The travelogue of a travel rogue

Lokori traditional dancers perform during the Turkana Tourism and Cultural Festivals at Kanamkemer in Lodwar, Turkana County on August 28, 2014. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA

What you need to know:

  • Every right-thinking person must reject the weird assumption that any street lout or thug can arrogate to themselves the right to judge who is well-dressed or badly-dressed and decide what should be done to them.
  • So, what was I doing in Lodwar? Well, just like Nairobi or the Coast, Lodwar is Kenya, and I was trying to know Kenya. Indeed, the organisation that had taken me there as a tourist was called the Know Kenya Club (KKC), a group of Kenyatta University staff that we had set up at Kenyatta to enable us to explore this land of internationally fabled beauty.
  • But the most fascinating scholarly visits for me were the ones when we took our oral literature students to the field to experience the phenomenon live in performance. Thus, we once went to the Maseno-Luanda area, the setting of the late Felix Osodo Osodo’s Majitu stories and dramas.

On Easter Sunday 1986, I attended a church service in Lodwar.

It was a colourful occasion, with everyone in their Sunday best and all the required accessories: lots of beads and metal necklaces, earrings and headbands.

But, if I remember rightly, the majority of the female worshippers were topless. No one seemed to be bothered, and a good service was had by all.

Isn’t this a good enough reason why I should yell a thoroughly disgusted “shame on you” at Nairobi’s idle and disorderly self-appointed dress-code police-cum-judge-cum-executioners? But I won’t wade into that controversy today.

In any case, most readers probably believe they already know whose side I am on. But I must stand up and be properly counted. I don’t support people who dress badly, be they men or women.

But equally strongly, every right-thinking person must reject the weird assumption that any street lout or thug can arrogate to themselves the right to judge who is well-dressed or badly-dressed and decide what should be done to them.

FABLED BEAUTY

Memories of Lodwar, however, set me marvelling at how vast and varied this country is, and how little of it I have been blessed to see. Embarrassingly though, I have seen more of Kenya than of Uganda, my home country, which is much smaller than Kenya. I’ll recite the lame excuses some other time.

Today, we’ll dwell on a few precious and poignant moments in Kenya and the far-flung spots where they caught up with me.

Travelogues, when useful at all, may be said to serve three main purposes. Apart from the hope that such accounts excite the readers and maybe make them want to visit the locations mentioned, they also provide a vicarious experience of places that we may never be able to physically visit.

Thirdly, for those of us who do other types of writing, knowing where we have been might throw some light on the creative ramblings we offer our readers. Indeed, even for the critics, acquaintance with the  environments that inspire authors’ physical settings helps in interpreting their creative texts.

So, what was I doing in Lodwar? Well, just like Nairobi or the Coast, Lodwar is Kenya, and I was trying to know Kenya. Indeed, the organisation that had taken me there as a tourist was called the Know Kenya Club (KKC), a group of Kenyatta University staff that we had set up at Kenyatta to enable us to explore this land of internationally fabled beauty.

A combination of our small members’ contributions and excellent public relations by our leaders enabled us to tour and enjoy several famous attractions in a style that we couldn’t even have dreamt of on our then-miserably meagre salaries.

The Maasai Mara, for example, and the Kenya coast, from Diani to Malindi, were two other destinations that I remember making with the Know Kenya Club. 

We reciprocated by making modest contributions to projects in the areas we visited. On our way from Turkana, for example, we contributed to the construction of a facility at a girls’ school near the famous Ortum Hospital in the Pokot area.

TEACHING PRACTISE

I wonder if the KKC is still active at Kenyatta University. Maybe the old timers, my contemporaries who are still there, could look into that. It wasn’t a bad idea. After all, life, even at university, is not all about lecturing and publishing in revered journals.

Indeed, even scholarly activity can offer unique opportunities for getting around. Most of the solitary explorations I made around western Kenya and Nyanza, as well as the Kirinyaga, Nyeri, Embu and Meru areas, were in the course of supervising students on teaching practice. My drive to Meru through the old, then-murram road, through Chogoria, still stands out in my memory.

But the most fascinating scholarly visits for me were the ones when we took our oral literature students to the field to experience the phenomenon live in performance. Thus, we once went to the Maseno-Luanda area, the setting of the late Felix Osodo Osodo’s Majitu stories and dramas.

With a strong team comprising David Mulwa, Ciarunji Chesaina, the late Jane Nandwa and Arthur Kemoli and I, we led a large squad to Kilifi and Kwale, where, somewhere near Matuga, we witnessed an overnight exorcism ritual full of singing and mystic drumming.

What I remember most about that trip are the rib-cracking stories of the ever-humorous Arthur Kemoli, and the vast expanse of ocean at the appropriately named Kanamai (endless water) beach, adjacent to the (NCCK) Conference Centre, where we stayed.

Then Nyambura Mpesha and Waveney Olembo arranged a Tana River expedition, and that was something, for me, to write home about! We stayed overnight in Garissa, my first time in the famous North Eastern Province, and the next day we headed for Hola, through the well-known Bura Irrigation Project area.

Camped in Hola, a town made famous by the vicious massacre of Kenyan detainees during the anti-colonial struggle in the 1950s, we were regaled with Pokomo folk tales and legends, including the one about the reason why the Wapokomo aren’t part of the Mijikenda.

ENJOYABLE SCARE

My favourite narrative was of the twin beauties who found themselves married to an ogre and had to escape aboard their miraculously flying winnowing baskets.

The melodiousness of the songs in the narratives gave us convincing insight into why Kenya’s National Anthem was inspired by voices from these riverine Kenyans.

Down in Mnazini, we were told the road to Mombasa, through Garsen, was “seasonal” (then) and was practically impassable during the rainy season. Here we also encountered lively and elaborate narratives of Fumo Liyongo, the Swahili folk hero. I hadn’t realised it stretches this far inland.

But then, standing on the banks of the mighty Tana, you couldn’t help the feeling that this was most probably the location of Shungwaya, the home of the ancestor to whom the Wangozi-Swahili and the other coastal people trace their origin.

Incidentally, we also crossed the Tana in a canoe and “enjoyed” the scare of feeling our craft being momentarily swept downstream halfway between the banks.