“Rooster the African Rain King”

As little girls of age three and five, Nyobande and I liked to play in the rain when our mother was away in the village market selling groundnuts. But what we liked most was the hailstones and we spent time keeping the stones under our armpits believing it would stop the tickling feeling and that no one could snatch away anything from us by tickling our armpits. Sometime I think of that and I smile run through my face. One day, it was not the usual rain, it was a thundering rain with heavy lightening and hail. None of us could play out and we kept quiet inside our small grass thatched house and closed the two wooden windows, but we could still see flashes of lightening through the cracks on the wooden window. We couldn’t hear the hail because of the grass thatched roof, but we could hear rain water pouring onto a small iron gutter my mother had fitted to collect rain-water. It was getting late in the evening and mother had not arrived. Usually she came at latest 6pm but this time she took a little bit longer and we got worried and started fire to keep us warm while still waiting. We heard foot-steps outside. It was mama and had been rained and dripping wet with her doughnuts soaked in water from the rains. But we quickly ate all. Mama took off her wet cloths and put on dry cloths and we all sat by the fire while she prepared dinner – a dried fish called “Obambla”. It’s usually smoked Tilapia fish from Lake Victoria and served with “Ugali’ maize meal that she harvested at her peasant farm. Mama told us that she met thunder walking along the water streams on the narrow path from the village market and that the thunder is a big red Rooster. When flying it rages with red hot flames or fire and can kill anyone if found playing in the rains or rain water afterwards. That was the end of our playing in the rain with Nyobande. In the remote part of western Kenya, the belief of thunderstorm that’s accompanied by rains being a red ROOSTER is still kept in this village and for young children none attempts to play in the rain. The myth of thunderstorm as “THE RED ROOSTER” remains unquestioned to the villagers, and during heavy thunderstorms, goats are sacrificed to make peace with the king of African rain being the red Rooster. This was a traditional sacred story in that village..

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 13.10.2009

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