Half Open Half Closed

By Mulunda Silingi

The mouth that ate itself is perhaps the experiences of Lochomin and Nancy. Their love is trapped in between their Turkana and Sabaot traditions and the practices of the church. They do not know which way is safe and sure. Will they experience love entrenched in traditions or that of Christian faith? Will their love last to marriage? The two lovebirds embark on a solemn journey whose destination is unknown to them. The mouth that ate itself opens up the ruins and rues and developments in Half Open Half closed

Mulunda Nasiombe Silingi autobiography

Is Pursuing a Master of Arts in Literature at Laikipia University. Holds a Bachelor Degree of Education Arts with a bias in English and Literature from Mount Kenya University. Has a Diploma in Mass Communication and Journalism from Kampala University. Currently working at Turkana University College, a constituent college of Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology. Worked at Mount Kenya University . Born and raised in Western Kenya, Schooled at Teremi High School and Cheberem Primary School. Both Schools are found in Bungoma and Trans Nzoia Counties respectively.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mulunda Silingi
• Release date: Apr 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005292294

Mulunda Silingi

Mulunda Silingi is an enthusiast in African literature,both in Africa and in diaspora. He is an author of both fiction and non fiction works. He is also a published poet.Mulunda believes in ubutuntu or Utu philosophy . Besides being a profession in literature, Mulunda is also a journalist who is meticulous in telling stories from both a literature perspective and from a journalistic eye.

Book preview

Half Open Half Closed

Mulunda Nasiombe Silingi

Copyright © 2021 Mulunda Nasiombe Silingi

Published by Mulunda Nasiombe Silingi Publishing at Smashwords

First edition 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Mulunda Nasiombe Silingi

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Chapter One

Our father’s death opened a can of worms in our family. First, our houses were swept away by floods. Then it invoked indefinite schisms and fights amongst us, the children. The fabric of family unity and love had indeed been impulsively broken. Minor differences led to fierce battles and our compound turned into a war –like-zone. Mama could neither control nor contain her children. She kept on trying. We became a laughing stock in the village and the badly behaved families like that of Lokipoto also complained of us. Imagine Lokipoto’s son had been caught pants down and on top of a donkey, still had the audacity to lament of our demeanors. I thought bestiality was the worst crime of the time!

The king is dead; live long the king, dad never died, he lived in us. It is him that never wanted to bid bye to life without inculcating into us the necessary life skills. The techniques of survival, the brawling and boxing techniques. He trained us the Turkana martial arts. He wanted us to know how to fight in defending ourselves and family and community. He told us that life is not about eating, love-making and sleeping. It goes beyond such. ‘My children, this world is sometimes so mean and unfair, you have to fight for your space. Your strength is the major asset; it is the blatant determinant of the number of days you have to live. Your head is the hub of operations, use it wisely. Have it that the weaker and unskilled you are, the sooner you have to die as young as you are. It is important to tell you my children that we are lucky to have come from a strong-ebullient lineage. You have to conspicuously and perpetually demonstrate this strength and wisdom. Fundamentally, your unity is strength combined, always embrace it. Live to remember what I’m telling you now; your grandfather told me the same and indeed I have triumphantly passed through seasons and times. Do so and you shall live well and long.

One more thing my children, he paused, and then continued with his eyes on the dead spider between his legs. I want you to live in strict adherence and compliant to the ways of our forefathers. This will see you celebrate your marriages. You will have children, your children will also get children and you will see your grandchildren’s children. I mean, your character, personality and demeanor are properly shaped by our traditions. Traditions are the only solid and sure way of moderating our lives. I, your father, have lived in the spirit of our traditions and customs; like I was told by your grandfather, and all of you can attest to it that this family is one of the reputed families in our community. We are loved and respected and admired. Am telling you this, so that when am gone, you won’t wander like fledglings whose mother is long eaten by a hungry hawk. Though I was young, his words linger and hover in my head as though he is speaking now. His fatherly speech is even now vividly appreciated by memory. Am grateful of my memory, no amnesia at all, or even somnolence.

Besides, I could see my septuagenarian dad swinging into the physical training. He militarily coached my preceding brothers the racket and clamor of survival in the jungle. The worst of the training came when he asked my brothers to engage him in a wrestle and tussle. He wanted to test their learned and acquired skills. He wanted to see if he had wise and brave. The boys who could learn and cope up with new ideas as quick as he trained. They took him head on. The fight ensued; my brothers grew weak and unhelpful. Dad was indeed strong and more tactful, as if to say, no student can ever outshine their teacher.

It was like when cockerels brawl to no energy left but no one is there to separate them. The boys got overwhelmed, dad was still full of energy, vigour and his high self-esteem motivated him. One of my brothers upon escaping ran into the manyatta and shot out with abarait (Turkna traditional blade) and without much ado chopped off father’s nose. On seeing what had happened, brothers got befuddled, aggravated and turned against each other and fought tooth and nail, using both rungus and abaraits .Dad experienced severe hemorrhage, a torrent of nose blood dashed down his shuka and dripped unto his legs. He looked like someone eviscerating a goat.

Bleeding intensified, coupled up with sweltering sun unleashing its wrathful scotching effects on his crying wound. Dad’s fluid eyes communicated disappointment and disarray. I had never seen his eye wringing. He never anticipated the unfortunate unfurled turn-around of the exercise. No one was expected to cutlass anybody, was only to show their strength skillfully and weaponless. He felt timidly-feral. I could see streaks of worry etched all over Mamaa’s face. She stood helpless with a chopped nose in her left hand. The hand was shaking like that of liquor addicted bloke. She had just picked it on the ground, rescuing it from a dog that was salivating to have it. It wagged the tail in protest. Mama looked at the piece of that nose with the exasperation of a dying warlord. Mama regrettably stared at her husband, one would think she had just been resuscitated from a convulsion; she could not help contain tears in her eyes. She allowed the tears to first, freely roll down her flabby cheeks, then, allowed them to run down her face. This gave me an insight that truly Mama loved her hubby albeit their perennial affrays. I learnt that a tear is a message from the heart; I cognitively agreed that tears too are the words which are supposed to be written and rewritten. Indeed, tears are words that when spoken pour emotional profundity to invoke tears from the listener. I discovered one thing, dad and Mama knew how to cope up with challenges in their marriage and that love was the praxis of it all. They knew and mastered all concepts of marriage, perhaps or rudimentarily anchored on and or drawn from what dad described as the wisdom of traditions. He sometimes called them, traditions of wisdom. He sometimes hyperbatonned it to wisdom of traditions, whichever way, it sounded so beautiful with its profundity of pronunciation and meaning.

There and then, our community members were attracted by the incessant commotions, noises and disorders that tumultuously hit their ears. Like one stung with unknown insect, they thronged into our compound as if in search of cure, they came and witnessed the fierce fight, some jeered as others cheered them up, interestingly, and the old men got me adrift as they approved the uproar and the altercation, terming it a culmination of well trained children. They applauded and commended dad for the wonderfully exciting job. He was declared the best warrior of their time. Speaker after speaker reiterated one single most message, that with such emphatic prowess, our community was invariably immune to en mass banditry. Our community was prone to scathing cattle rustling and pogrom. A cattle rustling was the inevitable headache to every manyatta compound.

Two weeks later, I woke up aghast to another scrap battle, dad engaged son after the other nastily and fiercely. One could also recognize the gerontological process, characterized by scruffy marred with black heads and white heads, when he spoke, a blob of saliva dashed out and spread around his mouth. He seldom rubbed it off with back of his hand, sometimes with the palm of his right hand, which had palmar flexion that resembled mine.

The drill battle was consecutively done. I enjoyed it, Mama methinks loved it. She sustained the cheering in favour of her husband and celebrated whenever he prevailed on her sons. Mama ululated on top of her lungs. She was just in her forties, though looked frail, haggard and languorous. Her sexy eyes had been swallowed by the sunken face, the flesh in her face dissipated and one could easily see veins running up her body. She looked bonny, drained and dehydrated. It bothered me the rate at which Mama was aging. Her teeth had smudged dark brown, the colour of tobacco. Mama nonetheless, had the energy and vibrancy and vigour that I admired, she flung her hands in merriment of her husband shining over my brothers. Oh, really, those were the good classes that every Turkana boy went through and perpetually shielded us during the cruel incidents of banditry, whether the attack by fellow compatriots or assailants from neighbouring countries. We have compulsively relied on these skills before and after independence. Regime after the other could do little in offering security to us. At least we inherited sine qua non skills from our fathers. I love Turkana martial trainings. They are worthy many a man.

Chapter Two

Our people had a saying that when you see an old man crying then know that a feast must be conducted to wipe away his tears. The killing of people had escalated to the echelons of fervent fear and everyone lived to suspicion of jeopardy. It was an extermination precipitated by the rapacity for livestock. Every community wanted to have more. No wonder the Swahilis’ tama ni mauti. Any invasion meant death. No community bowed to the crafted subjugation by others, we lived as they lived, and we died as they died. Every man and woman on their deaths, just like every boy and girl with their birth days. We had learnt not to fold hands in times of horror. We said no to attempts to foil the progress of our community. We refused to be manipulated and dominated. Polity and stratagem of banditry was part of our DNA. Even the other communities had the same microcosm deoxyribonucleic acid. We resisted any dudes of connivance, plunder and pillage. Whoever that brought condescension, met the very same, if war, then we meted out the same, even when it was death; we wedged it to you too. Life was replete with struggles than living. We could not entertain the game of the proverbial ostrich, burying the head in the sand while attracting the riff raff murderer with the whole body uncovered. Children and women too had learnt survival antics. Children played hide and seek, not for joys but to hide their bodies in the sand for ammunitions to slide over. Hibernating in the sand saved us; it is true that children have their share of wisdom. That is why our people have remained thankful to God for giving us sand and not loam soil. Perhaps, all of us could have perished by the gun if it were not of our distinctive land morphology.

Women had known how to protect the homesteads. They at all times armed themselves to the tooth. They knew how to command the guns, and the guns obeyed their orders. They did all and sundry at full throttle. It is us who bring men and children to this world, how can we fail to immunize them? Of the women asked while holding her Mark 4 rifle with the length of 110 centimeters. The Mark 4 was woody and seemed light to carry. Another woman quipped, no man can live without a woman or haven’t you heard that leaves breath life to trees? Men offered themselves to die or survive in war instigated by cattle rustling. Coming home alive from war was not a reserve in the goat-skin- , it was common knowledge, even to us children, that deliverance comes either with death or life. Notwithstanding such fact, our men never shied to fight nail and tooth in safeguarding the common interest of our community. Law of the jungle was our life. Survival for the fittest. Our people knew that if you took politeness before brutality, then politeness would lose. Brutality would thrive.

Many years later, the everlasting war was to be brought to an end. This needed to conjure the elders’ crucial but rare tears. That is why the elders had to meet with their fellow elders from the neighbouring communities. This was to see women relax in the village and do things of women, not war. Children were to enjoy their childhood plays and help look after livestock, not hibernating in sand. Incessant conflicts and violence had deprived us of such freedoms and rights. War is bad, it is diabolical and never should one wish to see it, not talk of engaging in it. If there is a thing branded barbaric, then war, civil war and other wars deserve it. I would be of predilection not to mention that our war-torn communities were at moribund, their morbidity was worrying and their populace was diminishing. Diseases disturbed us and strife bothered us, but we allowed hope to fill our souls. We had credence in the fact that however wide the river is, one must cross to his homestead. This helped us to visualize a better tomorrow.

The peace deal was initiated by the Catholics; no government agency bothered itself to into the agony of gross discord. Government had mapped these fighting communities as nemesis to development. To demonstrate this, the Ugandan regime under the cannibalistic Idi, infamously described his Karamojongs as nudes who hardly understood the meaning of development. This was a lovely state hatred.

These communities had some common denominators that elicited wars; the ravening love for livestock, grazing land and the glorification of marriages. No community willed to see the other thrive in pastoralism. Marriage meant livestock. This love for dowry prodded young men in organizing and executing raids to favourably and blessingly secure a cultured girl as a wife. It is out of these issues that perennially invoked unending clashes amongst communities. These issues necessitated raids, whether successful raids or flopped ones. Raids were synonymous to deaths, at the time of foiling successful theft, fatality missed not.

Retaliation and recrimination were integral part of the game, otherwise you were deemed as cowards. Any act of cowardice attracted rampant raps. No one knew the instigators and perpetrators behind such infliction of atrocities. But at least the capitalist were the engineers, they knew how to reap from it, a heavy harvest indeed. Such was evident during political campaigns. Those that attracted a plebiscite in their favour did support banditry. They refrained from castigating such acts. They gave banditry a good name; they called traditions of the people. These politicians subconsciously gave traditions a bad. I thought they loved us; I was wrong as I came to learn later.

The bringing together of the three communities: Karamojong, Pokot and Turkana appeared to be magical, pure alchemy sanctioned by the world clairvoyant. It was unbelievable. It was like holding a meeting involving the lion and the antelope, or the hyena and the carcass. Maybe, studs and a bitch on heat. The thing was inconceivable and enigmas. This was a debut meeting of the representatives of these three conflicting communities. It was not imaginable. We at home wondered how such a baraza could be though people had been told not to carry guns or any other weapon to the meeting. It was difficult to convince the representatives not to arm themselves. People argued that how can a man face his enemy empty handed and how could one be sure that the others from other communities could not bring their guns with them to the meeting. It was unthinkable.

My uncle who attended the function said it was hard for him to believe that he was peacefully sited with the enemies of our land, animals and life. He said that when it was turns for the members to contribute in the discussion, he never believed when the others accused us of being the rampant raiders. It was like watching a dog barking furiously at the children of its owner with the intention of harming them yet you can do nothing. They opted to hold peace until our turn came where uncle and our men mentioned a chain of both economic and human annihilations we had experienced from them. At the end of the discussion, every community realized its dent in the raiding business, carried the blame and significantly resolved never to engage in livestock rustling. They chose to engage in constructive businesses with each other. They agreed barter trade to replace war; they approved that Turkana women be selling beads to Karamojong and pokot communities. Pokot women to sell mangoes and other fruits to Turkana and Karamojong. On the other hand, Karamojong women to enjoy selling of whatever they could produce, men were given the freedom of bringing animals to the common market at Lokiriama and engage in uchuuzi business. Livestock business.

It was however agreed that livestock of each of the three communities were to have distinctive marks of identification. This was to curb one from false claims of livestock ownership. Such marks were to be done by some trusted specialists such that when an animal is sold to a different community, documentation is done as well as remarking or rebranding of such animal. It was one way of thwarting theft.

Pokots were in addition given an opportunity to be supplying farm produce to the market in exchange of other products like goats. Our representatives returned home happily and delivered the message. They said that the meeting was successful, they described how 6 representatives slaughter a bull for the occasion. Two men from each community skinned and eviscerated the bull. The information was allowed to sink into people gathered under ewoi tree. Every man on his stool, ekicholong, women on their wrappers and children on sand.

The question that disturbed people was whose bull did the representatives eat. Members of my community wanted to know, it became an issue and until one offered to say that it was for the church. This mellowed everybody down, brought members together and continued to listen.

Members were also uneasy of the fact that our people had shared meat with the pokots and Karamojong. It was not comprehensible but reprehensible. You can now understand the depth of the animosity that prevailed among our communities. We were told that everyone is entitled to livestock but it should not be through stealing. Parents should also ensure that when their children grow up and ripe for marriage, the transition was to be facilitated by parents. Parents were to be settling dowries and not their boys.

Hitherto, things never changed. We continued to experience same animal theft, the same killings and warfare retained its status quo. It was like the Catholics had asked the representatives to report that war is good. The emissaries had distorted the information or chose not give fake version or what their people wanted to hear. The efforts of the church appeared futile. We had no choice but rather to rejoin the game. It seemed that the explanation given was not proper and is like the representatives did not deliver the information in its real nature and context but rather there were some distortions. This made the effort by the church to slump and it seemed that even the other representatives of the Karamojong and Pokot delivered faulty information and that is why banditry was sustained. I hold gratitude to Karamojong-Turkana elders that opted to initiate peace on behalf of our two communities. It triumphs even to this day and tomorrow. It is celebrated annually. It was a good humanistic course that saw the two communities out of a long benighted period.

Chapter Three

I remember an incident that baffles, and aghasts me to this day. It was one of my trips to Kenya from Lodwar-as our people used to say, just after finishing my University education. We bumped into the armed highway robbers or call them shifters who did not only force everyone out of the bus but asked all of us

Reviews for Half Open Half Closed

[marjorie lihavi · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Half open Half closed excites me particularly the bit of Lochomin's father engages his children in Turkana martial training , and the mzee ends up losing his nose as is chopped off.

[Silingi Mulunda Nasiombe · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I recommend this book to all and sundry. I really appreciate for your readership.

[Lokutan Benson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love the book and how it brings out the origin of Turkana community through Ata Nayeche

[Kolman Madaraka · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Nancy frustrates Lochomin in a number of times but Lochomin does not wish to give up . He travels from Turkana to a village called Kimono in Mount Elgon ,only to meet another frustrations.

The court proceedings are so ridiculously and convey how a corrupt state has rotten agencies ....