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| With mzee Samuel Ano at his home, Jeeja village |
A young Luo farmer and wife migrates to Northern Tanzania in search for fertile land. Grace Ogot captures the imagination of a junior reader with mystery as she tells the tragedy that often befell migrants. The book is The Promised Land, written in 1966, not a decade past since exodus from Maragoli to Uganda. I recall having pity for Ochola, our man of the wild, and his wife. Though the author, I am now made to reread, wanted to drive a gender agenda. Which is non issue when you understand that a man or a woman's welfare is more or equal the same position of the other in their environment. These two sexes have since the start of time been each other's keeper, underscoring the calls for an equality where in the struggle for limited opportunities now, drives a wedge between.
As Ochola gave out his cow to a brother, thought deeply about his impending migration, counted on his wife for the life yonder, so did Shem Emeri prepare for the 28th of August 1958. He sold some of his land to buy a bicycle and a few things. The buyer may not have paid in full, balance was often left as in the case of paying for bride price. It was a Wednesday. The Tuesday was for the family of six children of Emeri to carry belongings to Vohovole where the lorry would pick them from. They spent there the night in wait for dawn to board. Of the six children, the elder was grown to substantial maturity to remain behind. His name Benjamin Mudida Busolo. He was born before Emeri married Tebra Rasoha, muMasingira. It was common for boys to be independent from their step mothers - or step mothers have little to do with step sons.
Shem Emeri the son of Ano the son of Muduvaga the son of Indangasi of the house of avaSaniaga and family were driven to Webuye Railway Station for a train. In the very lorry was Misango (Emeri's first cousin) and two others. Misango had ten children, his daughters already approaching marriage age. They boarded a train that took them to the shores of Lake Kyoga, Namasagari. Then a sad night in a ferry. A sad night because the goods belonging to Shem Emeri, despite being weighed and together packed alongside those as of Misango, 'not even a spoon' was received the other end. The brand new bicycle lost amongst other important goods.
The camp holding zone was made of about five twelve a door each rectangular V-inverted thatches. Misango's family got two doors. There they should have stayed for long, one can reason, till they are stable. So that they can see to each others' welfare. Farm their lands from the camp. School their children at the camp and worship there. But we are speaking of people already separated by church names, coming from homes in Maragoli, not camps. At the camp there were relations that you better stay a distance from - in-laws to keep respect. Poor hygiene conditions as access to a toilet was embarrassing. 20acres a household was vast in comparison, forest zone, far away from one another. Communities that feared expansion, staying in crowds, sooner were left with little land. Even then back in Maragoli families lived a few metres from another, borrowing fire anytime.
To leave the camp was partly the undoing of these insecure young families. Children suffered the most as they cleared, farmed cotton or were neglected as the parents busied themselves so. There is a reason why the Maasai hated this Mesapotamian Adam and Eve curse that settler Bantus saw it as their fate. To till the land savagely with a hoe for meagre grains dependent on weather should go in history as the hardest crudemost zero sum economics. The yearn for white collar jobs to date is influenced by nill agricultural revolutions at grassroots, there always being poor of the men or women even in well to do homes to do the donkey or dirty job.
The greatest blow to Emeri and family was the death of his wife, Tebra, barely three months in the Promised Land. Five children are semi-orphaned. The eldest at about thirteen and the youngest at tit. They cross the watery reeds from Kigumba camp and burry her at the parcel of Emeri. He is forced, and kindred, to erect a quick shanty in the forest to mourn his wife or her body might be dug out by cannibals. Here Berita becomes the care giver of her lactating brother, Phineas Luvala. Respect that elder sisters beget traditionally must have come from a history of they nursing their younger brothers to maturity as if they were true mothers. It forces Emeri to marry three other times separately in need to find life comfort.
Of the five children namely Berita Irahuya, Ano Samuel, Ambenge Christopher, Zachariah Magamu and Phineas Luvala, Emeri begot by Jonesi Kidake, muGisemba other two children, a girl and a boy. Rachael Munyifu and Jeremiah Adolwa. Jonesi would have been happy a woman and gotten more children for Emeri despite the antenatal deaths had Emeri not been a subscriber of radical Liahuka and Israeli religious beliefs. Jonesi would hide some traditional herbs her mother supplied to beef her reproductive system. But the huts were round and small, hard to hide a thing. Emeri would fume of this unnecessary witchcraft when he was a believer in higher power. Power over tropical tablets. Could be Tebra would have survived if she had been given some medicine and drunk cleaner water. So Jonesi decides to leave with no luck for a live child. He rejoins Emeri later in life to give him a boy and a girl but with Kavoji and Senerwa 'when she was away.'
A few Maragolis would be tired of the bush, fearful of the strange cannibalism stories from neighboring tribe of avaNyoro that lead them to sell parcels and migrate. Poorer and more persevering ones stayed. Home was not the place to go back to. If land was not sold prior to Kigumba migration then they had seen what it meant to have space. Not to mention the sight of returning migrants. Mockery to say the least. Here some sold land in Kigumba and got parcels in Nambale and other areas of present Bungoma County. Emeri sold 7 of his 20acres for upkeep. He was not for migration. One reason why was the grave of his wife. Of his grown sons, in the hard times that Uganda nation would go through before, in and after 1980's wished better. They instead got the pinch of the time. One Ambege severally recounts how government police clobbered him. Not once, not twice. He disliked Uganda for that.
Ambenge married mukana muSachi, Kanaiza Naomi from Kaduku village. To marry, the sons and daughters of these first families were warned of the neighboring vaNyoro, vaNubi, vaNyankore and vaRugwara. Kanaiza became sick and sought treatment from relatives who had migrated to Matunda. She stayed there long and when Ambenge went to visit, he was clobbered on the numerous roadblocks. This he explained to his in-laws when he arrived rugged. They told him of his elder brother, Benjamin Mudida that had sold the land in Chatamilu and migrated to Matunda near Ludodo village. Ambenge arranges to meet Mudida. Mudida offers him space.
Forty years since he came to Uganda, Emeri died in 1998. He had not shared out his land to the sons, a mistake elders do and quarrelsome brothers capitalise on. His eldest son by Tebra was 50 years. It became unclear to them whether the land at Matunda was family land or Mudidas by the presence of Ambenge and Phineas too later. Such that if Ambenge was to get a share in Uganda it would mean the others in Uganda also get parcels from Mudida in Matuta. And Mudida to also demand a share in Uganda. Time was going and Mudida was slowly selling off pieces to the increasing migrants from Maragoli to Matunda.
The sons of Emeri called upon Timona Enzori, muMuku to chair the land demarcation process. Timona was an elder neighbour, friend of Emeri. Each son was to get 2acres, the daughters of Emeri half ha each to make it 13acres. Mudida offered his two to be shared, to probably avoid a Kigumba to Matunda debt. It would be each son got two and a half acres each. As surveyors will agree that lands bordering swamps had at least more room in excess of one or 2acres.
Adolwa the youngest son got his share mu chanyi as tradition allows youngest sons to inherit parents' compound. He sold to William Mukasa, mwifwa muSaniaga. Ano Samuel, following, got land just ahead Emeri's and sold his inheritance to muNyarwanda. When you ask where the grave of Emeri and Tebra is at, you are pointed to an old mango tree, in a neighbour's compound.
With Thanks
Lung'afa Igunza
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