Meaning of Bukusu proverb kukhoya kwabirira emukali; a proverb of great comfort when life deals us bad luck.
One morning, just this May, my family woke up to sad news. The night to that subuyi had been wet from a heavy downpour, the type my people call embembesi. Our compound rests on a flat land thus there was water everywhere. My chandangu was submerged in water. The garage was not spared either.
Our maize crop had literaly migrated from our farm to our neighbors farm. The few that had defied the surface runoff had their roots exposed. But this was not the sole reason for the sadness that morning. The rain had reigned havoc on the chicken house too. As a result most of the walls of the chicken house had given way. Its roof on one side of the structure had collapsed completely. One of my better brooder hens that had hatched 10 chicks less than a week ago was retrieved floating in water. All the kienyeji chicken I had been keeping for the past one year or so were gone.
A misfortune
I had lost everything from that project. 50 chicken, 5 roosters and 15 cockerels. I was so pained by the occurrence. It felt like my family wouldn’t survive past this. Not only was the chicken project a regular source of income, my family heavily relied on our farm bred chicken as the primary source of protein.
No more omelettes or poached eggs for my family’s traditional Saturday branch. Or at least they will come at an additional cost.
What shall we be roasting every other Friday night when we gather around the fireplace to unwind?
What will my children feel seeing the lifeless chicken (gifts from their basenje, bakocha and bakhuku that they had reared to maturity) floating in water?
I stood there staring at the what remained of my kienyeji chicken project fighting back tears. My husband tried to comfort me in vain. Scrambling for something to comfort me, he uttered something about how the rain seemed to stalk my everything. With that comment, as I half laughed at myself, I felt big droplets of hot tears flowing down my cheeks.
My little misfortune was a good thing after all, as so advised by the Bukusu proverb kukhoya kwabirira emukali
A couple of hours later spent cleaning up the mess, my mother called. She was calling me about other stuff, but the moment I saw her call, my frustration flooded back. As we the Bukusu say, everyone is somebody’s baby so I started crying afresh as I narrated my ordeal to her.
She has a way of calming me down. First, a prayer, then a life lesson. This time round, it was the Bukusu proverb kukhoya kwabirira emukali. This is a bukusu saying that simply means it should pass by another route.
It is a proverb meant to counsel those befallen by bad luck not to remain fixated on the sad situation. They are encouraged to take it that they are lucky to be alive and healthy. Find the silver lining in every cloud so to say. The bad luck that had come knocking on the victim’s door had decided to spare them, instead going with something else; like animals, the chicken house in my case.
This Bukusu proverb kukhoya kwabirira emukali has since been a great comfort whenever I face bumps or challenges in my life.
