My Homeland

After a long time I traveled to my homeland, the western part of Kenya. Sadly whatever took me there was not a celebration or to make merry but I was comforted by the fact that I get to meet family.

I was actually writing this during the boring bumpy journey, I am not a fun of traveling unless it is a road trip with family or friends. So if I am forced to travel I prefer night travels, I get to sleep all through the journey and before I know it, I would have arrived at my destination.

Now every time I inform my friends that I am traveling to Bungoma, they ask me to carry a live chicken for them. I believe it is because they think chicken is readily available there, one of my friends told me that she imagines here in luhya land a homestead has more than a thousand chicken, you should have seen me laugh out loud.

Let me just be clear here, for her and others who have such wild imaginations, yes we love eating chicken, I enjoy it myself and it is my favorite dish but the only time one would have such a huge number of chicken is if they are for business. Averagely a homestead has at most 10 and they are spared for special occasions, therefore next time before you send me for a live chicken just ask yourself where I would get one.

There is also more to our land than chicken, there are seasons that we have sugar cane and please, not the ones you buy at the road side in Nairobi. If I were to bring you, I would literally go to the farm uproot a couple, enough to serve you for a month. Oh and they are very juicy and sweet. I had the pleasure to enjoy some during my short visit.

There are seasons that we have ground nuts and I can bring you a sack of it, there is maize straight from the farm too, but my favorite are the termites, we call them ‘chiswa’. Actually I was hoping to get some but sadly, I have been informed that its not their season yet. This is what most of you should be asking me to bring you because unlike the others you will not find this in the supermarket or your local market. I think I should consider this for a business idea back in the city, because when I crave for ‘chiswa’ I don’t get them anywhere unless I come all the way here. Call me backward or uncool but for some people out there and I, ‘chiswa’ is the coolest snack.

So now that I have given you a variety of choices, please next time don’t ask me to bring you chicken, I will just come back and treat you to KFC or Chicken inn, they have more than we do here.