-: The independence chant, "mzungu aende kwao, mwafrika ajitawale" caught the Indians in the mix. At Lunyerere, running their businesses, they received hostile treatment from Maragori people. But they did not so quickly get out. Some went. Others remained. And one night attack from neighbouring youths finished it all. Hurt, the remnants grew more fearful. And they followed their families and friends who had seen Kisumu as another good place for business. Mbale was nothing more that a passway.
-: The map of the area is such a polygon of 5 side by side shops and living zones and a school communal zone for the 'estate'. In total there were 10 compounds. The school made it 11 compounds. It is now that ten people bought the shops and had the school for free from the Indians. It is now a conflict game because Friends Centre Lunyerere 'holds the school in trust' and such ways that everyone has their story. The ten owners, having bought the plots in 80's, do not appear to have improved their state nor maintained them. For they continue to degrade.
-: Behind the 'shops', each compound had extention abodes for the Indians. An enough place for an extended family. An open area was left at the centre for a compound. Sideways were buildings that outer walls beefed addedly as walls. The entrance in could be through the main shop doors or side gates. A forte of sort to the hind compound. There were verandas and rooms had inner doors in case one would be using both or all rooms in that row.
-: The wall-eating plant you see is what is affecting most of the buildings at present. With a resilient root system, it penetrates deeply in the walls and up to the roof where it leafs green. Efforts to fight it with oil and soda ash have not worked. It keeps cracking walls rendering them irreparable. And you will observe that the walls were only plastered sideways. Bricks were at first raised with mud, not cement. It makes it easier for the plant, cracking and opening room for rain that wets the bricks further and it sucks nutrients for more growth. Most of the walls are affected and if one wished for repair it may be as expensive as building anew.
-: Engineering then was a little strange to the modern one. Look for example how the door was fastened from inside. The cross beam, pegs sideways to hold it would provide more fortitude from a person who thought would easily rob. The windows had iron roads to prevent intrusion. Though of wood, glasses were attached to the windows by a paste I did not have a name to. There were knob electric switches and heavy iron auxiliaries as bulb holders.
-: The power of a road. When you stand at Lunyerere, shops at your back, you can observe the old Izava bridge coming straight to the shops. It was the main road then, coming to pass between the Indian shops and go up straight wise inside the chief's/police compound. As it happens when roads are reconstructed by one reason or another, an already developing area can either lose or gain much from it, Lunyerere lost with the road passing a little beside the shops. It is one main entry way now, up from the river so that you walk back to the shops. People from Kivagala and beyond, using the Itando road would come and access the shop services at Lunyerere where it happens all that could be sourced from away and delivered by the train at Kisumu and be lorried was found. There came other administrative roads and things changed.
A shop emblem of one Shadrack Onyango who 'owns' one of the plots suggests an effort to have started a business too at Lunyerere. But it is said he is deceased as some of the ten people. Ownership is to their children now who do not know the owners of the other plots or generally live in dual suspicion mode. The place, much as it may appear quiet and ruined, it in itself and around harbours a deviated population that you would be robbed if you invested there alone. There was also the lazy cliché of jealous neighborhood if you wanted to revive any effort there.
The decorated room served as the last where the remaining Indians clustered themselves before leaving for good. It has repetitive wall drawings/symbols of their understanding. And with an extended chimney where they burnt their religious savor, it is said they had a crematorium down at the river. When I wanted to go see it I was told it may have been destroyed and the place owned. But it would be good if we reconstructed its position.
The house you see past the 'fallen concrete tank' is the compound of guga Ngiriemu. And the turned block was to make a way to access the home, with building materials. The block was a water tank, the base where a hole has been rammed. It must have been raised near where it is because it would have been hard to get it from elsewhere. And that, in a way, has affected the relationship of the people living there, unagreeing on the original size of the land and where roads should have been.
Then, for at least a decade period of time worshipping in one of the 'shops', the friends people saw an opportunity in the unutilized Indian school. Lunyerere secondary had risen and fallen, burning of one of the shops and compound that acted as a dormitory affected it completely. Starting with a simple idea of making a learning centre and mobilising for the now unused computers, the Quakers people stepped in more strongly (from a centre to a church premise) and even suggested of getting a legal ownership permit. And because churches call God and work otherwise, what would be a community centre is now a guard manned place, neighbours in conflict with the church due to possibilities of scramble of the buildings and open areas nearby and general sullen face of Lunyerere.
-: More stories mugamba.
....life is a story. 😊
And the Saniaga story is along one, encompassing like all areas of Maragoli. Some live/ancestry is at Lunyerere. Some own some parts now. Some lead the church. 😊.
Who knows, could be the Murogori history is Saniaga history plagiarized... Oh, Erick said we should not speculate. But great a pleasure and curiosity that comes with speculation!
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