I remember those days in school when sports were mandatory
for everyone. We used to have the games skits specifically designed to separate
the sexes. For the boys it was only a t-shirt and a short colour did not
matter. The girls had a ‘Bloomer’ which was something close to a short but
swollen as if someone had blown some air in it, and a petticoat, the colour was
always yellow. The boys used to admire the beauty in bloomers so much, you
could tell from the stares and the pocketing, a sign of relief from beneath.
I had a very nice short, going by the standards of the day.
By this I mean, my short had no rear lights. As is the norm with Kenyan
schools, April is usually the month of rest for most school. My school was not
an exception. For those who have been brought up upcountry will attest to the
fact that April is the months where food shortage is at the peak. This is the
months where the luhyas will come with adjectives to describe the season of
hunger. Prone to naming, the luhyas have given various ‘famines’ names, right
from the GEKOMBE (cup) in 1980s, SAVA LLARA (wash once) early 1990s and UTAMBEZA(don’t look at me) in late 1990s.
April holidays therefore were months of yawning too much and
of course tilling the land. The meals ranged from midorodoro (under grown bananas) to magaraba (boiled bean plant leaves). ‘Sleeping like that’ as
the luhyas would refer to, going for days without food was a custom. Schools will
be opening in May to emaciated and impoverished kids but a delight from the
back crunching tilling of the land.
It was one of this May openings that I went to school
reduced to bone. Routine had it that; games were to be attended, whether you
were bonny or as fat as a pig. I took my shorts and t-shirt and went with my
peers to one of the classes to change. I was delighted to display my wonderful
clean short. I removed my school shorts and slipped into my games skits. Horror
was that I had reduced significantly not to fit in the waist of the shorts! I
had not noticed this since, my school shorts had this leather belt I had
borrowed from my grandfather and had customized it to suit my tiny waist. I had
to play that day, clutching onto my now oversized shorts.
Now looking back in time, when trees used to grace our
beautiful land, I am tempted to wonder, were they that used to make the soils
so very much endowed? Does it mean that
deforestation has had a huge impact on the soils like
Utambeza?
The sloughing of the soils, mud, is similar to the slipping
of the short from my waist since my tiny buttocks could not hold it. I can now
conclude that, the mudslides that we now experience when the rains are due,
significantly point to the fact that the soils are facing famine, call it Sava
llara if you like. And this famine is caused by our very own bad behavior, the
behavior of depriving the soil of its food, the trees, including the stumps and
planting none.
One wonders why we court disaster in all that we do and
stand counting losses, blaming nature as if nature destroys itself. All the
activities we involve ourselves in contribute directly or indirectly to
nature’s torment. As we toil for our daily bread, let us remember to put nature’s
interest at heart.
Let us use this Long Rain Season to the feeding of nature.
With he rains come more blessings, the pregnant soils, and bursts with life
beautifying the brown reality that was.
Year in year out has seen nature’s wrath upon as increase
significantly. Droughts have claimed lives in Northern Kenya and traverses
Kenya in a breadth unmentioned slowly making ugly the beautiful green. What makes
me wonder is whether we are blind to see or unfeeling to feel. We see the filth
we create and furthermore create more morass.
My appeal therefore is, let us take this April as the season
of planting trees. Walk the talk and talk of the planting of trees as you plant
trees. Plant them in your sleep; plant them in your walk and in your talks. Make
it your daily bread and your companion. You never know you might save your neck
or your loved ones. Let fight for a
worthy cause.
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