Why Kisiis don't smoke

Smoking is a life-shortening habit, but so is too much salt, sugar and even sex. Cigarette advertising has been banned in Kenya and tobacco companies can't sponsor sporting events. Remember the days of Marlboro Safari Rally? They are not even allowed to fund the construction of cancer units in referral hospitals.

Bold and scary warnings proclaim how puffing affects virility, fertility and mortality. But still, Kenyans are not leaving their smoking ways, with up to 15 billion cancer sticks going up in smoke between people's lips every year in the country.

In central Kenya, three out of 10 people are smokers, while only one out of 50 people smoke in Kisii.

Nyanza, and Kisii in particular, has the lowest prevalence of smoking.

Kisii parents rarely worry about their children picking up smoking as a habit. They have serious issues to contend with, like cheating in national exams!

The Kenya Health and Demographic Survey 2008-2009 reveals that only 7.9 per cent of the population in Nyanza smokes, compared to 30 percent of men in central Kenya.

In Kisii villages, the number of smokers is countable. There are reasons why Mokayas don't smoke, but dying young is not one of them.

Stephen Ogachi runs a shop in Ogembo, Kisii County, and says children of the Omogusii are not exposed to smoking as "not many adults smoke to expose the young to the habit, unlike in other parts of the country."

The main reason smoking is this low is because of one thing: religion.

One of the more dominant religious denominations in Kisii County is the Seventh Day Adventist that follows a very conservative ideology. Besides their strict adherence to biblical commandments, especially the Sabbath, Adventists are also strict on matters health, an obsession attributed to Ellen G. White, the co-founder of the church.

Their 10th baptismal vow reads: "Do you believe that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and that you are to honour God by caring for your body, avoiding the use of that which is harmful, abstaining from all unclean foods, from the use, manufacture, or sale of alcoholic beverages, the use, manufacture, or sale of tobacco in any of its forms for human consumption, and from the misuse of, or trafficking in, narcotics or other drugs?

This vow is anchored in the Bible. The book of I Corinthians 6:19 reads: "Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own."  Actually, the whole chapter is a manual for spiritual purity that the church so much works hard at.

Combined with the reverent writing of Ellen G. White that defines the theology of the church, it is not difficult to see why many Adventists shun cigarette smoking.

Adventists are often derided for their abstinence from meat, narcotics and alcohol. In some homes, even tea and coffee are frowned upon. Although not all Adventists observe the law to the letter, alcohol and cigarettes are totally out of bounds.

Since religion influences a people's way of life, Adventist shopkeepers, all of whom close their businesses on Saturdays in Kisii, rarely stock cigarettes.

With the coast already occupied by Muslims and the area between taken by the Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, and African Inland Church, the Adventists found virgin religious space in South Nyanza, Kendu Bay and Kamagambo. They also moved to Kisii, putting up a church in Nyanchwa.

Within 30 years, they had built churches, hospitals and a publishing house in South Nyanza.