“A rolling stone gathers no moss,” is a saying that you won’t hear quite as often in these parts. I do not know who said it, but it is something that I have been thinking about for quite some time. It means that people who do not settle in one place, or those who are always on the move avoid responsibilities and commitments, cannot be counted on as they can go from your life at any moment, do not accumulate wealth, etc. It could also be interpreted as, people paying the price for being always out and about, they have no roots to a specific place, allegiance to a specific culture. This hits close to home.
I was born into the Abagusii community, which occupies the Western part of Kenya. My ancestral home is situated in the Gusii Highlands, a place so green with rolling hills and majestic lands as far as the eye could see. With all that marvel and splendor, I hadn’t gone home, till recently- 15years had passed. The last time I went home, I was twelve. My grandfather had just passed away, and since he was close to family, we had to go. We hadn’t gone back, until a few weeks ago.
Home is supposed to feel like well… home. But for some reason, it felt all wrong, alien, foreign. Maybe it was because I was seeing it for the first time in 15 years. Maybe it is because I am not used to seeing the hateful glares and sneers we got when the Ongeri children arrived, or maybe, just maybe it was my guilty conscience poking at me for having stayed away for so long.
Somewhere within me, I realized that I had an identity crisis that had been simmering within, for a long time, was coming up to the surface. It had burned me from within, for a very long time, clawing and gnawing to be let out. The feeling of a weight being lifted off my shoulder when I stepped into our family home was overwhelming, almost euphoric. At last!
Part of the reason why we stayed away was the hostility and the toxic environment. My home has brought my parents a lot of pain and hardship. Let’s just say, families can be complicated.
In half of a yellow sun, Chimamanda Ngozi talks about the authentic identity of Africans being the tribe. She says, “I am Nigerian because the white man created Nigeria and gave me that identity. I am black because the white man constructed black to be as different as possible from his white. But I was Igbo before the white man came.”
I was Kisii before the white man came. I will be Kisii until I die. Kisii will always be my home, hostile relatives are not going to keep me away this time around.
Time to go back to my roots.
