Isiolo, oh my dear Isiolo.
The land of milk and meat.
Come. Let me take you on a short trip.
Growing up in Isiolo County made me a tough kid, or so I can say. I grew up knowing that suffering was a part of me. But as a kid you never understand what life is like, anything goes. Today you could be in your aunt’s house in Nai and the next day you are in shags kwa shosh and both days you were okay with it. You never ever had to worry about isht. In Isiolo we are taught the hard way, no one cared what you did as long as you are okay, it was no ones friggin business. You could go to school with torn, untucked with unkempt hair and a face that looks as if you came fresh from the quarry but no one even bothered to ask you questions, si you are going to school? Who cares? You could hear moms waking up their kids as early as 5 am and sufurias banging each other {Nigga what???}. We had no school buses like these modern day schools, you had to trek all the way to school which was like 2kms away {for me] others came further from the school, they had to wake up when I was finishing my last dream, I think. You had to be in school by 7.00am, no excuse was tolerated. In my school we had this supposed bell; it was a big rim from an old tractor. At exactly 6.45 am, the bell ringer would pick a huge stone and hit this rim bell, you could hear it from Tharaka Nithi. Then there was the teacher on duty at the gate at exactly 6.55am with a cane [damn, I hated caning] waiting for the “late comers’’ to arrive. I was always on this list, never missed. If there was a medal, I would win first price. The caning was intense {Patsy ain’t got nothing on me} it was as if you had stolen a cow from the neighboring Maasai tribe and now you had to say who your accomplices were. The worst part was, ati after all that caning, you had to go around the school with your sore ass collecting litter then after that you are “free” to go to class and meet your friends giggling at your walking style and teary eyes. It was tough, man. And you had to kausha and make a rough face then ask them “sasa ni nini mnaangalia?” {What are you looking at?}. Being in school until 4.10pm and then we were off to home. Tomorrow we had the same routine. Hectic as it was, someone had to study or else no food would be cooked in that house. All the fun came after the exams, because we were free and teachers were busy marking our exams. Then we had this saying before closing date, ati nitafunga na wewe, which simply meant you had to find someone to fight with before school closed. And maaaan did people fight, funny thing is that teachers didn’t give a shit what was happening outside you could kill each other if you wanted. Have you watched the Condemned by Steve Austin? Damn right.
We have a combination of great athletes and footballers in Isiolo who have represented the county schools with all their might, and games time during school days were fun mostly because we didn’t have to study and second because there were girls and well, guys love girls. We would go to the fields where many activities took place and you would cheer here and there with dust rising from every corner of the field, damn I think it’s only in Isiolo where we have experienced rainfall in form of dust. Shit was all over you, until your inner wears were soaked with dust. If you were dark, you looked brown and then sometimes I start wondering why Vera Sidika would waste all that money, where she could just find a shack somewhere known as Uhuru [smh] Primary School and within two hours of dust therapy, walaah! Browner than Chris!! After consuming all that dust you will then go find a supuu to pass the sunny day with: Mostly from your sister school. If you came from a mixed school, the girls from your school on that particular day become your sisters. No strings attached. No lovey dovey shit just plain brother sister relationship. The same girl will be your girl tomorrow in school. Win.
In Isiolo, we experience water shortages all the time and it was the duty of us, the kids, to go and fetch water like 5 or so kilometers away from home. There, you would find other kids waiting in line to fetch too. After sitting there for what feels like forever, you decide to skip the line and that’s where trouble brewed. We fought for water, for relief food, for free gifts by wazungus, we fought. We knew that to get anything, you had to fight for it, physically. Peeps from Isiolo are regarded by outsiders as rude. We are. So hard headed in everything we do. We like things done our way, and we want things done now and fast. If you keep us waiting for like an hour, we take off and you won’t see us back in your office or whatever again.
Cussing, damn we cuss so much in Isiolo it’s become a greeting. Like you can’t feel good passing your ninja in the street without throwing a cuss word at him. It was like a daily dose that if you missed it, you would be bedridden for life. Lol. We would cuss you according to your appearance, if you had a big head, small toes, short legs, rihannaish forehead we would tell it like it is. We don’t sugar coat shit like I once read in Biko Zulu Blog he called the feet of this sugar mama who wears ‘Mother’s Union Panties’ ati Geisha Feet. In Isiolo it could fall between mguu za panya and miguu za kuomba. Even little kids cuss but like I said no one gives a finger. I know, I know, it’s bad and someone should discipline them but will we hustle or will we keep disciplining kids? But I am not saying in any way that the kids in Isiolo are indiscipline, actually they are really great kids. They attend Madrassa [Islamic Quran studying classes] at a very young age; they attend Sunday schools where they are taught the difference between right and wrong. So, the kids know better. It’s just that the harsh nature of life in this ‘desert’ hits them before puberty and they start acting an age older than their own. After all is said and done, we all turned out to be responsible and respectful human beings, just a little hard headed and tougher.
Isiolo is growing fast, like really fast, it’s set to become a Resort City, gerrrrarrrahia. I am glad am still here to witness this ‘desert’, as TV people call it, grow into a city. Isiolo City. Developments are visible everywhere, we got street lights, wait, city lights, we got flat tarmac roads, we got skyscrapers, now we got water, we got tight security, we got an airstrip, read airport, we got radio stations [three of them, and counting] and yeah we got jams, damn right, like real car jams like the ones you see in big cities. TV People only get to show the whole world the donkeys, saying it’s the means of transport up here or camels [seriously?]. You know how TV is; they report the exact opposite of the real thing. Just like some TV I know who called Kenya a ‘hotbed of terror’ when we are a hotbed of vibrant culture. The same is reported of Isiolo, it has become that when a guy from Isiolo is mentioned; you wait for a Nigga to appear in a red shuka and spear in his hand singing war chants. We actually see TV people taking videos of malnourished kids with no clothes on and flies all around their faces and telling them to smile for the camera. They show you dusty roads but they can’t show you the flat and beautiful tarmac roads. They tell you how tribal and hating we are towards each other but they won’t show you all the activities we do to create coexistence without caring if one is from a different tribe as you or from a different religion. We try so hard to kick tribalism out of Isiolo; yes it’s still a problem just like corruption is to Kenya. But no one goes around reporting how Kenya is corrupt, ama? Then they tell you, this is Isiolo. And you believe them, and you never come to Isiolo because you are afraid of dust, malnourished kids and flies all over your face. But you really don’t know what you are missing out on.
We are a mixture of different cultures and people, we live peacefully up here. All the news you see on TV are sometimes true, you know, about clans fighting over livestock [did I mention that we fight a lot?] and some people stealing from others. It’s sometimes true, but over exaggerating and adding salt on the whole story is what makes Isiolo, to the world, a ‘hotbed of calamities’ but no, we are a people who live together, Ameru, Boran, Somali and Turkana, e.t.c. [I mean, you]. We love each other and we know better that without peace and co-existence, our beloved county will stick to the desert it was some years back.
There’s so much to write about this county, but let me stop here. You will get turned on by all the goodies in this place and well, I don’t want that to happen you know what happens when people get turned on, right?
Peace. Love. Unity.
Oh, in Isiolo, we use social media too; find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+
Go to Isiolo County Government Website to witness the growth of a desert city.
Can I leave now?
adeshkardashian 