Luos are very intelligent people, brains that some, especially in the villages, are utilizing to make money using rather odd means.
Here are some of the crazy ways people make a living in Luo Nyanza.
1. Commercial mourning
Fake mourning has always been in existence in Luo Nyanza, only that its largely done by villagers seeking to solicit mercy from the bereaved family in exchange for guests' food.
But due to changing times, there has emerged a new era where people, especially the youth, are coming up with mourning teams hired for their services.
They will normally pretend to be friends of the deceased back in the city, and cry their hearts out when the truth of the matter is that they are on a pay.
2. Moving roofs to new houses.
Most of the houses in Luo Nyanza are made of mud, a situation that makes the roof, separate from the walls, and complete with its own frame.
In this case, the roof is basically not part of the remainder of the house, which has made it a job for some people to help move the roof elsewhere when needed, for a pay.
Their services come handy when one seeks to use the same roof he used in his 'simba' (young man's hut) in his own 'dala' (homestead), away from his father's homestead.
To avoid the cost of rebuilding the roof afresh, and poking more holes into the iron sheets, some people would rather seek these people to literally carry the roof to the new location.
3. Scaring birds away from the farm
For those of us from the rice-growing regions of Nyando and Muhoroni, there comes a stage where birds have to be kept off the fields at all cost, to prevent them from destroying the crop.
Luckily, there always are village folk who do this job; which includes spending the entire day in the fields shouting "shauu!" to scare the birds away.
Others would rather use 'sanjura' (a bamboo stick with a sharpened end), which they stick some firm clay mid on the sharpened end, hold the lower end and swipe the stick towards the birds, throwing the clay at them (the birds).
For those who cannot endure the scorching sun, they build a tiny cone-shaped house made up of rice stems on the lifted farm boundaries, popularly known as 'wii band'.
4. Intelligent fishing
When the birds are not around, the screamers use their time playing around with the canals bringing the water to the farms, as during such times, the water has been blocked from the main canal to allow the fields to dry up in readiness for harvest.
And since such canals, at this time, will have stagnant waters, the alternative hustle involves identifying the part of the canal which seems to have some life.
What follows is blocking one end of the canal and the other, using dry grass, draining the water using small basins, and piking the stranded fish which is later sold for an additional income.
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