Author Archives: dove

#3 Difficult child (?) Sorry mum

You know how everyone grows up and begins to think, “how did my parents cope?” That’s me on some occasions especially when I think about my early childhood. I was a terrible eater and extra playful. I was thin and I remember being sick and being in hospital a lot for either one of these things at least once a week: it was either allergies for being negligent in the cold, malaria fever or wounds from falling off adult bikes. My very humble village family didn’t have kids bikes but I could easily come across adult bikes and my elder brother – then cousin taught me how to ride. I didn’t want to get off a bike from the moment I learnt to peddle and it drove my mother crazy.

Aside from my love for bicycles in a culture where it was believed that one could lose their virginity from riding a bicycle, I also climbed trees. This too was so unladylike in this my very conservative village. My poor mother threatened me with all sorts of possible scenerios: my head could break, my neck, legs or I could die – all very viable threats. I did break my skin but thank heavens my head, neck and bones remained intact.

One thing though I remember hurt her to the core. One day, she did not complain, advise or quarrel at me. The one thing that broke her heart was in my third class. I had got so accustomed to the environment and was beginning to feel less pressure at school. I had a clean and neat uniform, breakfast and break snacks, a nice school bag and a bad influence cousin. She did not care much for school. She was rebounding this class and it didn’t seem to weigh her down one bit. I followed her lead when she said to go out and play instead of attending classes after break or to go to my grandma’s house early and feast on some fruits and lunch even before it was lunch time. That term, a comment on my report read, “She can do better but she is too playful in class “.

My mother, seeing how I was taking for granted everything that was being handed to me from sweat and tears, walking very far from the path that she was laying before me towards the dreams she carried in her delicate heart, she was lost for words. I could see that she was disappointed in me and that alone was enough to smack my brain into steadiness. She made me sit on a mat outside our little apartment and refused any help from me and said nothing to me. The only reprimand I got was her disappointment.

I did not want this woman to ever be disappointed in me again. In fact, Everytime I thought of doing something stupid, I always thought; I can not disappoint my mother even though she lets me make my own choices and started trusting me from a young age to make the correct ones. I wanted to do everything in appreciation of her love and to live up to her expectations. I could not imagine being a failure in her eyes.

On the day I graduated from University, she appreciated me for having an independent mind and for being everything she never would have taught me. I held my own, I was a leader at all possible levels of leadership a student can achieve throughout school and she claims she had nothing to do with that. Well mum, of course you had everything to do with that. I am because you are. You taught me to think and you listened to me even when I didn’t speak much. You took on responsibilities that were not even your obligation when you decided to change your parents’ house the best way you could with every penny you had. You offered counsel to my elder cousins and I listened attentively as you told them education was our way out. Everytime you sent me off to boarding school with my brother you said we were going away from home with everything you could possibly give and if there was anything more you’d give it.

Thanks mummy for not giving up on me even when I was not very easy to raise to the point when I started making you a bit proud.

#2 The promise

When I started living with my mum, I don’t know at what age but I was really small, my mum took me with my grandmother to the city to visit my uncle, her elder brother. She says we had been on this journey when I was very little but I was too little to recollect any memories from trips before this one. The roads were not yet as good as they are now especially in the very steep hills leading to small towns then big ones then even bigger ones. It was quite an adventure.

The reason this particular journey stands out for me is that she started opening my eyes as a very small girl to dream. She must have been deliberate in showing me the world beyond our small village and our pretty undeveloped small district. My mother had studied in the city with the help of her two elder brothers before coming back to the village to join the nursing school. This nursing school is one of the best though. She kept showing me nice places and telling me their names. She however put the most emphasis on big schools.

As we approached the city, she pointed to an exotic looking school, St. Lawrence London college and then Paris Palace and then to Buddo college. She told me to look keenly at these magnificent places and remember whenever I go to school that if I can work very hard and become the best student in my class, she will do whatever it takes for me to join any school of my choosing. This was a great promise which she followed through. Disclaimer: I did not go to these schools but I went to the school of my choosing which to me was better than these ones.

Now that I am reflecting on the gifts and sacrifices of my dearest mother, I think that she looked at this little girl, brought into her life without a plan but whom she received as a blessing and took care of as a precious thing. She probably began to look at me and dream of all the things I could be. I saw her work so hard to live to this promise. She took me to a Catholic boarding school away from my village and from my district at a time when she was earning so little and taking care of fees and some needs for my brother and a few cousins and trying to be helpful to her elderly parents. When I think right now about how little she earned I wonder how she was able to do the things that she did. This specific move was made to bring me closer to the dreams she held for me.

My mother did very many things to live up to this promise. We shall have time to talk about all the selfless things including how I don’t remember her buying clothes and shoes like many women I met and continue to meet even though she was working. She has lived her everyday for us; pouring every ounce of love into her children, nieces, nephews, parents, siblings.

But today was about the promise. I am because a village girl dreamed for her child instead of shunning me from hate and disappointment for the youth that I stole from her.

#1 People’s bastard; mummy’s child.

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).