with a crock of gold, they wait for us, at rainbow's end

a long time ago, when the earth was still new, many feet shuffled up a valley ... may be it was the words of a powerful shaman that made them go... may be it was a volcano that erupted that chased them away... may be it was their changing spirit ... or the curiosity in their heart ... the important thing is that they moved ... and through them the whole world was filled and explored

the valley was the famous Rift Valley ... and they were our ancestors, so they say, the homo erectus ... i found the tracks of one of them ... so i believed ... firmly embedded in a piece of volcanic rock ... happened when we were digging a well, was a small child then, playing around as the strong workmen dug ... when one of the workers handed me a small rock ... and told me look

it was their clear as day ... the small foot of a small child immortalized in rock ... did he make it to his people's intended destination,what was his name,was he beloved by his mother, was his father a famous hunter, did he see the mammoth and the mastodon ... was he going to be a cave painter ... i was excited ... it is always exciting to connect with the past ... events like wine, tastes much better with time ... time makes even the most small-time act, a great feat for mankind

probably, 10,000 years from now,a scientist might discover your discarded shopping list and spend the rest of his life researching on who you are ... because we are all important ... one away or another ... and everything we do so precious

as a child i listened a lot to my mother, she is a natural tusitala (teller of tales )... i learnt about my grand parents and my grand parent's grandparents ... i just felt important to know about them for once they lived ...breathed ... ate ... loved ... just like me ... their footsteps might never have been immortalized in volcanic rock, but they were forever printed in my heart, mortal though it may be ..

it is sad that one time our laughter is born by the wind ... and the next day the wind bears no recollection of our voice ... and it is the turn of our children and grandchildren to laugh ...i wonder if my ancestors ever dreamt of me ... i wonder if they knew that one day one of their children would try to write about them but have no tale ... but just a heart for them

i met my maternal grandmother only briefly ... my mother was the last born and my grandma gave birth to her at a very late age when the former already had grandchildren ... i was the second last born in a family of 7 so by the time i was just a toddler grandma was already advanced in age ... but i remember visiting her, when she was sick and ailing ... she was already blind and as i reached the doorstep she called out with joy ... who is that with the voice of my father? ... i was to shy to answer and my mother said it was me

it was creepy being there, in her dark hut, seeing her in her gaunt, 'old-age-scented' wrap blankets ... yes old age has a smell for your information ... she struggled to sit ... i could not see very well ... the hut was dimly-lit and her children came in and out, hovering over her like vultures ... but she had so much joy, she did ... she laughed all the time and just wanted to be with me ... interrupting her conversation with mama so as to call me to her side ... i could not speak Keiyo then and she kept referring to me as her 'little Swahili boy'

i remember her holding my hand and muttering something in keiyo ... my mother would translate her words into swahili ... she wanted me to spit on her white head, there was a clash of culture for a mini sec, but i obliged ... and she began her blessings ... she wished that i live till my head was whiter than the clouds, that i be happy and have all my heart desired, that i become a good warrior to my people just as was expected of men at her time ... then she spoke of her oncoming death, that i should not cry when she was gone ... that she was old and needed to meet her husband on the other side ... so that they could sit together by the warm fires in the sky and tale tales of old

it was the most powerful moment in my life ... she died soon after that ... my mother did not take me to the funeral ... grandma, i realized later, had forbade that i attend ... she knew i was too young and would be afraid of seeing her casket ... but mama took me there much later and pointed at the ground where she had been lain ... i shook though i was not afraid ... and reached for mama's hand

the dead have no use for the living, grandma would have said ... i had to reach to my life ... to let my laughter ride in the wind ... and to reach to the blessings my ancestors had left for me and make rich my stay on earth, for fellow mankind and I ... we are not here to stay my people say, but only to prepare the road for those who will follow us