Death of Rotich and the Pity of Valogooli in Nandi

A picture of Rotich, posted by his Wife on Facebook when he went missing.

Rotich went missing more than a week ago. On Thursday 10th October, he was found right at the immediate neighbor’s kitchen house – rotting. He had committed suicide. 

He had degenerated of late. Drinking and drinking, poor chang’aa. He had squandered his enterprises to do nothing but be around the dungeons of the liquid - for some gulps. 

Rotich was my mentor. I was young, we had migrated to Nandi and I needed a person to look up to. He told me I would own a car soon. That was in 2006 when I sat for my KCPE exams at Kiptuiya primary and topped my class.

I hanged around his Denja Zamani village shop. He would allow me inside his house and pass a moment with a discussion, TV watch and laugh with his young beautiful family. Evenings he would step out and see us play ‘likoola’ at the Denja Zamani field. 

With no social amenities and enterprise, life can really get boring at Denja. A dull soil beneath, a gloomy air and poor roads at rain. Poor land produce, unhappy people and more. Drugs, substance abuse and poor sex becomes the order. 

For Rotich his age group was at cities and beyond – his kind in the village absent. He was more of a loaner, grappling with all manner of enterprises (buying and selling, tree sawing, brokery etc), raising hope in educating his children and wishing well for others. To those stressed on crossing his line, he was ready – lethal!

He becomes a civic contact person to emancipate the community. He enters into grassroot party politics to mobilise. He wishes to do more. But right at his fence the Denja Zamani public field is being grabbed, reduced. The little health centre inactive, the police post a walking dead resource – as able men drink stupor and little girls give birth. 

Rotich, left, as a communtity engager.

Chang’aa is a worst modern day happening for the society and malehood. It has done its part, this menstrual-innerwear-rinsed spell. May the gods strike and kill it. Avalogooli in Nandi are finishing. Cursed is the day Rotich first grabbed a glass. For he had been denied a glass and got angered, the day he went missing. 

With weak men, the Avalogooli in Nandi are on the receiving end. Take a case of Kapsasur and Bweywe  evictions where those who bought the land were all forcefully evicted. Women in their gossiping, illiteracy, witch hunt and poverty are long term sufferers. 

There may be little to do now. Land is now at pressure – not as fertile as during the former days of migration. The little demarcations are labour intensive. Try as you may, the land will make you poorer. With barely secondary education, the majority of Valogooli in Emgwen and Chesumei constituencies are poorest of all the Valogooli in the world. 

Perhaps Nandi is this way for a reason – disenfranchised. Those from Shiru boarder to Kapsabet would fit in two constituencies, a majority, able to make their own decisions. They suffer from the Nandi tribal seclusion as well as an ancestral curse that I cannot substantiate but should be looked into. 

The ancestral curse, often said, has it that those who were outcasts Ivulogooli would migrate to Nandi. There they were not free from the consequences of their actions. Murder, suicides and indecent deaths, incest and witchcraft carried them there. Not that it no longer happens back Ivulogooli. 

Not even marrying Nandi girls and baptizing self as different would wash you clean. Rotich was more of Nandi, speaking little Lulogooli and little known to be of Vasanga clan. His voluminous body, a baked skin would hide him as non-logooli. But Logooli kinsmen are feeling the pain, not the Nandis who spent bigger time accepting him as their own in his prime. 

So when Rotich goes about to commit suicide, he should disturb the gods yonder to set Valogooli in Nandi free from their bondage. Four generations have suffered for the transgresses of their forefathers – not more. 

Rest in perfect peace my friend, Rotich. You decided to be brave, only too soon. The car is on the way...