By Viscount K’Owuor
This is how majority of my peers and I grew up;
1. In the early years , there was no posho mill. Our mothers used a small stone over a bigger stone to grind posho. Sometimes, what was meant for lunch was prepared as late as 2pm. It was called oiu (impromptu).
2. Matchbox was an invention that came into our lives much later and it was a precious commodity. In most cases we fetched fire from our neighbors .
3. Sometimes when sent to fetch fire, we hang around longer just to eat in a neighbor’s house. It was called ‘wanyo’.
4. If you ate ‘too much’, the neighbor was likely to stop you , telling you; “that is enough, you are still going to eat your mother’s meal , this is all I have for my children “.
5. We ate on the floor. It was an offense to sit on a chair. Apart from the chairs being few, how could you sit on one with your dirty buttocks. Yes , our shorts hard holes , so our buttocks truly got soiled. Sema kuumwa na vidudu ( ochunglo)
6. During meals we were always counselled to concentrate on ugali and soup. We cut omena thrice. So 5 pieces of omena and adequate soup constituted a nice meal.
7. There was famine every year, each christened differently; Kube, log dichiel( wash hands once – one meal a day ), sandak, don’t stand on my doorstep because the situation is serious for all of us, makaa omuomo, a mad man is chasing me, etc.
8. Jiggers and rashes ( guonyo ) were common place. Taking bath with rashes on all your fingers , and on the rift valley of your buttocks was serious torture.
9. Poor optical health meant you could wake up with your eyes totally cemented by GOUND; a thin mucus naturally discharged from our eyes.
10. During harvest , we could survey farms for post harvest leftovers ( funo ) mainly maize and groundnuts which we then sold to buy exercise books or akala.
If you went through these and you still got the courage to waste money on alcohol and women, or any other addiction then you are under a curse
