Hussein Onyango, no mean Saddam, just a simple practical man who brooked no guff – very much a critter of his time and place – stickler for justice and thus stubborn in the eyes of kin and kith… very few friends, if he had any friends at all; a vintage green-thumb he possessed that could make even moss grow fruits, a mixed blessing of a gift from the Brits whose colonial tutelage he had imbibed with zest, not that he had any much of a choice… short-order cook of first order, Hussein Onyango from whom it all began… then again, he merely might have just been a scapegoat of a trait whose germ began with the proverbial primal-pair; that spunky spirit of self-will, that insistence not to cross and be crossed, or cross and have the head of your stray goat finely halved like a slice of bread – Hussein Onyango, fabled patriarch, askari captain, proud and vigilant protector of his pride and shamba… and so off to Alego we go in search of ourselves and the land on which it all began; the Terror who was no terror at all, just a practical and simple man minding his own business and being sternly mindful of others’ private palavers not spilling into his own – and so off to Alego we go to revive our souls, refresh our roots, affirm our sense of being… tinkling rhythmic pulse of leftover locomotives over verdant landscape callously scarred by European enterprise and raw greed… still, the land radiates with splendor and pride; still, the land exudes the charming calmness that comes with experience and growth… Hussein Onyango… 11/25/10 By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.