The furthest my memory collection can go is with me, a toddler in my village grandparents’ home. I knew they loved me. I could tell that they loved me. To me, they were kaka (grandma) and data (dad/papa). I also knew that there was someone I called auntie who visited from time to time and had treats for everyone but had particularly special treats for me. She bought me nice white boots so I could play in the ever Misty compound, farms and banana plantation, even in the mud and rainy water, all the time feeling cool compared to the other kids around me. She had my hair braided and put beads to hang from all sides. To me, she was my fairy godmother; she was no ordinary auntie but that’s what every child called her and so did I. She visited very often; sometimes may times in a week. I always had an endearing feeling of her presence.
I visited her in the nursing school with other little cousins from the village and it looked to me like she lived in paradise. I didn’t feel denied of the clean beautiful place with bright white walls, bright electric lights and fresh clean running water, white toilet seats because I didn’t quite comprehend who she was supposed to be to me. I didn’t feel entitled whatsoever to anything she had given me so far. I just felt loved, secure and grateful knowing that she was somewhere close and that she always showed up. And when she did show up, I got fresh clean and nice clothes, I ate “fancy” biscuits or had whole grain wheat samosas stuffed with rice, drank ribena black currant juice out of a small box pack (only on occasion but I remember it).
I didn’t see anything wrong with my setup. My grandparents, my auntie and her two babies in the house, my fairy auntie on the other side of the village, a bit far for my little legs but not too far either since she did turn up a lot. I knew we were connected in a super special way but since she joined nursing school when I was very little I only carried with me a spiritual connection deep within my soul that I knew was profound. She also made sure I was showered with all the love she could gather whenever possible.
When I went to primary school for my first time, my fairy auntie came home once again. She prepared for me juice in a bottle and put fresh boiled corn in a container, packed a bag with small booklets and sent me off to school with my cousins and other kids. The journey on foot wasn’t bad. I had moved this distance countless times. Please do not judge my stupid little mind harshly but I freaked out and hid the container in a small valley near the school. So I went hungry that day and came home with no container and with a hungry stomach. Much as she was disappointed, she was very gentle with me.
That week, another child called me a bastard in our local language. I didn’t know that was a thing. I also didn’t know that I was supposed to be ashamed for not knowing who my father was or for not having one. As far as I was concerned, I had a woman who loved me immensely and took care of all my needs, two grandparents who to me were parents, aunties and uncles who were all accrued to our very humble rural fabric and it was sufficient family to me. I had no one to ask about the meaning of this. I did not even consider asking. We were not very communicative people, like most village African families.
In the second year of my primary school, my fairy auntie finished studying and started working in this hospital where she had studied. Her graduation day was ecstatic. The entire family was overjoyed but nothing matched the joy of my grandparents. My fairy auntie who I knew had to be something more than that to me was clad in a white dress and white shoes and a yellow belt. I watched as the nurses moved as though in uniform steps towards the podium, took their oath and sang the nurses’ anthem. They sang melodious hymns in a jubilant mass that was led by a white father of the missionaries of Africa, who was also my parish priest. That day, I ate the kind of food that I do not remember eating before that day – our village food was definitely nothing like that. I drank more soda than I had ever drunk in my short life.
After she geaduated and started to work in the hospital, she came home and took me to live with her. All I can say about the life that followed after this is; I had never felt so safe and secure in my whole life ! I then learnt she was my mother, mom, mummy, mother dear. I didn’t want to know anything else. I was home (where my fairy aunt now mother was).
Mother dear. 