Odanga left his home among the Vashimuli in Kakamega believing that he was going to be a brave warrior. At this time, places like Ikambi ya Mwanza, Ikambi ya Khayega, and other places whose names have since changed, served as depots for the conscripts once they had left their villages. Though Odanga had volunteered, there were many men who’d been taken forcefully. These depots were prison-like and guarded to prevent these men from escaping. In my conversation with Patrick Abungu, the Heritage Manager at CWGC, we talked about the possibility that Odanga walked from Khayega to Maseno. The Google Maps application tells me that I could take ten hours, using the existing roads in 2024. Though there were already existing routes to use, there were many dangers here. It was the first of many long treks, at first to places which had been places of joy, nostalgic recollection, and longing.

With fatigue and the increasing unfamiliarity of his surroundings, Odanga’s worries might have increased. Perhaps he considered this a test of his strength and was proud that he was not among those who fell by the wayside, exhausted, or succumbing to illnesses that hadn’t been detected during the recruitment. Perhaps he’d expected a ceremony, a ritual for each conscript who died. Maybe he wasn’t at all bothered that there was not enough time for cleansing of those who’d had the task of burying the dead. There was no time. This, was even before they had seen real battle.

These men boarded the ligare (the Lwisukha and Lwidakho name for train derived from the word carriage). This was probably Odanga’s first glimpse of a ligare, billowing smoke, the rickety carriage he piled into, and sat or stood in the constant cacophony of unfamiliar sounds. Metal striking metal, screeching, and the engine’s hooting. The smells–body odour, from open pus-filled wounds and rotting flesh on unshoed feet, wet metal, wet garments.

At this point there were still lots of familiar faces; neighbours, people he’d met at Khayega, people he’d walked with to Maseno or Kisumu. Perhaps he was starting to feel the enormity of the task ahead of him just based on the number of people he travelled with. Squeezed in those carriages, he might have suffered motion sickness and felt sick already from the strange food he was eating. He’d left behind the worries of a recent hut tax decree, and other new levies that previous generations had never had to deal with. Maybe he had plans for the Rupees he expected to receive.

The train took them through changing scenery and landscapes—hills, valleys, big rivers, lakes, roaming wildlife. There were places they’d only heard of, and then others they’d never heard of, all of these places where they had never been. The train’s constant hum turned into a song whose lyrics they composed. It got cooler, making it harder to fall asleep. How long did this journey take from Kisumu to Londiani? In Molo, they stopped to bury some more. The journey went on like this, starting and stopping, and burying some more in Nakuru, Kijabe, Uplands, Limuru, Muguga, Kikuyu, and finally Nairobi. Odanga must have wondered how far their destination was. Once in Nairobi, those who had survived this journey marched to the Carrier Corp Depot, later known as Kariakor.

On a Tuesday afternoon in June 2024, I went to the Kariakor Cemetery located in a central part of Nairobi, at a busy section neighbouring residential flats, houses, markets, churches, motor vehicle garages, and the Kariokor Crematorium. Used wooden pallets available for sale and repurposing were stacked high along the footpath closest to the cemetery. There were two separate signboards; one arrow-shaped sign pointing in the direction of Nairobi (Kariokor) Cemetery, and another towering high above the stacked pallets indicating that the cemetery is a Museums of Kenya National Heritage site but all I could see ahead of me was the unwelcoming tall green iron sheet wall around my destination. 

I introduced myself to the guard at the gate and told him I’d come to see the graves, and though he appeared surprised, he opened the gate and let me inside the cemetery. Though I had pieced together what I imagined would have been Odanga’s journey, I was curious about what I would learn from being at this cemetery. Later I would be joined by a team from CWGS, Heritage Manager, Abungu along with three of his colleagues who I’d roped into my search for Odanga. What helped in my search was finding out that Abungu had a great uncle Ogoyi Ogunde who like Odanga, did not return to his home after the war. They’d guide me through this visit, creating a clearer image of how Kariakor had been during the First World War.

In front of me was a grassy field, smaller than a standard football pitch, with a few trees shading rows of graves. Pied crows flew in and out intermittently walking and pecking at the ground. I wandered around the grey headstones which were surrounded by gravel. These graves were mostly of casualties from the Second World War, some from the Gold Coast Regiment and others from the East African Army Medical Corps. I read out loud some of the names inscribed on these gravestones: Chatha, Alifusi, Kezironi, Kisule, Mwinzi, Karani, Sungwe, Jonyo, Paolo, Yowana, Kobina… I wondered if these people’s kin knew where they had been buried. There were other graves, unmarked or with crosses as headstones because the cemetery had also been open for non-military burials. 

Odanga would have arrived at the Carrier Corp Depot, which is now the location of Kariakor Market, a short walking distance away from the cemetery. Were it not for the high wall surrounding the cemetery, it would be possible to see the market from inside the cemetery. There had also been a temporary field hospital for conscripted carriers and soldiers, many of whom died before ever going into battle. They were buried in this cemetery, in different sections determined by their race and religious beliefs. However, over time large sections of Kariokor Cemetery had been encroached on and overrun in part because, like me, local residents didn’t feel any connection with this site and had more pressing needs for housing and space to conduct their businesses. 

Odanga would have spent an unclear amount of time waiting at the Kariakor Depot, guarded much like a prisoner until a signal was sent from the frontline requesting for more carriers like him to be dispatched. 

In Kariakor, Odanga encountered many people who didn’t speak in languages he understood. He could have tried as best as he could to acquaint others with where he’d come from and who his people were. He’d be disconcerted that many people had never heard of them, just as he’d never heard of their people. At least there was shared anticipation, a common dislike of the food rations, and probable asking around for where one could find something else to eat.

This proceeding journey further separated Odanga from more of the people he knew and replaced them with people whose mannerisms were different. Already, he must have seen more dead, seen festering wounds and strange illnesses than he’d ever known about. So far, his body had not betrayed him. Leaving the Carrier Depot in Nairobi, the carriers journeyed to the Kenyan coast, aboard another train, surrounded by more strangers.

If Odanga was among those who survived the journey to Voi, to Maktau and Taveta, it was by some miracle he had escaped the dysentery, meningitis, pneumonia, bronchitis, or smallpox that caused so many deaths around him. When rail transport stopped, Odanga must have walked for endless sunny days, bearing loads, digging drains, making roads, putting up huts, cooking, and burying fallen comrades. Much of this work was done around the sound of gunshots, unpredictable explosions, and the terror that kept them from cooking food properly because they didn’t want the enemy to see their lit fires.

It’s almost impossible to know exactly what happened to my family’s Odanga, mainly because the often-deliberate poor record-keeping makes this task unsurmountable. On record:

Standard policies also dictated that African burials outside the permanent cemeteries would only be considered candidates for exhumation and concentration if they were authenticated as practicing Christians or Muslims. To guard against ‘arousing Native superstition’, it was decided that the remains of all other African soldiers and carriers would not be interfered with and the ground in which they stood would be allowed to revert to its natural state as rapidly as possible.

I have since learnt the CWGC has taken on the task of locating the unmarked graves of the African casualties of the First World War, in Kenya and in Tanzania. In an unknown future, perhaps it will be possible to have more detail about what happened to my great-grandfather, Odanga. I could learn where he died, and where he was buried, but I wonder if this will ever be enough⎈