As the body of Dr. Ezekiel Alembi was being laid to rest at around 5 pm in Ebwiranyi in Emuhaya constituency on Saturday, January, 2010, by the grave side, tears and emotions reigned. It was a funeral full of twinge, as a remarkable celebration of death. Perhaps the dirges performed by the two artist from Kisii, Nyanza Drama Officials, KU and the Banyore people were all meant to send the approachable Kenyan workaholic hero who wore many hats.

Significantly, in the abstract of his Thesis, a study of his people, Entitled ‘The abanyole dirge: “escorting” the Dead with song and dance’; Dr. Alembi observes: “Song and dance pervades the life and the world of the Abanyole. When they are sad, they sing; when they are happy, they sing; when a child is born, they sing and dance and when one dies, they also sing and dance. So strong is the singing and dancing tradition in this community that it can be described as lubricating oil that the Abanyole use on their wheel of life as they transact different facets of their being”. This was exactly the scenario in his own village, in his own funeral.

Who was Dr. Alembi to me?

As a literary icon, who deserves literary canonization, I knew Dr. while in High school through his writings. So simple yet thought provoking as laughable are his writing that one, especially who has had a taste of the village life in Africa would read them over and over. His book: Jaramogi Oginga Odinga- A rebel with a Course-successfully integrates modernity with the past, town and village and childhood and old age. Naming mobile phone ‘obilo’ by one of the characters, a Luo grandmother shows how language develops, the role of ICT in rapid globalization and need for preservation of our history.

Physically I came to know Dr. when I joined KU. It was however international essay writing competition organized by UN’s body-ITU that made us know each other in person Wining the fellowship in 2008 and representing Kenya in Egypt in ICT Conference is a life time achievement that I owe to Dr.
As a coordinator of the essay writing competition, selecting four finalists whose essays were to be assessed in Switzerland was no easy task fro him. The selected essayists, me and a colleague, Nancy, were not from the Department of literature and were not known to Dr. before. Dr. Alembi was honest, hated laziness, hated mediocrity and a best mentor to me. Taking the entire Saturday , from 10 AM to 6.30 PM with the four of us to guide us on the fundamental tenets of a wining essay, with occasional admonish for not learning fast and lots of hearty laughers and jokes, was no mean gesture.

After wining the fellowship, Dr. Alembi convinced the Vice Chancellor to host a dinner for the two of us with him and two DVCs-Prof Obura and Prof.Muluvi, on the eve of our flight to Egypt. As a result we won the rare Vice Chancellor’s fee waiver. We also had an interview, http://ko-kr.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=235745996071&topic=22870 / http://kenyanbooks.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/ku-essayists-excell/), in his office with a Sunday Nation literary critic-Joseph Ngunjiri.

I vividly remember how Dr. Alembi was very happy; saying the two of us had made the university proud, and him. On our way to the dinner, walking along beautiful KU streets, Dr. advised us; “don’t be like my lecturer who hid such opportunities only to share with the students he liked”. At the end of the fellowship program, ‘confused’ on how to say thank you, an idea rung in my mind. I bought for Dr. an inspirational book and wrote, ‘you have taught me how to live. Thank you’. Through Dr. I have managed to surpass I managed to surpass my childhood dreams- being published internationally. My essay was entitled: ‘Promoting Peace through ICT Compliant Youth’

My closeness with Dr. reached climax when he accepted to become my referee. RIP.

During the burial, I asked my self whether Dr. Alembi died happy or not. Related, after fine tuning our essays for a whole day, as we had late lunch of nyoma choma in his office, he brought in a debate as he usually did: “the goat we are feasting on, did it die happy?”

In my opinion based on the eulogies, Dr. Alembi was happy with his accomplishments. A library in his village, scholarships for the village children, taking Equity Bank to Western Kenya, mentoring thousands, publishing over 40 books, initiating KU 99.9 FM, heading Drama festivals for Schools and Colleges etc etc, Dr. is one person, one nationalist we have dearly lost.

The life guiding theme that I have inherited from Dr. is service to community; our talents we hold in trust. R.I.P Dr.Alembi.