Lamentations

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Once a full land teeming with heroic sons and daughters,

Feet sprightly, hearts full of love, humility at its best

We saw them being born to the land

And as we severed their umbilical cords

We buried them in this land

To unite them with our ancestors

That pain we buried, the soil bore that pain

We never cared much about the raging floods,

The occasional ilat, the scorching sun,

The mad chepkrrir that blew round and round

Spinning at the centre of our being, irritating

Collecting dust and blinding our eyes with grit

Yes, even that we cared less

Once or twice, in the baraza

In search of truth, anger could take over

And in that moment of blind fury

Elbow could brush against elbow

For we never hit another at the stomach

For if they died, we would pay lapai

But we always looked up to the sun

Whoever lacked millet, we gave

Whoever lacked milk, we gave

The barren couples, we despised not

Our children slept in their homes

For love defined us, Tororot gave children

Our brave sons were fed with k’soyo

Made to drink fresh blood and milk

Walk bare-chested in the rain

As if that cold was some initiation

To the warm company of our departed warriors

Thus, there was no thorn-tree, no forest,

No darkness, no danger

Our brave sons could not bear

And if some succumbed to death

We left them in the bush

Whispered silent prayers

And moved on—not all live through this life

Our daughters would grow at the laps of their grandmothers

Taught the secrets of making their men happy

They would grow with virtues

To be taught that the first shaft of dawn

Shouldn’t find her tucked on-top of a mud-bed

That she would jump from the bed, bolt to the river

Be back to milk the cows and be done with breakfast

Before the sun rays touch upon the brows of her woken husband

She would oil herself, sew her beads, thatch her hut

Scold a girl not seated properly, gather firewood—

All these in one span of a day and another and another

When we quarreled, we used our mouths

Not hands

And as we spoke, we traded no insult

We abused no one, we despised no one

Even a whisper of insult to a madman

Was met with heavy reproach

For madmen were angels Tororot sent to us

To test the granary of our tolerance

Thus we lived, the sons and daughters of the hills,

If a day passed with anger in our hearts

We were worried

For bitterness was a poison

That even milk from our cows wouldn’t neutralise

We had learnt to speak in the ways of our people

To bring us together, to speak of our dark skins

To unite us in the tongue our ancestors taught us

We knew that the Sun was a jealous woman

As she rises from kong’asis, she demands attention

So we always bolted from sleep, chased after our cattle

Walked miles and miles before she rose

We knew how to rise to our fields

To plant sorghum and millet

Have time for the baraza, have time to harvest honey,

Have time to make babies, have time to speak to our children

Thus, when a day passed, and as cows came home

We could rest knowing we did our part

Laziness was not part of us

We kept our promises, too,

When we married and never had cows

We said, “Kinsmen, please wait till the next rains

When these calves will feed on green grass and fatten

But first give us our wife”

And with our words, we married

For we were honourable men

Our words were like the words of a mondö

We learnt to speak our frustrations

If a Chief failed to include our names in the Relief List

We told him so, but we never abused him

For Tororot provides leaders

We gave him the opportunity to tell us

For in the ways of our people

You don’t tie an adulterer to a köndölo tree

Without first inquiring from them

For we also believed in justice

We could not condemn a man unheard

These have been our ways as sons and daughters of the hills

These have defined us

But what have we seen?

Ashes of cindered dreams

We failed looking up to the sun

Thus our sights have been on trees

Snapping at the slightest winds!

We ceased being word merchants

Speaking on the wealth of our idioms and proverbs

Instead, our mouths have been filled

With words more obnoxious than the fart of a honey badger!

Our words have become the distant cricket sounds

Announcing of death;

Like the empty snuff bottle

They hang on the chests of old men

Without use, not even the incessant tapping helps;

In the past, we made promises and kept them

But now we tell them and swear by our ancestors

Yet fail to keep them—tell me, the whispers were carried by the winds

The caves of the hills echoed them, will you lie to nature?

We ceased being honourable men

Our days are filled with irrelevancies

Men chasing money, ideals flushed down the drain,

Mannequins of still ideas, collective hopes of a generation

Hurled to the winds of penury, convictions without conscience,

Positions without responsibility, visions without convictions

Yet, you could expect, in the least,

That there could be some semblance of reason

To order this confusion into clarity

But none!

The sun still shines

It still rains

And every day,

You hear the hills sigh

The uneasy tension of the trees

Snap

But it is business as usual

Yes, it is business as usual.