Landowner
Jackie Ogega
I squeezed myself into the trunk of the tree, cautiously lifting my feet off the ground. The large tree let my little body hang freely, my thighs intimate with its bark. I held tight, afraid to make any move.
“Come on”, my sister Pam encouraged me. My feet tightened around the tree. Then I slowly wiggled against the tree’s bark and stretched out for the first branch.
“You got this, Bisieri,” Mama used my nickname as encouragement. She gave my little bootie a push. I stretched out my hands, dug my feet deeper into the tree, and swung my body away from it to move myself up. Using my left hand to anchor my body, I gripped the lowest branch and pulled myself up, reaching for the higher branches.
And there they were: perfect yellow loquats, hiding amid the broad dark green leathery leaves, enticing me to savor their sweet and tangy taste. I hurriedly plucked them. I shoved three of the small, round and juicy fruit into my mouth all at once. I devoured their irresistible flesh while spitting out their dark brown seeds.
“The fruit is not going anywhere, Bisieri,” Mama cautioned. “And remember, I am down here under the tree waiting to taste those loquats as well.”
It was time to shake the branches, letting the very ripe loquats fall down freely. Mama picked the best off the ground, eating some while saving others in the oroteru for the jam we would make that night.
This was Mama’s own place. Bountiful. Evergreen.
I still remembered the day we moved from Grandma Kwamboka’s home to our new home. Mama gathered us together.
“This paper! This piece of paper, hmmm, my girls, is worth dying for.” She choked as she held it out. Her chin was trembling.
“Touch it.” Mama cried, her tears bursting forth like the river Mogusi. I was the first one to lay my hand on this special paper. Mama’s left hand lay on top of mine, her right hand clutching the paper underneath. She trembled, struggling to calm herself down.
I looked up and Mama’s eyes of faith transformed mine. Her strong voice trembled as she explained to us that the paper was the formal document that proved that the parcel of land in Mosocho was hers. She possessed it. She owned it. She had access to it. She could use it in any way she wanted. She could decide what to plant on it, and the types of livestock she could rear on it. She could sell it whenever she wanted. It was hers.
“God, finally I get to be a landowner, to have my own place. Our place. Our home. My little ones, a woman must own land.” Mama cried tears of joy.
After a year of living with Grandma Kwamboka, Mama had saved up enough money to purchase land in Mosocho, a sparsely populated village in the tropical rainforest. It was a new neighborhood composed mostly of teachers and their families who had bought land from male landowners. The natives, who were from the clan named Omogusero, saw the new immigrants as foreigners, and referred to us as abagori—the land buyers. But to me, the land felt like home. It was Mama and my sisters. We had loving neighbors. Although they were not relatives, they felt like family.
This was Mama’s own place. Her land. There was no law in Kenya at that time that provided a pathway to land ownership for women and girls. But Mama’s words were law. And I heard them well. A woman must own land. Period.
And with those words, Mama led us to pray together over the land, and everything on it. She kept the paper in a secure place between her books hidden under the bed. She also made a duplicate copy that she gave to her sibling to keep safely for her.
Mama’s land was home to all kinds of living and non-living things. The trees were magnificent. Mama taught me which tree had edible fruit, and which did not. Which had medicinal herbs, and which did not. Even though the social norm was that girls should not climb trees, Mama taught me which ones to climb, and how to descend safely. She even taught me how to rest on the trunk of a tree.
The village where Mama owned land had named itself after its sacred tree Omosocho—a Croton species, which was also the most common tree in the entire village. It stood proudly in every homestead, along the rivers, on the edge of the forests. It stretched along the footpaths, as if providing direction. Its ashy brown bark contrasted with its long oval leaves, gloriously spreading its dense crown to provide a beautiful shade. It was ever-present.
Mama used a series of the Omosocho trees as a live fence in our compound, keeping the goats in check, breaking fierce winds, giving other plants and us shade from the scorching sun. It produced flowers whose nectar the honeybees thoroughly enjoyed. When we needed firewood for cooking and heating, the Omosocho tree provided the fuel. Sometimes Mama would take a handful of the leaves of the Omosocho tree and burn them to ash. She said it was good medicine for stomach aches or coughs, and it worked. When our neighbor’s child got obosisa—skin rash, her mother pounded the leaves and applied its juices on her skin to cure her. When my sister accidentally cut her finger with a knife while chopping an onion, Mama pounded the Omosocho leaves and squeezed the liquid onto my sister’s wound to prevent bleeding. Sometimes Mama dug up the tree’s roots and boiled them to make a tea that she said helped to prevent and treat Malaria. I did not enjoy that at all. But one thing I enjoyed most from the Omosocho was eating its rich-flavored sticky dark sap. This tree gave much, and allowed others, like bees, to live on it and give too.
Although Mama still worked as a schoolteacher, she was a farmer too. She organized the land into three main portions: cultivation to meet our food needs, grazing for the livestock, and furrowed bushland where all types of creatures thrived. She kept all of the three portions of her land in rotation, moving the livestock to furrowed bushland to clear it up for the next planting season. At the center of it all was our homestead, a circular compound where our house, the goat’s pen and the granary lay. We kept the compound clear of bushes, except for the native tropical plants and flowers that kept the natural beauty and scents fresh and alive.
Mama reared livestock and birds on her land —goats, sheep and chicken. They all had a lot of spunk and personality. They made love in the open, laying on top of each other. The goats and sheep bore kids and the chickens had chicks. They were as social and as outgoing as the villagers. But they were also mischievous, easily wandering into our neighbors’ compounds or sneaking into the house to grab some millet or maize.
Mama cultivated a variety of crops. Beans, peas, green leafy vegetables, maize, millet, sorghum, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and Matoke—bananas. The labor was intensive, but there was help—communal labor.
One Saturday morning, Mama woke us up early to go to river Mogusi to draw water. It was time for risaga—the village’s communal labor. She needed to cook two meals for the workers: millet porridge to be eaten with bananas during work breaks, and a full meal to be eaten at a social event at the end of the day’s labor. The workers arrived just before sunrise: strong women and men, old and young, representing different households. It was unpaid, reciprocal work. Each one of them had their hoe. Children were not allowed to undertake hard work as part of risaga. However, Mama had us serve as helpers. We all walked to the shamba like an army, helping Mama to carry the porridge, bananas and cups.
That day, I learned intercropping of maize and beans—the adults dug up the trenches with their hoes. Mama taught me how to plant two to three beans together with two maize seeds in one hole. The holes were properly spaced in rows along a furrow called ebikamago. Mama demonstrated by dropping a few seeds into one hole at a time and covering the hole with soil. It seemed like some form of burial.
“Why are you burying the seeds?” I asked. It did not seem right.
Mama explained that she was covering the seeds to protect them from being eaten by birds or being washed away when the rains came. “You have to cover each seed properly, but gently. Do not bury it or press it down,” she explained. Mama led me to imitate her, planting the beans and maize about an inch deep in one hole, then moving to the next hole about two feet away. I learned arithmetic, quietly counting the seeds as I dropped them in, one hole at a time, and then gently covering them up with soil. We finished before the scorching sun reached its noon height. Spent, we all headed back to Mama’s compound where we shared a big meal.
Every night after praying the rosary, my spontaneous prayer was for the seeds. That they would remain safe under the soil and not be exposed, washed away, or eaten by birds. Mama had said that the seeds actually died before they germinated. I was too young to understand how death would allow the seeds to grow. I secretly prayed that the seeds would germinate and not die.
My hope sprouted when Mama let us go back to that shamba two weeks later. The baby bean plants were rapidly emerging from the seed hulls, their fragile leaves throwing away all care to embrace the sunshine. The maize plants emerged like little pins, threatening to stab the universe. Green, tender, full of spirit.
“Be careful,” Mama cautioned as I hurried to touch these green little beauties. I managed to step on one set, and oh, they broke so easily! Mama gave me a lesson, that they needed tender care now, but would grow to have strong leaves and stocks over time. And they did. But so did the weeds, which worked just as hard, competing for the sun, nutrients and water. It was time to get them out through risaga for weeding.
Soon the plants matured. By the time of the risaga for the second weeding, I had lost the fun of the earlier work. The two-inch-tall plants growing in a line suddenly became twists, turns and tunnels of maize itself, standing straight and tall. The leaves filled every space, and they were as sharp as a razor that cut my skin easily. The beans spread themselves wide, some wrapping around the maize stock, their leaves rough. I was terrified of getting helplessly lost, unable to see anything through the maze of maize.
That season of dreading the maize field passed. When harvest time arrived, Mama’s egesangio—the communal labor of female accomplices, arrived. This female labor force was my absolute favorite. The women gathered in Mama’s compound in the afternoon when the sun was hot. We made our way to the shamba where the maize stalks stood upright in rows. Mama and her female accomplices positioned themselves strategically like runners on a relay, facing off against the field of maize. I watched their strong hands subdue the maize stalks one at a time. Their powerful fingers tore through the husks, opening up the shucks and pushing them all the way back before quickly jerking to break the naked cob free from the dry stock. They tossed the maize to the pile on the ground as the other hand reached for another stalk. They moved quickly, tossing one maize after another, leaving children behind to mound the piles for the young girls and women to collect in sacks and carry over to Mama’s granary.
Everybody worked hard to get the harvest done before dark. The sounds of tearing, snapping, and tossing thrummed with the women’s movements, laughter and songs. The women told stories. Everything pulsed a rhythm of unstoppable spirit. I lost myself completely in it.
After the harvest, we all gathered at Mama’s homestead, like a big family. We ate and ate. The adults drunk Busaa, the beer Mama had prepared out of maize flour and fermented millet. The children drunk Ributi, the non-alcoholic beer. We sung Ribina—the harvest celebration song and dance.
Obori bwa baba keande
Amaemba a baba matogoro
Look at Mama’s bountiful millet
Look at Mama’s pop-eyed sorghum
We sang and danced, celebrating the bountiful harvest. At the same time, the song warned that there was need for cautiousness.
Ekebwe ngiakura manga nse
Ee Nyangweso yacha yaboria
Ee Manga nse baba motegere nyangweso
The fox is howling down by the Manga ridge
The locust came and ate all of Mama’s millet Yes, daughter watch out for the locust
The dance moved with the tempo of the song, our pitch rising and falling—harvest, celebration, calamity, cautiousness. We sang, danced , drunk and ate again, until our bodies ached. As soon as we fell into bed, we passed out in deep sleep.
There was enough food to nourish us. On market days, Mama went with other women to the Nyakoe or Oyugis open markets with the surplus. She returned before dark with food or other items that we did not get from the shamba—books, batteries, fish, steak, baking flour, sugar, tea leaves, hand-woven baskets, pots, brooms, and goodies for us. She would also teach us commerce by showing us cash savings from the sales of the surplus produce, which she let us handle and count before she tucked it away in different places under the eaves of our house.
Besides helping Mama with the farming, my sisters and I spent quality time running around on my Mama’s land, having fun. We played onyuro—dodge ball—outside our compound. We caught grasshoppers and butterflies, played together and then let them go. During the rainy season, I got down on my knees to chase tadpoles and frogs in puddles. I would chase them, but I never wanted to catch them as my friends did. Tadpoles creeped me out with their slimy oval bodies and elusive beating tails. There was no way I was ever going to be able to grab them. Some of my friends would take a chameleon and let it walk slowly from their hand to their heads. I could never get myself to do that. Chameleons terrified me with their extremely slow yet calculated movements. I could never stand their rough, ever-changing skin and bulging eyes. And then there were amasami—caterpillars—which literally made me weep. If there was hell, I imagined caterpillars filling every space.
Our play was never done until we skipped rope, chased one another around, and drenched ourselves in sweat. Then, we headed to the river Mogusi for a bath while the sun was still out. Mama always cautioned us to be careful at the river, especially during the rainy season when its waters swelled and broke into the riverbanks and the wetlands. The river Mogusi was as powerful as it was dangerous. It nurtured fish as well as crocodiles. It bred mosquitoes as well as dragonflies. It had managed to remain uncolonized, retaining its natural beauty as it flowed steadily into the great Lake Victoria, feeding it and us. We would make our way back from the river in the dark, chasing fireflies, ready to warm ourselves by the fireplace in Mama’s kitchen.
We thrived. And so did Mama’s land. There was such a variety of fruit trees, and they all came into season at different times of the year. Mangos, guavas, berries. We had fresh fruit for dessert almost daily, picked with our own hands, from our own place.
Some fruit trees were not allowed to grow near the house, though. Mama led me deep into the woods for a good lesson one day. She showed me a fruit tree that did not need climbing at all. This short shrub was hanging heavy with its gifts of red-purplish oval fruits, waiting to be eaten. My childish anticipation couldn’t help it. Before Mama could stop me, I reached out to pluck the fruit, only to be stopped by the shrub’s prickly thorns that punctured my little fingers.
Then I realize that this short shrub was in fact armed with long rigid spines, protecting its own children. “Imabu bono—see!” Mama cautioned as she introduced me to omonyangateti, a Num-Num tree that produced the fruits called chinyangateti. I stopped to look. It stood beneath us. A thorny, scrambling shrub with multiple stems that had produced numerous oval red-purplish fruits. Mama taught me how to pick the ripe fruits without being pricked. She also told me to carefully care for those that were still green, so that they could have time to ripen. The shrub had character. When plucked or pricked, it released white milky latex, which Mama warned must not be licked. Some of its stems were pregnant with fruit, while others had white pinkish flowers on them. Mama plucked one of the flowers, smelled it, and held it out for me to smell as well. I breathed in the strong sweet jasmine-like scent. Together we consumed its fragrance and fruits as we enjoyed small talk. Birds, butterflies and bees were there too. When we finally left, we carried some chinyangateti home for my sisters.
“Watch out for rirubi”, Mama warned as we made our way back home. The venomous spitting cobra was common in this village. There were all kinds of wild creatures on Mama’s land—from crocodiles and wailing foxes to rabbits and ladybirds—all trying to survive. It was an ideal refuge for all types of creatures, deadly and harmless.
When we got home, he was there, soberly sitting in the shade like a guest. I had not seen this man for almost two years now, since he chased us away from his land. What was he doing here? I did not know how to feel when I heard his deep voice calling out to me, with the nickname he had given me:
“JJ, you have grown so big. Come here.” I hesitated. Then Mama’s soft hand nudged me on. I reluctantly made my way to my father’s arms. He lifted me onto his laps. Maybe he had changed. For a moment, it felt good to be on his lap.
I thought he was visiting. But the quarrels, the fights, the tears had returned, and stayed with us. My father never left Mama’s land. Mama said he had lost his job at the bank. He had found another one as an untrained teacher, but he did not do well in that either. He was drinking too much. Every evening he staggered home and started a fight with Mama.
“Leave me alone! This is my land. Go, go now to your drinking sprees with Minini—your concubine, or to your mother,” Mama was asserting her freedom one night.
Mama’s protests only worked to embolden my father’s violent masculinity. “I am a man. I am not a woman to be chased away.”
Something happened to me that night. This was my Mama’s land. I had to fight for it. I had to defend it. Little as I was, I started helping Mama with her fights. I hated my father more than I had ever done before.
“You are going to leave. This is Mama’s land!” I found myself shouting at my father, turning my Mama’s words into my own. I understood my role as Mama’s defender. Every day, I stood by her side, fighting with words, sticks, firewood, anything I could do to help her fight back against this man.
Mama urged me not to be involved, “Go there next to your sister Jane.” My sister always curled up quietly in a corner, chewing her lower lip. The memory of the day my father hit her must have remained as fresh as a daisy. She must have been terrified.
I couldn’t help myself. The fighting was so much, even the roof beams had stories to tell. When grandma Kwamboka visited, I told her everything.
“Ah, tororo. Mechi Imaburu, baba —Oh goodness! Homes can be like the crackling blaze on the hearth, dear child.” Grandma Kwamboka tried to calm my fury.
But when she left, I thought I knew exactly what to do. I fought my father back at every opportunity.
“You are a sick woman, spoiling your stupid girls”, my father hit back at my Mama. “You think you can live here without me? We will see.”
I was too young at that time to understand how dangerous my father’s threats were. Mama tried to stand up to him. But what about the village? This was a village where the man was a symbol of respect and protection—no matter how risky and violent he was.
As time went by, community violence broke out—it was believed to have been perpetrated by the grown sons of folks who had sold their land to the teachers. They wanted to drive the “buyers” away and reclaim their land, even though the land had been rightfully purchased from their parents. This was a greater threat to Mama’s land than my father was.
“If I have to leave here, you are coming with me.” My father’s rhetoric shifted. He saw an opportunity for Mama to return to his land. But Mama did not budge.
“Women have become cocks, and their children like arrows against their fathers,” he lamented.
That saying had no meaning at all. My father was not brave. He was not a protector. As much as stereotypes tried to lie that all men defended and protected their families, this was not my experience with my father. Many nights the dog barked from outside, and all my father could do was yell from my Mama’s bed in his deep voice:
“Whoever is out there, I just want you to know this. If I come out with my arrows, you better be gone. I will cut you into pieces with my machete. I will kill you with my bare hands. I swear.”
It was all empty threats. He would never get out. He was cowardly like the men described by Grace Ogot in her story about “The Empty Basket,” who failed to confront a dangerous snake. Ogot contrasts the cowardice of men with the bravery of a woman named Aloo, who through her wit and self-assertion, overcomes the perilous situation with the snake. Like the men in Ogot’s story, my father was always stricken by panic, the cowardice that drove him to physically and emotionally batter Mama.
Mama was the brave one. The problem solver. The protector. The agitator. If the dog barked in the middle of the night, even when the moon was off and it was pitch dark, she would grab the flashlight and make her way to the door like a real brave woman. She would circle her compound, checking on her goats, her land and everything on it. She would talk to the dog to quiet her, and she would scare away howling foxes or whatever was looming around in our compound. Even hens and cocks would acknowledge her bravery as she returned from the dark. She would loudly rebuke and shame my father’s empty talk as she returned to her bed, “Omonwa bwoka Nyasae akoete, it is only the mouth that God gave you.”
My father did not fight back. Perhaps he had felt helpless for a long time. As a child, he had not been able to protect his mother from the horrifying beatings. His own life had been traumatic. He had carried so much fear and pain for years. It is as if he was trying every day to drown his fear and trauma with alcohol and domestic violence.
The day my father’s beer-drinking buddy was murdered, he fled in fear. He warned Mama that if she was not going to leave, she would surely die with her daughters, with no one to bury us.
“Who cares if our bodies are not buried! We would be dead anyway,” Mama shot back.
So we stayed on.
Dr. Jacqueline Ogega is a global leader in international development, and a passionate advocate for gender equality and social inclusion. She has published extensively on gender issues in development and humanitarian emergencies. As director at World Vision, she leads efforts to advance gender equality, inclusion, and women’s empowerment in development and humanitarian emergencies worldwide. She is the Co-Founder and President of Mpanzi (www.mpanzi.org), which promotes education, violence prevention, and economic empowerment of women and girls in Kenya. She has extensive experience directing multi-million-dollar programs involving multi-sector donors. She has a PhD. in peacebuilding from Bradford university in the United Kingdom.
