Man loved its wood.
A civilisation of decandacy and greed hovered. Witchcraft was the science and also the philosophy. He who spoke loudest, came from clan X, had the best stereotypes and so forth was recruited by the missionaries at Kaimosi and Maseno. The rest minded their stomachs and fears.
Come World War I, a number of Tiriki, Maragoli and Nyore people had been introduced to skills of masonry, carpentry and farming by the white man for there happens to be no evidence of a civilisation lesser or equal. This emptiness attracted the outcasts. For rich men were those with enough words to say otherwise. Not with cattle, not with tilled lands. Instead, those familiar with white man ways had their clans nick-named - British, Scots etc.
The role of education, formal, was seen as a replacement of daily peasant chores. The Unokas of this world smiled and got hold of their flute pens. They brought 'development' by building tin houses and discrimination based on clans and religious belief. These frontiers included Yohana Amugune and Joel Litu. Chief Odanga, Mwenesi, Amiani and Arap Titi were comfortable as chiefs, contended with a hen for every abomination.
Then came World War II, the things that least concerned Vihigians. But lovers of news they are, already infiltrated the modern slums in search of guard jobs, they fussed all through about the future of Kenya, not Vihiga. Kaimosi complex was flourishing, I hear. And it would be this war that started a jealousy revolution - The white man must go. We need independence. Independence from jealousy.
Clock clock and the flags were raised. The white man's flag was lowered. Vihiga was part of Kakamega District. Elders speak of Mudavadi senior as a man who dreamt development. The rest of the leaders belonged to 'others' group. Otiende despite his acclaim left no mark. Kibisu helped Indians run away from Lunyerere. Akaranga also became the Governor. He will be remembered for doing nothing. And great is Musalia Mudavadi, the leader Vihiga had been good without.
It is that very age group, the age of our fathers (50's - 60's) that stagnated everything. They migrated to work in factories, they sired many children, they were 'travelled' than their fathers and spoke English. They had children both in the rural and the city. They regarded education as free from the little they had got. With a high ranking fellow reaching form six.
So the 90's child found a dead grandfather (or a neglected one) and an absent father (died of Aids, working in the city, single mother). There were only primary and secondary schools. No tertiary, no technicals, no labs, no land. Nothing but to run to the city to the lives of their grandfather's - guards and vagabonds.
With an empty home, of no men, women toiled on the poor soil, growing the cursed perennial corn. And they plucked tea for Mudete factory (the only old one), nine shillings a kilogram then. Those with tea farms never added an investment for the bushes maintained themselves - no excess from harvest sales.
It were better the tea frosted as coffee had done. The 60's saw farmers get loses from coffee having sold some of their wealth for inputs. For remembrance, all stations for coffee processing are still standing with heavy metal so hard to rob and wasteful to recycle. They can be seen along the delapidating Izava River.
It was why the coming of the New Millennium could only be commemorated by an age-set. Those who were circumcised in 2002. They are the children with nothing to inherit - no virtue, no wealth, no identity. For the church that was given opportunity to provide such fulfillment grew unworthy over the years.
 |
| Online picture source. |
Comments
Post a Comment