16/07/2026
Chamgei, pikab Kutit! Chamgei, Kelekab Chego! Chamgei Kitwek! Chamgei kotab Asis, kotab Pik-tugul!
Hear this, all you houses of the Kalenjin natural nation, and hear it well, for among our people the drum does not beat for nothing, and the horn is not blown for an empty field.
Our elders say the fire that is tended never dies. Tomorrow, at Baraton University in the land of the Nandi, you will see a fire that has been tended since before the colonizer drew his first line on our land, and it is burning still.
The Nandi Council of Elders shall inaugurate and install Mzee Augustine Arap Kisorio as its Chairman. He is no stranger to the stool. He has stood faithfully as Vice Chairman beside Mzee Kitur, who continues to carry the staff of the whole Kalenjin Council of Elders, our Miyoot. And our elders teach that the one who has carried the calabash without spilling is the one trusted with the pot. Tomorrow the Nandi house raises him, and the whole natural nation stands as witness.
And the whole nation shall indeed be there. The Miyoot in its fullness. The chairmen of every house of the Kalenjin nation, the twelve and more communities of our people, shall sit together under one sky. Our elders say one finger cannot crush a louse, and one log cannot keep the fire through the night. Tomorrow the fingers become a fist of blessing, and the logs are gathered into one flame.
Now let the young ones come close and listen, for this is how a people remembers itself.
The staff of the Miyoot has never been grabbed. It has never been bought. It has only ever been handed. It rested first with Mzee John Sei of the Keiyo house. From his hands it passed to Arap Sang of the Kipsigis house. When illness visited him, his deputy Arap Cheruiyot held it steady, for our people know that a staff must never touch the ground. He handed it to Mzee James Lukwo of the Pokot house, may God rest his soul in the eternal highlands. And Mzee Lukwo handed it to Mzee Kitur, who holds it today, and who will one day hand it onward, as the river hands its water from land to land until it reaches the lake, the sea, the ocean. The water never fights the riverbed. It simply keeps moving, and it always arrives.
Count what was NOT needed for those successions. No court ordered them. No commission investigated them. No police supervised them. No army protected them. No treasury funded them. No politician engineered them and no preacher can fully explain them. Five governments have come and gone in Nairobi. The staff of the Miyoot has passed from hand to hand without one shilling and without one quarrel that outlived a fireside. That, my people, is deep, elaborate, soft community power. It was here before the state was born. It was here before the market opened its first stall. It will be here long after both have changed their names.
And do not think heaven is silent on this matter. When John the Revelator was shown the end of all things, he did not write that he saw Kenya standing before the throne. He did not see America there, nor Italy, nor Russia, nor any republic, nor any flag, nor any currency. Hear his own words: “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne.” Revelation 7:9. Think about that deeply. The passport expires at the border of eternity. The shilling and the dollar stop at the grave. But the peoples, the kindreds, the tongues, the natural nations, these walk into heaven still wearing their names. God did not register states in His book. He registered communities. What we are doing at Baraton tomorrow is not nostalgia. It is eternity rehearsing.
So remember this and teach it to your children until they can say it in their sleep: the state sits on the community. The market sits on the community. When the state shakes and the market closes its doors, it is the community that holds the child, buries the dead, blesses the marriage, feeds the widow, and keeps the peace. Our elders say the calf does not fear the night, because the cow is near. A people that feeds its community feeds the very ground that everything else stands on. A people that starves its community is sawing the branch it is seated on.
Mzee Rtd. John Sei of the Keiyo house has already sounded the call, and his words deserve carving into wood: communities matter, and every one of us should return and participate in our communities and our natural nations, in truth and in love. And you know what our people say: an elder does not speak twice. He has spoken once. The rest is on us.
So come, Nandi and Kipsigis. Come, Keiyo and Tugen. Come, Marakwet and Pokot, Sabaot and Terik, Ogiek and Sengwer, Endorois, Lembus, Arror and Samor, and every house of our nation. Come dressed in your dignity. Come with your children, so that their eyes may record what no book can teach and no phone can download. For our elders say the child who is not embraced by the village will one day burn it down to feel its warmth. Tomorrow, let the village embrace its children in full view.
And come, our neighbours of every nation and every tongue. You are not spectators, you are family of the valley. For the fire of one homestead warms the whole ridge, and a blessing spoken in Nandi tomorrow shelters everyone standing near enough to hear it.
Tomorrow, all roads lead to Baraton.
Come and witness. Come and remember. Come and be counted among those who kept the fire. 🔥
Sialo Kimiring
Community Champion, and Co-Convenor, United Nations of Africa (una.africa)
