Superstitions....

Buddies am hoping you all had a good weekend. I had a busy one that was characterized by heavy rains. Being briven on a rough thin tarmacked road in the dark, under a heavy down pour in Kiserian. It was one scary moment...but we finally hit Rongai as we headed to Kenya....(Sunguti is my friend and he is going to fight me over this---but fact Rongai is diaspora).

Anyway let me take you on safari...way back into time. Where I come from we used to have what we call 'survival tactics' and most of these were related to matters--food. 'where is the liver(ingurumani), wings(olupapallo), gizzard(imondo)', my grandpa would ask. This used to happen everytime my grandma prepared chicken + ugali meal. Those three organs plus the rear part (called Isundi) were reserved for the head of the house. If a woman ate these she would be assuming the powers bestowed in the husband and in essence disrespecting him. This would be treated as a grave matter. After putting the pieces on old man's plate, grandma would then add the default piece as would be for other members of the house. And since old man was the head of the house he would be given the biggest one. The rest of us would share the remaining pieces. e.g. one wing would be shared between me and my rival bro who always wanted the bigger share. Grandma always ensured that there was sufficient soup. 'munonele esinolu ne muima obusuma', she would say. (Minimise on the delicacy and hunt/target the ugali).
Lesson: I learnt one thing, these old men wanted to eat more than the rest. there was and there will be no harm in women eating certain parts of the chicken. (this stays like this for now...when I get married...I will write a counter post to this)

Germs:
While eating our grandma would tell us to sit in a circular manner with our legs folded. One hand had to secure your plate while the other was busy in the fight for ugali. Hygiene was critical and for us we never cared about it. All we wanted was to ensure our tummies were filled..call it primitive energy. But granny cared for us and would tell us 'if you eat while supporting yourself with your hand on the floor, you wont get satisfied'. What a lie that was. If you ask me the support the hand provided was critical, as for us guys..all we wanted was to ensure that the plate of ugali was reading negative; whether we were full or not. My tummy used to get filled and yet there was no surrender anywhere near my mind.So the hand would help in tummy alignment depending on how vertically you would skew your body. Granny didn't want us to touch down and then pick our food with same hands....1+1= you will eat germs...that was the lesson.

This one is not superstitious but had to share...When we were kids there existed a belief that when mummy gives birth to a new member in our family, she was to feed well. Most importantly was to ensure that she eats well so she can breast feed. I dont know how this came up..but my brother and I thought that since our small bro had to breastfeed then mum needed milk producing stuff. There was only one common fruit that produced milk -- the pawpaw. we would go look for paw paw fruits for mum. She never said no to them the first time and huh...that was motivation for us. I remember my bro telling her...'mama hii ni tamu na ilikuwa na maziwa mingi' (this one is sweet and had lots of milk). I had to laugh while writing this bit..i pictured how it happened...(my bro wearing a torn short and no top with a bulging tummy --tumetoka mbali).

I couldnt continue...as some memories came up...and took over my mind...wow...how life used to be sweet....wipes tear...(emotional)..To be Continued..............................................!

PS:
I hand a ngoond rinde from work..mbut i wasnt the only one on the mbus...at least I saw some pendestrians who seemed not very njilted. They were enjoying ntheir walk home as they kulad njungu from their pocket.

Last week While coming home from work..the jav I was in was tuned in to Mbrrrrrrcha Fm..and so Ambuside and Bonokode were closing off the show....this is how it went:
Ambuside: Forrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..............
Bonokode: Lllllleeeeeeeeeever

Yeah...tuko pamoja Forever.

.......and I went straight to bed at this point.

That boy Ernie.