The power that resides in the spirit of a woman.

CHAPTER 4

I later lost touch with Buda and the family as I went back to my studies. Wagai was not so much a town as a junction of roads coming from Kodiaga going to Siyaya, the biggest town in the district and the other to college. It was deep inside the rural places set in amongst the hills and the surrounding village. There were few who had power and the houses were a mix of brick and mortar while others were traditionally made with mud thatched houses. It was a growth centre as it was a rural centre that had been given a boost by the fact that people were coming here from around the country to learn.

It was during this time Dana Dom passed on. Oduo, who was he favourite, had promised his grandmother, when she was still alive, that he could never bare seeing her dead and unmoving body. Their bond was strong. In some ways they were lovers, for their connection was of that deepest kind. Traditionally, grandmothers are taken to be wives to their grandsons. For Oduo, to see his beloved granny in that way would have been too much for him. The power of the word must never be underestimated.

I remember the beautiful, good old days when Oduo and his friend Mwallo, who was killed in 2005 just a month after retuning home to pay a visit to his family while in exile from South Africa, were running a tailoring business together in Nairobi. They had been together all through the last years of primary school before Mwallo had gone away to one of the country’s top boarding schools.

In school Ndiomo, Oduo’s nickname for his friend, was top. He was a true artist and later, many a young man in university managed to secure a lover through use of his works. As a bodybuilder, he was very athletic. This was a man who trusted and believed in himself. The journey of Ndiomo was a beautiful one and whomever he touched he left an impact, be it positive or negative. Ndiomo was an activist whose cartoons were satire. His art picked at life, interrogated it. He could not find a place for his work in Kenya, the system being unready for such a way of looking, and so he chose Cape Town.

Oduo and Ndiomo would tailor through the night to get money to be able to take Dana Dom to Nairobi hospital, one of the most well serviced, upmarket institution. This was four days in a week for six months while she dealt with what the doctors said was cancer. They would walk the streets, crossing the busy roads while holding the old woman’s hand, while contemplating the tailoring orders. They were still young and had just finished their high school. They shared a lot and accomplished so much together, even in this difficult time they were brothers.

Ten years later Ndiomo, Oduo’s nickname for Mwallo, died while he was doing a catch-up on the affairs of his community and people. He had to attend the many funerals that he had missed including his senior father, Mbuyu. HE had to pay homage to all his wives (grandmothers) and the Dayos (elders) also had to be consulted. He also had to link up with his home friends and mates as that is the nature and calling of a person who has been in exile.

They did say that he had malaria but in hospital he died in two weeks. He had been waiting for his long (systematically or intentionally) delayed passport renewal. After all this time was he still a threat? I met Ndiomo after nine years in Cape Town just after my arrival, few days later I was the last person to hug him on his way back to Kenya.

“Safari njema mfowethu.”

The last time Oduo saw Dana Dom physically, she handed him half of her last money. She had withdrawn all her savings from her post office account in Ugolwe. This was a signal that Oduo was seeing his granny for the last time. He was grateful for the money but did not see the bigger gesture that was happening, those subtle signs that life puts up for us to notice if we are willing or able. The doctors had said that the treatment was successful and she was recovering well. Her last words, as Oduo passed them on to me, still continue to echo in my heart. 

“I am now happy to be back to my home from the city. Here I can work and tend to my gardens and home.”

She was a hard working woman and just like in many native communities, where such souls are at home, she knew the worth of land, that the provider and determinant of life is land. Here there is an understanding of life, a knowing that a woman is mama. Mother. Mother Earth. Before Dana Dom started ailing she used to tend to her fields all year round, despite her age, for this is what she had grown with, what she knew. She was at peace here in a way that was not possible for her in the city.

They say a tongue can kill. Watch what you say with your mouth for it may just be. This is what happened on the day of Dana Dom’s funeral.

A few days before, Oduo’s favourite aunt and daughter of Dana Dom, Maggie, had gone from Ugolwe to Oduo’s college at Wagai to get permission for him to attend the funeral. Having been accepted to university, prospective students spent a year at a bridging college aimed at preparing them for tertiary study. The college was a difficult place for Oduo, there were strict rules and structure that directed the individual in a prescribed, even military way. She missed him the first time with the news that Dana Dom had finally been initiated to the ranks of the ancestors. This happened around two months after she had given him her savings.

Maggie knew that Oduo would make his own way home, with or without permission, so she did not care to go to the authorities to get information of the whereabouts of her nephew. The message never got to Oduo for he had been suspended for leaving the college grounds without authorisation and, more seriously, being accused of belonging to a banned political organization of the youth. He had refused to accept punishment as he claimed the charges were based on hearsay and brought against him after the event.

He had been told to report back with his parents after two weeks. Instead, he was basking in the glory of the local brew in the village’s drinking dens, arranging for someone to stand in as his guardian during the first hearing of his suspension. To Oduo it was a waste of time to travel to Nairobi and come back with his parents who were certainly busy in their own way. He could enjoy his suspension and one of his drinking partners would play along with the system at the hearing. It was for the good of himself as well as the good of his parents. The reasoning was that his parents could save the transport money and time, while he saved himself from their anger and frustration. To him, they had already fallen into the modern trap by transferring their child’s responsibility to others.

The family had expected Oduo’s arrival which, of course, did not come. This was cause for great concern, everyone knew of the very deep connection that Dana Dom had had with her grandson. On the day of the funeral Maggie, who understood this connection better than others, became concerned for her absent nephew and decided to go again to find him. By getting Oduo there she knew she would be honouring her mother.

Arriving in Wagai, she went looking from village to village but when she finally caught up with him the burial had already taken place. It was a difficult thing for Maggie and Oduo but this is the way it was meant to be. She had rushed from place to place, being directed by people who knew of or had just seen her nephew, missing him each time by seconds as he made his rounds.

Nonetheless, this was an opportunity for Oduo to grab. Going home and coming back with the parents would capitalize on the effects and pressures that the funeral had had on his parents. He knew that the parents would show appreciation and sympathy for the loss of his grandmother and the fact that he had missed her funeral. There was to be compassion for him in place of anger in regards to his suspended studies. Knowing the relationship he had with his grandmother he was to be the object of his parents rebounding love for Dana Dom. He saw in this how he could be reinstated in college with minimal fuss. Returning home, Oduo was welcomed like a king. He entered the home in a celebrity and show biz manner, making full use of the opportunity that was presented to him. Having come from a family of art, he knew how to play the part.

From an early age Oduo was a realist and though people thought he was insensitive, in truth he was very emotional when something touched his heart. He always pushed for understanding in any situation, even when it seemed irritating to others he would push to go deeper. Oduo was almost feared in his family as someone who was inward looking, a private and serious person who was difficult to read. There was a way about him that made some of his kin uneasy, with good reason. He took his time to weep and wail for his granny, deeply and with pure emotion, making sure that this audience became attentive to what he was saying.

The funeral was conducted in the main house of the homestead which was close to the river where the sugar cane was grown. Dana Dom was buried to the left of her house while her husband lay to its right. Inside the compound were also the three simbas (men’s houses) of the sons. A large tent made out of banana leave had been erected in the middle of the homestead where the guests were accommodated. The family was highly regarded in the community. The main house was the first to have a tin roof in the village. The family had pride and so they went to great expense. Many cows were slaughtered to both honour the passed matriarch as well as to feed the guests.

They had prepared everything for Oduo’s arrival, a place for him to wash, the particular food he was supposed to eat, as well as having ready all things necessary for him to perform the rituals that related to his place and role in traditional society. There were no cell phones then so when he appeared there was surge of activity in different groups hurried to make ready for him to perform his duties.

Oduo talked about the conflict within the families and the community while praising the woman who had now passed. He lamented the difficulties that Dana Dom had faced and how her passing was to affect the family. He brought up the inyanga and what it might have meant to them. Oduo was opening it up, laying it bare in front of the entire family. He was saying things that really meant something to him. Maybe no one was listening, or they thought these were the words of emotion, but he was unburdening himself. He was given the space to be comfortable in doing this.

While opening up these emotional places in himself he spoke his truth about what he saw was happening in the family and community. For him this was the time and place, the family was together to celebrate the matriarch and he was freed to speak his word. At such an event it was his right to claim this space. The firstborn son, first grandchild, the favourite, Oduo was allowed the freedom to speak where at another time it would not have been his place. He was the thing that had brought two families together, two different cultures, he was the beginning of something and the hope for the future. The first of a new generation, a boy, a son. A Marsai.

Oduo believed that Buda and three of his sisters managed to use her vulnerable health state to divert her from her Christian belief towards their leanings. Before her sickness she was a devoted Catholic who had survived a tough past of her late husband’s battering and alcohol abuse. In her sickness they took her to the inyanga against the wish of Buda’s sister, Kali.

There was more to this though, Oduo’s place within the family and community and their nervousness of him came from a deeper knowing of who, or what Oduo was, what he represented and how his being here was something that was beyond the flesh, that his birth carried significance and was engineered by the ancestors.

Oduo was named after Nyayiekka’s mother who had only borne two children, one of them a son. A name is not just given in native societies, it carries a significance that points to important things in the life of an individual and their community. Nyayiekka’s father was killed by a leopard in his sleep while still young. It was believed that this was engineered by someone with malicious intentions inside of a clan feud and was meant to change the course of the family. Leopards rarely attack people and the shy, solitary creatures certainly don’t make a habit of coming into homesteads in this way.

Nyarotaro, meaning woman of pride, was left with the hard work of raising two children with her husband’s people. As was custom, the bride price had been paid and the marriage had produced children and so she would stay with his family rather than returning to her own blood kin. She remained in an environment of division and in fighting. In many ways then, Buda’s family started with Nyarotaro, a matriarch. Traditionally, the family lineage is patriarchal but it was this woman who had allowed them all to come to this point. Significantly, Oduo was the first to be named after her, a reflection and honouring of this.

Nyarotaro’s son, Nyayiekka, was born a Marsai. Within the Maasai the birth of a Marsai is taken as a sign that great change is coming. This is a living spirit, one that is ancestral. It is sent to be born by those who have gone before and who, from their position as guardians of the living, can see the need for this presence at a given time.

Marsai means “to plead with”. This is the role that they are sent to perform. If a Marsai is been born in one’s house it is a time of great shifts. Whenever there are Marsai within the Maasai there is bound to be peace. While the Marsai have the power to bring peace their presence can also be the spark of war. Throughout history they have been targeted as it is better, for some, that they are not there.

As communicators and mediators they reflect truths, mirroring a people’s past and present by showing those things that may not want to be seen or heard. This has led to them being perceived as threats to the way things are, the status quo, and so they have often been targeted for murder. This is how it is remembered by the elders and told to the younger generations, just as it was passed down to them. In being given role of helping to show the truth of things they can unsettle societies where some are not wanting change, those who benefit from things staying the same. While few, the Marsai have always been there.

This was Nyayiekka’s fate. He was a heavy drinker and it did not have a good effect on him. When drunk he would become aggressive and would beat his wife, Dana Dom. It was made known to his family one morning that he had been killed after leaving one of his regular drinking dens. The place was far from where he lived and so it was assumed he was on his way home when he lost his life. The body was found with a number of nails hammered deep into the skull. Many stories about why this was done but the family never came to know the real reason for their father’s death, particularly as to why it happened in this way.

What spoke most strongly here was the method of murder. Whoever was responsible wanted to guarantee that this spirit was extinguished. Nyayiekka was the first Marsai in the house of Ugolwe which was significant. A minority clan, on the verge of extinction, regarded as insignificant, had now given rise to something of great importance to both Ugolwe and the Maasai. Other small clans in the Maasai may have decided to target Nyayiekka’s house, perhaps the truth was even closer to home as he had taken a wife from outside the Maasai in a time when this was frowned upon.

Despite being guided by the ancestors, the Marsai are often not safe in their homes and so live the lives of exiles. In the course of giving rise to a Marsai there is the need to protect him and the whole clan which is now potentially under threat. Perhaps this is why Nyayiekka had grown up in town and eventually went to work in the city. Was he being directed out of harm’s way?

Oduo followed his grandfather as the second Marsai to his people. His coming was different however. Nyayiekka was a Maasai from the Ugolwe while Dana Dom was a Luo. Their son, Buda, a mixture of these two Nilotic peoples, had also taken a wife outside of Ugolwe, Queen being of the Luhya, a tribe of the Bantu.

With Oduo, however, what would otherwise have separated was something that united. Despite their differences as Nilotes and Bantu, for both tribes Marsai means the same thing even though their languages are different. The role of the Marsai was also significant for both cultures, in each the role and function of a Marsai is the same. This meant that it was not just Ugolwe’s ancestral interventions that had guided Oduo’s birth but also those of the Luhya.

It is possible that the broader significance was lost on each family as they celebrated in their own way but this is why Oduo was the uniting force in the two families. Both had tried to pull the two young lovers, Buda and Queen, apart while they were in the process of coming together but when the Marsai came he was a strong uniting force despite continuing differences. This is why he was both held in esteem as well as being a source of unease, there was an understanding of what he represented. It was the same the day of Dana Dom’s funeral when he spoke many things that the families may not have wanted to hear.

The Ugolwe clan was also resentful as this son was not fully from the house of the clan. But this is the evolution of cultures and customs through time, not like the static ones people read about in books. This Marsai had significance outside of these two tribes, the nation, the continent, and the world.

The Marsai are not fighters, they are warriors but in communication. They are wordsmiths and initiated in this way. Part of what they are sent to do is preserve the cultures and values of the community.

According to the confusion of the time, the effects of colonialism and an alien way of thinking, a boy was taken to have greater value. As the first grandchild, a male, Oduo was a symbol of hope for the future of the family. He was the beginning of a new generation, a point of unity for the two cultures, but he was also a matriarchal one.

Perhaps then, this matriarchal spirit had to be put in a man, a Marsai. In a woman it would not have been the same as the understanding would have been different. Oduo followed on from Nyarotaro and Dana Dom who had held the Ugolwe lineage together in the absence of their men. He also inhered the strength of Queen and her Luhya people.

Stereotyped thinking and ego have taken over in many parts of the world. Traditional understandings of the roles of men and women and their collective importance have and continue to be undermined. Life now is a case of gender roles, the separation of men and women, the masculine and feminine, when before each was seen as part of a greater whole, admired for his or her unique ability and contribution. This change has fundamentally undermined society as a whole. But to Oduo a woman was a sacred being, it did not matter who or what they were as they all represented the same thing, Mama.

Significant also was the fact that here, for the first time, Oduo was to win the favour of a young woman, getting him excited at the thought of having an opportunity and the challenge to break her virginity. This was every young man’s dream during those days, the youth were always excited by this thought. This was not to be though, as they never got any privacy. All the time they thought they were almost there, going into the sugar cane plantation by the river, only to find out that another couple had beaten them there.

The young girl was from Maggie’s family of marriage and was born to a woman who had wed the brother of Maggie’s husband. She was born before this union, out of wedlock, and so had grown up with her mother’s people. Custom dictated that if a child were born outside of marriage they would be the responsibility of the matriarchal family. This girl was visiting with her mother and that is how she came to be at the funeral.

The two never got to have their moment of intimacy. Maybe it was the ancestors that conspired to keep this from following through with their awkward plans, the outcome could have changed the course of things. This was their secret and they were both scared of being found out which made the project even more of a failure. This was a time for mourning and what they were trying to do went against the mood of the people. This is a story that Oduo always played down whenever he was ridiculed for not standing up to the expectations of a youth’s pride and the power of a man. The funeral would be his excuse for why he had never gone through with it but the truth was much deeper.

While Buda was still warden at the Kenya Power Training School he was uncompromising when it came to what he believed was the best for his children’s education. The rule was that when those who were attending school returned home at four pm they were allowed a break for an hour before sitting down for homework before dinner at six. Oduo, In his last year of primary school, was fourteen years old, and would sneak out of the house and take a taxi to town during this hour.

This was a ritual which he repeated two or three times a week. Here he would visit Karumaindo, a notorious twenty-four hour bar in the centre of Nairobi that was the place for a cross section of society, businessmen, spies, travellers, criminals, revellers, courtesans and many more.

Inside a big building right in the centre of Nairobi, opposite the 20^th Century Cinema and the Florida Hotel and Restaurant, it was a real den. Karumaindo was always full and as one was going up the stairs of the first floor there would be people of all persuasions in various states of pleasure.

The place was filthy most of the time and navigating the different rooms one would find some with tables and sitting spaces, a jukebox, life happening in different pockets. Down one of the corridors leading to the toilets is where the working girls would line up in search of customers. There was no discrimination at Karumaindo, if one had money in hand but no clothes on the back: “Karibu!” (Be welcome).

Oduo was tall, even at such a young age, his height and natural particulars was his licence and he would enter Karumaindo and immediately look for an unoccupied beer bottle. Taking it, he would smear his mouth with beer and pretend to stagger around as if drunk. Making his way through the revellers he would move directly toward the corridor to the toilets and those woman of the night. Most would just be arriving in the bar to begin work, sober and fresh. He would bump into his chosen target, touching her to his pleasure, while putting the beer to her lips to appease her.

Beer was expensive and a young man who had it was either from a rich family or a criminal. But Oduo was harmless and these women would play along. He would have his fill with as many women as he wanted before leaving the beer with the last woman and going home. Curiosity was his motive, a teenage body waking up to certain drives, but these interactions went past pleasure and forever changed something in him.

It made him see a woman as more than her physical body, an object of sex. He came to really see the person inside. His greatest teachers were women who were living in the best way they knew how, maybe having been dealt with harshly by life such that they had taken difficult choices. Society looked down on them, labelled them a scourge, tramps, but free of these labels, Oduo came to see they were just like anyone else.