if i could write a letter about iten

i wrote a letter to my brother yesterday ... it was raining and i thought that would be cool for inspiration ... i did jumble and jot many words down i remember ... but today in the morning i was too afraid to send it ... instead i just folded it sharply and placed it inside a novel

he is lucky that he gets written letters ... i only got three letters in high school ... perhaps that is not such a shame for an extreme introvert ... the first one was from my elder sister ... she wrote when i was in form one ... a lovely letter that ended with a cool catch-phrase, cheerio, that was the thingy for those heydays ... she demanded that i write back and just like yesterday i did scribble something down but it only ended between the pages of my exercise book ... she never wrote again!

the next one i received in fourth form ... it was a rather saucy letter from a girl i had no idea about ... i was more stupefied than impressed, and it came to my realization letter that all the 'let my love come flying like a jumbo jet to the airport of your heart' stuff was meant for another 'downstairs' guy in the next class ... one was referred to as a 'downstairs bloke' if their transcripts were one of the usuals that were decorated with capital Ds ... he stole my identity cause i was bright and quite unknown ... and the way my name was plastered proudly on the noticeboard for excellent results was a sure way of having the chick think of him as one solid brainiac ... it worked ... i idly returned the letter to the fella and did not even raise an issue ... all my energies were committed elsewhere

the last one i got in the midst of the fervent fires of the kcse exams ... it was from my sister who lives in swaziland ... it came with a delightful card and i proudly showcased it on top of my desk during moments of absurd vanity ... it was the first letter she wrote to me after moving there ... it appeared that she was rather happy and content ... the swaziland she described seemed remarkably different from kenya both in features and in culture that one could always be occupied with the satiation of their own curiosity ... she said that she was rather shy of displaying our photos for we were rather skinny as compared to those bootylicious swazis ... surprisingly, those 'reed dance' crazy folks down there have been feeding on mutated cows that take only three months to mature! ... better to remain a leaner but healthier-eating kenyan

it is not so hard to fall in love with letters especially if you come from iten ... a close friend told me frankly that to grow up in such a beautiful place ... close to the howling valley with its creamy fog ... meant that one could either go mad or become a poet ... the latter description better suits me thank you though much of my poetry i only read myself

i guess the valley will always be a part of my life ... it howls within me from time to time like a lover calling his man to her bosom ... i was always scared and i still am of looking down at it ... of course their was the profit of the panoramic view that opened before you ... a closer brown valley dotted with huts and lines of grevellia trees and a much more distant second one ... the second valley is always purple but with binoculars one can have a closer look at where the kerio river feeds the lake kamnarok and probably spot elephants taking a sip of water during a hot day

i have walked all the way down to that 'hell' ... for hell it is, burning and scalding hotter than anything i can ever imagine ... it was part of a hike we took while we were in high school ... and it firmly implanted the adage 'life is beautiful but cruel' into our young minds

descending down the first valley is not hard ... there are people mingling all over and cars flashing past on its way to either eldoret or kabarnet ...and since we left at dusk we were howling like dogs all the way probably scaring sleeping little children that a pack of jackals or T-9s had been let loose ... then we slipped down a narrow road that opened slowly like a ribbon to lead us down to the desolate second valley ... the trip down is beautiful ... brownish-green grass, virgin and untouched by human hand or a cow's mouth wave rustle softly in the wind reminding you of a beautiful woman ... and the path bear no sign of human feet ... you feel like adam or eve taking the first steps in a brand new planet

the experience was also very carthartic for long ago, the people of my tribe 'the keiyo' had stuck to the stiff sides of this escarpment to seek protection from the violent nandi, tugen and maasai tribes ... my mother has endowed me with many memories of my people and walking down the escarpment i could almost see them herding their goats, tending their streams of water, making mursik, giving their warcries when nandi warriors were spotted ... it was a war cry that even the goats knew very well and they would follow their owners into hiding ... leaving behind a deserted village

the torture begins once you are down the second valley ... it is not as flat as it is normally viewed as from iten ... it is just a chaos of hill and valley ... you struggle up the sharp incline of a hill, thinking that it is the last one and that you can finally be rewarded with the majestic view of the green lake kamnarok only to find out that there is another hill -and probably five others as well after that

but with a spirit that only high school students could have we struggled and leapt with young joy as we spotted the lake, it did not even matter that we could no longer touch it with the proliferation of weed around it ... it did not not even come to mind that there was another torturous back trip ... one in which many would have their legs fail them, one in which a student would be severely dehydrated that he would have to be hospitalized for a week, one in which a close friend would wonder of on his own and almost end up trampled by elephants ... we just celebrated the fact that our hard work had come to fruition and we could at least gaze close upon the lake ... it looked distant and inviting, almost hypnotic and all of us were mesmerized by a sensation almost alien ... i do not know whether our headmaster and literature felt the same for they had taken an easier hour drive to the lake with a weatherbeaten landrover ...

i will write my brother a letter another time!