Odera Street is located in downtown Kisumu, Kenya, slightly more than one kilometer from the Kisumu Railway Station to the Kisumu-Busia Highway. Odera Street intersects with Oginga Odinga Road, and after that intersection it continues as Kendu Lane. On the opposite side, away from Lake Victoria, Odera Street dead-ends into Mumias Street/Kisumu-Busia Road. The history... Read more »
The mixing of cultures can result in new practices, sometimes at the expense of long-held beliefs and traditions. Some groups, like the Luo in Kenya, seek to preserve and promote their traditional culture within the new, foreign culture expanding into their land. In seeking to preserve and promote their own culture, the Luo are trying... Read more »
The Luo who are the subject of this essay settled in the Western part of Kenya somewhere around 1400-1500 C.E. The Luo are about 4 million in population, and make up a large portion of the western Kenyan population today. This leads us to an important question – how were the Luo so successful in migrating,... Read more »
One of the most visibly unique features of Kisumu City is a building on the Jomo Kenyatta Sports Ground that resembles a traditional senior wife’s hut in a Luo homestead. The building is aptly named Od Mikayi–the house of the senior Luo woman, the first wife, in a Luo homestead. Although this essay is not... Read more »
The African continent, like other continents around the world, has many natural rock formations and other structural wonders with deep significance for the ethnic groups and communities living around them. One of these is Kit Mikayi. Kit Mikayi is a natural geographical site in Kenya with hallowed grounds that attract thousands of religious members who... Read more »
A Luo home or homestead, it is often said, is like a book – a book that tells you about the Luo culture, how the Luo view life, and how they view each other. More than 4 million Luo people live in Kenya, mainly in Nyanza, in the western part of the country Kenya. Several... Read more »
The Nyalenda Estate [or neighborhood], one of several informal settlements that ring Kisumu, is located approximately two kilometers to the south and southeast of the Kisumu city center. This estate was established and administered by the British during the construction of the Kenya-Uganda Railway. After Kenya’s independence, the administration of Nyalenda was passed on to... Read more »
Manyatta is a peri-urban estate [neighborhood] on the eastern outskirts of Kisumu, Kenya’s third-largest city. It is located in what might be called colloquially as the Kisumu’s “slum belt,” a group of informal settlements [hereinafter called slums] that have grown for decades skirting around the center and suburbs of Kisumu since Kenya achieved Independence. The... Read more »
Kenya became an independent country on December 12, 1963, and developed its own Parliament to deliberate on social, economic, and political policies that impacted the interests of Kenyan people. However, three decades since independence, Kenya’s Parliament, according to many people, has failed to live up to its billing. Many people view it as a discredited... Read more »