After the census, being a Luo isn’t easy

By OTIENO OTIENO, jkotieno@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Saturday, September 4 2010 at 13:06

It has not been easy being a Luo this past week.

Whichever way you turned, you met folks eager to remind you that the census results released on Tuesday showed that your tribe had since dropped to fourth on the population list behind the Kikuyu, the Luhyia and the Kalenjin.

This has also been the subject of cheap talk on FM radio.

“How could the Kalenjin overtake you after the Luhyia did the same in the last census?” one asked.

Population experts will try to give answers in the coming days.

But due to the sensitive nature of the question, they will find themselves constrained in how much detail they can offer publicly.

So I will attempt to read their minds here.

Among other things, I can see them pointing to the graves of my kinsmen who have died of complications related to HIV/Aids since 1984 when the first case was reported in Kenya.

Sad, but probably true. Don’t ask me for scientific evidence I don’t have. Neither does this justify the moronic notion that the pandemic only kills Luos.

All I know is that my own personal loss includes very close relatives and friends. And some died shortly after the spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend.

A primary school head teacher in Kisumu once told me how shocked she was to learn that half of her pupils were orphans.

In the early days of the pandemic, health experts reported high prevalence rates in the districts on our side of Nyanza in their surveys.

The reports suggested that – like everybody else – we were ill-prepared for an enemy which attacked where it hurt most and required people to defend themselves with unfamiliar weapons like condoms or abstinence.

But we appeared to be particularly defenceless for cultural reasons.

In the villages, people confused it for the Chira curse and wife inheritance helped spread the virus around.

The urbanite sought to brush it off with weak-kneed bravado, some joking that “a bull dies with grass in its mouth”.

But thanks to awareness campaigns and changing attitudes, the worst seems to be behind us.

The last time I visited the village, it was a brave new world.

A number of people flocked to the VCT tent at the local trading centre to know their HIV status.

In Kisumu town, snip was hip — young men easily walked in and out of circumcision clinics. Keep hope alive.