The rains are back, which means I finally got around to one of my favorite things: farming. Wele blessing us with water also means it’s time for my other favorite thing: taking in the glory of nature. Because, as the soil wets, new life is forth. Speaking of new life, last evening, I saw a frog. I can’t recall the last time I saw that species of frog. It was a tiny thing, barely a few inches long. Still, as it croaked about having wandered in from the wet, I couldn’t help but reminisce of the good old times. Growing up, back in the village, folktales about frogs were told and retold around this time of the year. When my people say, chikhele, they’re talking of frogs. There are small chikhele, big chikhele. Bland frogs, colorful frogs. Various species of frogs, but today I choose to talk of a breed of ekhele my people call Namakanda.
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Frogs are generally harmless beings. Apart from jumping left and right; whilst enjoined in a solo performance or part of a symphony of croaks, I am yet to hear anyone claim to have been harmed by a frog. Given their mulembe like mien, folktales were told to protect chikhele from the mischief of boys. Boys like my younger brother who’d made a habit of opening up frogs, ostensibly to locate the spring that made them jump so far and high.
SIGNIFICANCE OF LUHYA FOLK TALES ABOUT NAMAKANDA & OTHER FROGS
One such story told in the village to protect frogs was that if you kicked or hurt a frog, your mom’s breast would swell so bad and become septic. Thus, apart from my thick skulled brother — who grew up to become an engineer rather than a doctor as we all had hoped given his penchant for surgery on Wele’s creatures — every time village children came across Namakanda and its brethren, they’d let it jump itself away for fear of causing their mothers unnecessary pain.
As siblings, if any of us kicked a frog, mum would be informed pronto! The naughty sibling would then get a tongue lashing and the mandatory spanking. We all heeded our mother’s discouragement from being cruel to frogs. But there’s always ‘that child’. For us, my younger brother was that child. For another household in another time, it was Nabalayo.
Chapter 1
NABALAYO IN LOVE
One day a beautiful girl Nabalayo fell in love with a handsome Wambulwa. As per her peoples marriage customs, when a girl wanted to be married, the suitor was required to present himself in the girl’s home and introduce himself.
Nabalayo being Nabalayo, meaning ‘that child’, didn’t know where Wambulwa came from, his parents nor his clan. Prince charming on the other hand took advantage of Nabalayo’s naivety to rush things. He invited Nabalayo to sneak out of their home one night to pay him a visit. An ecstatic Nabalayo shared her plan with her sisters. However, what Nabalayo didn’t know was that Wambulwa was an ogre.
Nabalayo was born with five sisters, one of them Nakitumba had a hunchback. The other five fit the description intended when the Maragoli say; “Utarora nya vukana, avora baba yasyuva tsing’ombe.” Those who didn’t take in their mum’s beauty in her youth, are mistaken in thinking that their father might as well have thrown away the cows, instead of paying bride price.
Chapter 2
STUBBORN NAKITUMBA
The five sisters were justifiably afraid that Nabalayo being ‘that child’ might elope with Wambulwa. Moreover, it was common practice for maidens to accompany their peers (baloli) in the such trips in the hope that they could spot or be spotted. This is because the prospective husband would often be accompanied by his peers (bakoki). Besides, the five sisters were all of age. By Nabalayo the elder one ‘unclogging the jam’ by getting hitched; it was opening the way for them to also get married.
Then there was Nakhumicha and her uncanny view of life:
“Be humble my sister, your Wambulwa might turn out to be the ugliest of them all. From what I’ve heard, the men from those sides are dashing! Your Wambulwa after all is at best a 4/10.”
Nakhumicha was the mischievous one of the lot, and also the youngest. Her take on issues always got the sisters in trouble, as it made them giggle at the most inappropriate times. It was no different this time and the sisters heartily giggled in spite of the heavy life changing decision that await them now that they had agreed to the visit.
Therefore, to state that Nabalayo’s sisters were all excited to visit Wambulwa would be an understatement. Given their mischievous mission, when the night came, the sisters conspired to leave Nakitumba behind. They all agreed among themselves that Nakitumba was ugly and would bring shame on Nabalayo.
Nakitumba’s secret
But Nakitumba could hear none of that. However, she decided to be quiet about it and planned to secretly follow them.
“Wele Khakaba is a fair god, and will make up for the hunchback by gifting me beautiful children. The first step to that has to be finding a dashing man for a husband. Even if I don’t get one, it’s still a lifetime’s worth to spend time around such angelic beauty.”
Nakitumba thought to herself.
It’s the night and the five sisters take off, leaving Nakitumba behind. But Nakitumba takes off after them. The five sisters take a left turn once they get to the river, Nakitumba takes the left turn. The five sisters walk, Nakitumba walks. With Nakhumicha leading the way, the five sisters take a right turn, shortly after, Nakitumba makes the right turn. Realizing they are being shadowed, the five sisters stop and start insult Nakitumba. Nakitumba insults the five sisters back – five stinging insults, one for each one of them.
Not wanting their bed wetting and other shameful habits broadcasted, the five sisters give up. Defeated, they reluctantly allow Nakitumba to join them. Once they arrived at Wambulwa’s home, as if determined to make them live out their worst fears, Nakitumba started making weird demands.
In the strangest of them all, she wanted drinking water drawn from the nearby river. Not an entirely strange request, only that she insisted that she wanted the water drawn in a special basket known in lubukusu as sitelu. Sitelu is a small basket, the size of a bowl, made from reeds. It’s used to serve ugali.
Chapter 3
THE ESCAPE
Even under the glaring stares of her sisters, Nakitumba insisted that since she bore a hunchback, her drinking water had to be carried on a sitelu. Her sisters got offended by her nagging behavior. They even secretly regretted her birth, worse, her being their sister. But a unperturbed Nakitumba seemed only more determined to ruin the evening by standing her ground about the water. Wambulwa’s team yielded to the demand.
So, they dashed off to fetch water from the river. All this while Nakitumba had took note of a strange thing that non of her smitten sisters had seemed to notice: Iron teeth in the host’s mouth! Ever since the discovery, her spirit had not been at peace. Furthermore, Nakitumba’s instincts told her Wambulwa and company were not people but ogres. Noting that her sisters were all smitten, she had to keep her head through out the stay as she figured out an escape.
After the hosts left for the river, Nakitumba informed her sisters of her suspicion. As expected, Nakitumba’s observation sparked the inevitable cat fight. Barbs of ‘jealousy’,’beauty but no brains’ and other hurtful things rent the air. It took the intervention of the group’s silent leader Nakhumicha for a decision to be made.
Good from far, but far from good
Once again her wit came into play, by joking that Wambulwa and his bakoki were ogres alright, but only as far as looks go. She was grateful for Nakitumba for watching over them as “the Wambulwa’s were good form far, but far from good.”
With the sisters now in agreement, they thought it wise either way to make their escape from a future with husbands who were ogre level ugly. And so, they gathered their wits and headed back home running.
The hosts on the other hand kept fetching water in sitelu. By the time they could reach the river bank everything had drained off given that sitelu cannot hold liquids. This angered them so much that they decided to dash back and eat those stupid beautiful girls. Getting home, the house was empty, that only made them more angry and hungry.
The ogres decided to follow the girls using the route the girls used when coming. They kept running but could not see the girls. The more they ran the more they became angry. And the more their appetite to eat the girls grew.
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Chapter 4
NAMAKANDA TO THE RESCUE
The girls on the other hand could run no more. Besides, Nakitumba who couldn’t run as fast was slowing them. As they caught their breath underneath a large mukhuyu tree, they came across Namakanda idly croaking the night away.
Desperate, they girls asked Namakanda to assist them. They promised to reward Namakanda with anything she wanted if she safely delivered them to their home. Namakanda opened her mouth and swallowed all the girls. Namakanda the frog then topped her delightful midnight snack by feasting on some water weed, lubokha. Lubokha is a green slimy weed found in ponds. Although Namakanda was a meat eater, that day she age green matter for the sake of her new friends.
When the ogres came across Namakanda with a huge abdomen, they suspected that she might be carrying the girls in her stomach. But they thought that their suspicion didn’t make much sense. Nonetheless, having noted Namakanda’s uneasy nature, they asked her if she had seen some beautiful girls.
Namakanda and the ogres
Belching, Namakanda answered in the negative. Not once to be duped twice in a night, they chose to deploy the only tool they knew. After harassing her back and forth, they asked her to vomit what was in her belly.
Namakanda followed the ogres’ instructions. But when she vomited, the vomitus consisted only of smelly rotten lubokha and insects. Disgusting! They ogres, being the sadists they were, commanded Namakanda to lick up her vomit and sped off.
As the ogres sped off in pursuit of the girls, Namakanda hid herself in some reeds for some days. The ogres ran all the way but didn’t find the girls. Namakanda could hear them curse as they dashed back to their home.
Safe in her hideout, Namakanda took her time. When day broke, she jumped her way to the girls’ home. She found the girls’ mother preparing breakfast. However, the girl’s mother was sad and weary. When Namakanda walked in she asked the girls’ mother for drinking water and some food. The girls’ mother served her drinking water and, Namakanda being a guest, some ugali with chicken stew.
Chapter 5
NAMAKANDA SAVES THE DAY
After his branch Namakanda narrated the story of the girls and the Wambulwa the ogre. The girls’ mother was besides herself with joy! She ululated alerting villagers about her girls safe return. She then asked Namakanda to name anything she wished to be paid in return for the girls. Namakanda asked to be given a cow.
This incidence marked the beginning of the friendship between cows and frogs. It’s the reason why cows don’t step on frogs when drinking water by the river or whilst feeding on swampy land. It is also why frogs croak whilst in marsh so at warn cows from wandering too far and getting stuck in the mad.
As the good news spread, the whole village had slowly gathered around the girl’s home.
Namakanda then asked for a soft animal skin which was brought. After sitting on the skin, she asked the girls mother to take a bottle of oil and massage her belly. She started by vomiting lubokha and smelly insects, this disgusted the villagers who yelled and insulted Namakanda. After three attempts, one by one the girls started jumping out of Namakanda’s mouth.
Forgetting their earlier insults, there village erupted in song and dance. The beautiful girls had finally been found. Namakanda was given a cow as a reward. She spent the night at the girls home and left the following morning with her cow. May my story remain brief as I grow.
