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July 11-17, 2014 / The Nairobian I Page 29
CapitalFe ature _
Why Luhyas love radio,
the bicycle and'ingokho'
--
Majority of tho se wbo sen t salaams over th e
radio were mostly from the Luhya community.Th e
com munity ha s a historical affinity to the transistor radio .
"The Luhya community places great value to
family and community and in the days of yore,
greeting each other' mulembe' especially after a
war, was very common," explains Luke Mulunda, a
journalist.
"It's considered a way of social cohesion and
with urbanisation, the radio became an important
means of sending greetings in keeping with the
com munity's age-old tradition, with the benefit of
celeb rity status. Having a radio therefore became
more th an a status symbol for the Luhyas .," he
adds.
"The bicycle is also very common among mem bers of the Luhya community because as traders,
the Luhyas find it to be an affordable means of
then, diehard fans like me used
to be very popular and loved by
many:' Okumbe recalls.
"I bough t my first card in 1985
and never stopped until KBC lost
its monopoly and many stations
started popping up in the late 90s,
making greeting programmes lose
the glamour they used to have."
Introduction of FMstations
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To buy cards in large quantities,
fans formed salaam clubs. Some attracted thousands of members and
became very popular.
"Unlike the som etim es crazy
nam es people on social media use
today, th e salaam clubs had sed ate ,
but dignified titles," Robi nostalgically recalls. ''The re were clubs like
'Miami' an d 'Immac ulate' (which
was ours with 22 members), 'Busters: 'Che rangani' and 'Execut ive:
I particularly rem emb er th e Misango Fans Club, which was made
of th reeJ JToth ers Isaac Ingaga
Okonda, Walter Otuma Okonda
and Jonathan Igale Okonda".
These sentiments are echoed
by another veteran salaams fan,
Dan 'lanaam' Okumbe from Mbita,
Hom a Bay County. who says fan
clubs were very important tools for
promoting national unity.
Met wives through salaams
"We formed Afrika International
Salaams Club in the 80s headed by
Amos Ngaira in ord er to unite our
fans and raise our profiles:' recalls
Okumbe, now a chief in Wanyama
Location , Rusinga Island .
"We used to have fans across the
coun try whom we would meet during get-togeth ers in major towns
like Nairobi, Momb asa, Nakuru
and Kisurnu",
He says the meetings were good
social and networking forums ,
with some young men even meeting th eir would -be wives during the
sessions.
"I miss those days, because
Just like Okumbe, 'Fantastic Man:
Boaz Kizito Lijoodi from Bwishina
Kiwanja Ndege, a longtime fan of
radio greeting programmes. says
that he retired from the hobby
after the introduction of FM radio
stations.
"The problem with many stations is that you send somebody
greetings in one station, yet they
are tuned to another, so they don't
get the mes sage," Lijoodi laments.
"So, people will always complain
that you don't reply to their greet ings, but it's becaus e you are not
tuned to the same station:'
Having been introduced to
salaams by an old man in his
Bwishina Ndege Village in Kakamega County in 1983,Lijoodi claims
to have becom e so popular that his
cards would be taken directly to
KBCstudios rath er than through
the post al office system.
"I came to Nairobi in 1989 and got
a job at th e Nairobi City Council ,
where I work to date , an d was in-
transporting farm produce to an d from th e market:' Mulunda explains. .
Unlike their counte rparts from the ce ntral region and other parts of th e cou n try, Luhyas are no t
very particular about donkeys, and so the bicycle
hold s sway in Western Kenya.
To the Luhya community, owning a radio,
bicycle and chicken tingokho; was, and still largely
remains. important.
"Those who owned radios in the village were
very influential. People would gather around radios
in shopping centres and listen to commentaries of
AFC Leopards' matches," he recalls.
"They would even contribute to buy the dry
cells. To date. the key status symbols in Luhyaland still are the chicken. radio and bicycle . Every
homestead must have these three, otherwise you
are considered poor".
troduced to several KBC broadcasters:' he recalls.
"Byth e time I was going.back
to the village, I was so popular tha t
1was like a king. I was even more
popular than the local chiefl"
Like many fans, he says he
misses the old days because of
the popularity they used to enjoy
wherever they went.
Francis Kadenge Omwana
wa Leah, who head ed Madiaba
Salaams Club in Nairobi, was also a
famous salaams fan.
Speaking to The Nairobian on
phone, he lamented that with
digitization, radio stations have
switched to call-ins and texting instead of the vintag e greeting cards .
Kondo Ali Kondo from TZ
"As salaams fans, we complained
to the KBC managing director because they removed all the Nation al Service greeting programmes, yet
they were still selling th e cards to
us:' Kadenge, who is no relation to
the legendary footballer, says.
"We now have two salaam programmes on Monday and Friday,
which is good enough for us fans."
Having sent his first greetings
card in 1978after being introduced
to salaams by his elder brother and
inspired by arde nt fans like Kondo
AliKondo from Tanzania, the
forme r civil servan t rose to prornjnence to become one ofthe faces
- Mwaura Samora
of the greeting programmes.
"Chaguo Lako by OJ Eddie
Fondo used to be my favourite
.#show because we had the chance
of choosing the music we wanted
played:' Omwana Wa Leah says.
"There used to be a show at the
""'.
end of the week in which the club
with the highest number of cards
would win a prize. so it became like
a competition".
Connected city to ruralists
Veteran broadcaster AliSalim
Manga, who read salaams echoes
the fans' sentiments. saying that
in the days of KBG's monopoly, salaam s were a very big phenomenon
that connected people in the city
with their rural folks.
"The strangest thing is that most
KBC broadcasters, including me .
didn't know the faces of these fans.
since radio was not very interactive
then as it is today:' Manga, now
retired, says.
"We rarely met them, and this
happened only when KBG-had
outside broadcasting programming
like during the Nairobi Agricultural
Show.The fans would come and
have a chat with us:'
Although som e stations broadcasting in Kiswahili still have
greeting programmes. none can
attain the mass popularity that the
national broadca ster enjoyed in the
1980s and 1990s.
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