Sometimes a song with a good hook speaks volumes.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Among Strangers
I came across this fascinating story and thought I should share it with those who sometimes follow this blog. Hopefully, you will receive it with an open mind and gain knowledge & wisdom from the underlining message of this well written story.
Shame on you!"
That was what she said, spitting on the dry ground at the same time. I only found out the meaning of what she said days later after I had forced my cousin to translate it for me. After I had had trouble sleeping because I could not erase the bitter look in her eyes from my mind or the sad pitying look that followed it.
"Shame on you!" She said so in Igbo.
They say that language unites a people. That was the common saying. That was why wherever you may find yourself in the world, no matter how remote the place is, when you find someone who speaks your tongue, you are immediately brothers or sisters. You are one because your language unites you. My language instead alienates me from my people. It has made me an outcast, a stranger to my kinsmen. It was long coming and some how I knew.
I remember when I was about five or six years old, mother was sitting in the veranda with two of her sisters and they were laughing with tears streaming from their eyes as they enjoyed their girly gossip. They were as animated with their gestures as they always were when they spoke in their language – Igala. I was always fascinated by their gatherings because I was acutely aware that I was an only child and also because they were so different from me. I was a male child. I wore my short knickers and singlet most of the time and was forever enthralled by mother's flowing skirts and traditional blouses and wrappers – lapas, which she wore sometimes. Many times I would stick my small head under her skirt to stare up at the darkness. I remember being shocked once when I had crawled under her legs just after she had taken a shower and to my horror when I looked up I saw she had only a turf of hair there and no penis like I did. I remember that also because she had screamed loudly, dragged me from beneath her and slapped me silly until I cried for hours. But this particular day when I was about five or six, I remembered picking out some words of what mother and her sisters had been saying and practising them over and over again that afternoon. The next time they were gathered together in their small laughing-weeping group I had surprised them all when I suddenly announced shyly:
"Oma Onekele…"
A grave silence followed after that. Three pairs of eyes stared hard at me. Three mouths dropped open in surprise almost all at once. Three pairs of eyes all looked back at one another and suddenly burst out laughing again with inevitable tears of joy in their eyes.
"What did you say?" Mother asked.
I looked around me in discomfort. They were all staring at me with muted interest and awe. I suddenly felt so small and insignificant in their presence. Three pairs of eyes gawked at me. Six arms folded in interest and my stomach sank in fear.
"Oma Onekele." I said again bravely.
"What does that mean?" Aunty Mercy asked deliberately.
Three pairs of eyes stared hard at me.
"It means boy!" I answered cautiously.
Three mouths dropped open in surprise almost all at once. Their eyes met each other and suddenly burst out laughing again.
"You mean you understand all we talk about?" Mother asked shrewdly.
I nodded even though I only understood a little of what they said, but I was too intimidated to say so.
"Oma Onekele," aunty Gold cooed. "Don't tell your father o!"
Three pairs of eyes stared hard at me. I acquiesced and they looked away to continue with what they were discussing. This time they switched to Hausa and I was forgotten.
I remembered that day so well because of what aunty Gold said. Don't tell your father o! You see my father was an Ibo man married to an Igala woman. My father spoke only English when he was at home with us because he believed strongly that his child should be well educated and must learn to speak English the queen's way. No vernacular was permitted at home whatsoever. I have heard him speak Igbo many times with his friends, relations and even with mother. My mother even though Igala was brought up in Kano with her sisters and thus could speak Hausa and over the years she had learnt how to speak Igbo and Yoruba to boot. She was a well-rounded Nigerian in my mind. But still I was never allowed to speak vernacular at home. I always wondered whether this rule was an attempt by my father to ensure that I do not take up my mother's tongue instead of his. Why else would aunty Gold make me promise not to let my father know that I understood what they said sometime?
I guess a part of me had always been curious about how my father came to marry my mother, a non-Igbo. From what I knew of my father then, he was a very proud man, some say a unique trait of the Igbo, but I believe each tribe has its own sense of self-importance. My father had been a young, handsome and very driven man in his days, so mother told me when I was still quite little and her eyes still shone lovingly when she spoke of him. A lot of people who knew him then at the University College Ibadan described him as the most promising young economist major in the Social Science Faculty. He was bright and he was proud and he believed he was better than the whites that thought them then. He mastered the English language and even dazzled his lecturers with the scope of his vocabulary. His friends mocked him jokingly, referring to him as; "Onye Ocha, Nna di Oji." White man, whose father is black.
Mother met father in those days. They fell in love and language united them. Inter-tribal unions were very rare then, mother used to say, but she had found a good man and language was not going to keep them apart. Those days, she spoke Igbo like an Ada Obi – an Igbo chief's first daughter. Not many men could resist her charms then, she often boasted, not the least father.
Years later when I was a little older and father had taken to coming home very late and very drunk; I shed many silent tears when I watched my mother worry about this 'Ononojo' – Stranger – who we no longer recognised. She still had group sessions with her sisters, but only this time, there was no laughter present in their gatherings, instead many, many tears. Icried silently too. Because by this time, I no longer understood her language nor did I understand the language of my father. I didn't know then, but I was lost.
Not long after father changed, after mother and her sisters called him Ononojo and after I had shed many silent tears, Grandma Nne came to live with us for a short while. She was very old and was suffering from a liver problem and as father was her eldest son, it was decided that she would move in with us. Old she may have been, but she still had her wits about her. And that old hatred for my mother, who was never her choice and who sacrilegiously was not Igbo.
Grandma Nne spoke only Igbo and all of a sudden my home was filled with the strange language. I was still not permitted to speak vernacular or broken English at home, yet I had to think up a way to communicate with Grandma Nne who regarded me with the same evil eye she cast on my mother most times.
No one could really blame me then for not knowing how to speak any of the languages of my parents for lack of trying. I tried. I tried every night before I fell asleep and in the morning when I woke up, but the words and meanings eluded me. Sometimes, I would feel the words coming to me, baiting me ever so seductively, but as soon as I opened my mouth to say something the words withdrew themselves back to their secret place in the corner of my mind – not quite hidden, just barely there, enough to tease and taunt me. Enough to make me give up trying eventually.
It was a harrowing experience the first time I witnessed my parents' fight. It rained that night. I remember it so clearly because I had been frightened by the claps of thunder outside and the cruel darkness the house was thrown into after the electricity tripped off. I got out of bed and made my way toward my parents' room. I stopped by their door. It was opened slightly and I could see mother standing with her hands on her hips, tears in her eyes as she shouted at father. Father glared at her and warned her to shut up. They both were speaking in English. I understood every word they exchanged; every abuse they hurled at each other. I watched father hit mother and the force of his blow pushed her face the other way and as mother crouched in pain, her eyes caught mine. I stood frozen to the spot. I watched mother approach me. When she got to the door, she slammed it shut in my face. Shutting me out.
Grandma Nne's moving in was the straw that finally broke the camel's back. Her fights with my mother were legendary. They ranged from the mundane to the totally bizarre. You see, there was that episode when she explicitly told mother that she could not eat meat due to her weak teeth and that mother should not bother putting any in her meals and as soon as mother carried out her instructions, she ran crying to father with her meatless meal, complaining to him that his wife "my mother" wanted to starve her in her son's house. Mundane! There was also that time she accused my mother of being a witch who was sucking her blood at night. Bizarre! Yes, their fights were legendary but Grandma Nne's coming played its part in destroying our family. As father's excesses grew, she encouraged him night after nights. On the night mother packed her bags and left with me in tow, she had overheard them talking of father's other wife in the village, father's true Igbo wife. He had another family that we knew nothing about. It seemed nothing then could save our family.
Mother had confronted them, but I knew nothing of what they all said. Grandma spoke rapidly in Igbo so did father. And mother, in her tears, responded in Igbo – even though she was not one of their own. Many times they all pointed at me and I just sat still, listening to all the strange words being hurled about and feeling so out of place and helpless. I didn't share their language with them. It was the language that bound them together; the same language that severed me from them. Even at that age, I worried that there was no place for me in their world or this world.
We left that night, mother and I. I remember we stayed with aunt Mercy for a little while and when her husband began to fidget we moved in with aunt Gold until mother found somewhere small for us to move into. It was tough afterwards, but we survived from year to year.
In those passing years, I could not shake off that old instruction from my old home about not speaking any form of vernacular and thus I grew up to be an adult who could speak no local language. I tried listening to mother and her sisters when they met, but it was no longer there, my ability to pick out their words and learn their meanings. It was as if one had erected a huge iroko tree to shield the sun from shining through. That was how it felt when I heard a local language; it was as if something was blocking me from deciphering its meaning.
So, that hot August afternoon as I stood in my father's compound in his village, waiting to see his dead body and pay my last respect, I felt like an alien among his kinsfolk. They spoke to me in their language, waiting for me to respond, but all I could do was offer an appeasing smile while I shook my head. I knew my discomfort was visible in my eyes and they all saw it. I was a full-grown man now and mother had told me to go for his burial, he was after all my father. I agreed and came, knowing that I was the one who had finally become a stranger. I was now the "Ononojo".
"Shame on you!" My stepmother said bitterly as she spat in front of me.
She said so in a language I had disassociated myself from. These days, it never occurs to me to think of myself as an Igbo man. In my subconscious I am a black man, an African man and finally a Nigerian man. For a long time now, there has not been room for any language to claim a part of my identity.
Looking at her brought back a flood of memories, most of them not so pleasant. She was after all the other woman, the Igbo woman who made it possible for my mother to raise me alone. She spoke of shame in a tone that exonerated her from any, yet she was the one who had the most to be ashamed of. Not once had my father made any attempt to find me after mother and I left all those years past. I remember I wrote him some letters and one in particular when I had finally gotten admission into Kings College. I thought he would be proud of me, but I heard nothing from him. I gave up then.
I feel no shame. Maybe some regrets, but no shame whatsoever. When the red cloud of dust rose as the vehicle taking me away from the village sped off I was glad somewhat that the link that tied me to my father and his people like an umbilical cord was finally severed by my father's death and burial. Now, they would always be strangers to me and I to them.
© Jude Dibia, 2006
Shame on you!"
That was what she said, spitting on the dry ground at the same time. I only found out the meaning of what she said days later after I had forced my cousin to translate it for me. After I had had trouble sleeping because I could not erase the bitter look in her eyes from my mind or the sad pitying look that followed it.
"Shame on you!" She said so in Igbo.
They say that language unites a people. That was the common saying. That was why wherever you may find yourself in the world, no matter how remote the place is, when you find someone who speaks your tongue, you are immediately brothers or sisters. You are one because your language unites you. My language instead alienates me from my people. It has made me an outcast, a stranger to my kinsmen. It was long coming and some how I knew.
I remember when I was about five or six years old, mother was sitting in the veranda with two of her sisters and they were laughing with tears streaming from their eyes as they enjoyed their girly gossip. They were as animated with their gestures as they always were when they spoke in their language – Igala. I was always fascinated by their gatherings because I was acutely aware that I was an only child and also because they were so different from me. I was a male child. I wore my short knickers and singlet most of the time and was forever enthralled by mother's flowing skirts and traditional blouses and wrappers – lapas, which she wore sometimes. Many times I would stick my small head under her skirt to stare up at the darkness. I remember being shocked once when I had crawled under her legs just after she had taken a shower and to my horror when I looked up I saw she had only a turf of hair there and no penis like I did. I remember that also because she had screamed loudly, dragged me from beneath her and slapped me silly until I cried for hours. But this particular day when I was about five or six, I remembered picking out some words of what mother and her sisters had been saying and practising them over and over again that afternoon. The next time they were gathered together in their small laughing-weeping group I had surprised them all when I suddenly announced shyly:
"Oma Onekele…"
A grave silence followed after that. Three pairs of eyes stared hard at me. Three mouths dropped open in surprise almost all at once. Three pairs of eyes all looked back at one another and suddenly burst out laughing again with inevitable tears of joy in their eyes.
"What did you say?" Mother asked.
I looked around me in discomfort. They were all staring at me with muted interest and awe. I suddenly felt so small and insignificant in their presence. Three pairs of eyes gawked at me. Six arms folded in interest and my stomach sank in fear.
"Oma Onekele." I said again bravely.
"What does that mean?" Aunty Mercy asked deliberately.
Three pairs of eyes stared hard at me.
"It means boy!" I answered cautiously.
Three mouths dropped open in surprise almost all at once. Their eyes met each other and suddenly burst out laughing again.
"You mean you understand all we talk about?" Mother asked shrewdly.
I nodded even though I only understood a little of what they said, but I was too intimidated to say so.
"Oma Onekele," aunty Gold cooed. "Don't tell your father o!"
Three pairs of eyes stared hard at me. I acquiesced and they looked away to continue with what they were discussing. This time they switched to Hausa and I was forgotten.
I remembered that day so well because of what aunty Gold said. Don't tell your father o! You see my father was an Ibo man married to an Igala woman. My father spoke only English when he was at home with us because he believed strongly that his child should be well educated and must learn to speak English the queen's way. No vernacular was permitted at home whatsoever. I have heard him speak Igbo many times with his friends, relations and even with mother. My mother even though Igala was brought up in Kano with her sisters and thus could speak Hausa and over the years she had learnt how to speak Igbo and Yoruba to boot. She was a well-rounded Nigerian in my mind. But still I was never allowed to speak vernacular at home. I always wondered whether this rule was an attempt by my father to ensure that I do not take up my mother's tongue instead of his. Why else would aunty Gold make me promise not to let my father know that I understood what they said sometime?
I guess a part of me had always been curious about how my father came to marry my mother, a non-Igbo. From what I knew of my father then, he was a very proud man, some say a unique trait of the Igbo, but I believe each tribe has its own sense of self-importance. My father had been a young, handsome and very driven man in his days, so mother told me when I was still quite little and her eyes still shone lovingly when she spoke of him. A lot of people who knew him then at the University College Ibadan described him as the most promising young economist major in the Social Science Faculty. He was bright and he was proud and he believed he was better than the whites that thought them then. He mastered the English language and even dazzled his lecturers with the scope of his vocabulary. His friends mocked him jokingly, referring to him as; "Onye Ocha, Nna di Oji." White man, whose father is black.
Mother met father in those days. They fell in love and language united them. Inter-tribal unions were very rare then, mother used to say, but she had found a good man and language was not going to keep them apart. Those days, she spoke Igbo like an Ada Obi – an Igbo chief's first daughter. Not many men could resist her charms then, she often boasted, not the least father.
Years later when I was a little older and father had taken to coming home very late and very drunk; I shed many silent tears when I watched my mother worry about this 'Ononojo' – Stranger – who we no longer recognised. She still had group sessions with her sisters, but only this time, there was no laughter present in their gatherings, instead many, many tears. Icried silently too. Because by this time, I no longer understood her language nor did I understand the language of my father. I didn't know then, but I was lost.
Not long after father changed, after mother and her sisters called him Ononojo and after I had shed many silent tears, Grandma Nne came to live with us for a short while. She was very old and was suffering from a liver problem and as father was her eldest son, it was decided that she would move in with us. Old she may have been, but she still had her wits about her. And that old hatred for my mother, who was never her choice and who sacrilegiously was not Igbo.
Grandma Nne spoke only Igbo and all of a sudden my home was filled with the strange language. I was still not permitted to speak vernacular or broken English at home, yet I had to think up a way to communicate with Grandma Nne who regarded me with the same evil eye she cast on my mother most times.
No one could really blame me then for not knowing how to speak any of the languages of my parents for lack of trying. I tried. I tried every night before I fell asleep and in the morning when I woke up, but the words and meanings eluded me. Sometimes, I would feel the words coming to me, baiting me ever so seductively, but as soon as I opened my mouth to say something the words withdrew themselves back to their secret place in the corner of my mind – not quite hidden, just barely there, enough to tease and taunt me. Enough to make me give up trying eventually.
It was a harrowing experience the first time I witnessed my parents' fight. It rained that night. I remember it so clearly because I had been frightened by the claps of thunder outside and the cruel darkness the house was thrown into after the electricity tripped off. I got out of bed and made my way toward my parents' room. I stopped by their door. It was opened slightly and I could see mother standing with her hands on her hips, tears in her eyes as she shouted at father. Father glared at her and warned her to shut up. They both were speaking in English. I understood every word they exchanged; every abuse they hurled at each other. I watched father hit mother and the force of his blow pushed her face the other way and as mother crouched in pain, her eyes caught mine. I stood frozen to the spot. I watched mother approach me. When she got to the door, she slammed it shut in my face. Shutting me out.
Grandma Nne's moving in was the straw that finally broke the camel's back. Her fights with my mother were legendary. They ranged from the mundane to the totally bizarre. You see, there was that episode when she explicitly told mother that she could not eat meat due to her weak teeth and that mother should not bother putting any in her meals and as soon as mother carried out her instructions, she ran crying to father with her meatless meal, complaining to him that his wife "my mother" wanted to starve her in her son's house. Mundane! There was also that time she accused my mother of being a witch who was sucking her blood at night. Bizarre! Yes, their fights were legendary but Grandma Nne's coming played its part in destroying our family. As father's excesses grew, she encouraged him night after nights. On the night mother packed her bags and left with me in tow, she had overheard them talking of father's other wife in the village, father's true Igbo wife. He had another family that we knew nothing about. It seemed nothing then could save our family.
Mother had confronted them, but I knew nothing of what they all said. Grandma spoke rapidly in Igbo so did father. And mother, in her tears, responded in Igbo – even though she was not one of their own. Many times they all pointed at me and I just sat still, listening to all the strange words being hurled about and feeling so out of place and helpless. I didn't share their language with them. It was the language that bound them together; the same language that severed me from them. Even at that age, I worried that there was no place for me in their world or this world.
We left that night, mother and I. I remember we stayed with aunt Mercy for a little while and when her husband began to fidget we moved in with aunt Gold until mother found somewhere small for us to move into. It was tough afterwards, but we survived from year to year.
In those passing years, I could not shake off that old instruction from my old home about not speaking any form of vernacular and thus I grew up to be an adult who could speak no local language. I tried listening to mother and her sisters when they met, but it was no longer there, my ability to pick out their words and learn their meanings. It was as if one had erected a huge iroko tree to shield the sun from shining through. That was how it felt when I heard a local language; it was as if something was blocking me from deciphering its meaning.
So, that hot August afternoon as I stood in my father's compound in his village, waiting to see his dead body and pay my last respect, I felt like an alien among his kinsfolk. They spoke to me in their language, waiting for me to respond, but all I could do was offer an appeasing smile while I shook my head. I knew my discomfort was visible in my eyes and they all saw it. I was a full-grown man now and mother had told me to go for his burial, he was after all my father. I agreed and came, knowing that I was the one who had finally become a stranger. I was now the "Ononojo".
"Shame on you!" My stepmother said bitterly as she spat in front of me.
She said so in a language I had disassociated myself from. These days, it never occurs to me to think of myself as an Igbo man. In my subconscious I am a black man, an African man and finally a Nigerian man. For a long time now, there has not been room for any language to claim a part of my identity.
Looking at her brought back a flood of memories, most of them not so pleasant. She was after all the other woman, the Igbo woman who made it possible for my mother to raise me alone. She spoke of shame in a tone that exonerated her from any, yet she was the one who had the most to be ashamed of. Not once had my father made any attempt to find me after mother and I left all those years past. I remember I wrote him some letters and one in particular when I had finally gotten admission into Kings College. I thought he would be proud of me, but I heard nothing from him. I gave up then.
I feel no shame. Maybe some regrets, but no shame whatsoever. When the red cloud of dust rose as the vehicle taking me away from the village sped off I was glad somewhat that the link that tied me to my father and his people like an umbilical cord was finally severed by my father's death and burial. Now, they would always be strangers to me and I to them.
© Jude Dibia, 2006
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Golden Life, Living!
Today I woke up feeling pretty darn good. Maybe because it's Friday, maybe because I went to bed feeling good. Whatever the case may be, I am in an awesome mood. Around 10 a.m. today this song pops into my head. I Am Living My Life Like It's Golden. That will be my theme song; right now, anyway. I pray that I am able to keep this new found spirit around because these last few weeks have been a bit challenging. I was talking with a co-worker who I consider to also be a friend and I was coming to talk to her about my problems that now seem small compared to what she is dealing with and going through. I once heard my pastor preach a sermon about receiving a blessing at someone else's expense. In my effort to tell my friend about my problem, she burst into tears about what was going on in her life. Wow! I wasn't expecting that. I was hoping she would be able to counsel me, but instead it ended up I had to counsel her. Anyway, from her sharing her major problem with me it helped me to realize that there is always someone dealing with more serious issues than myself. I have been blessed at the expense of someone else. I am living my life like it's golden. I have good health, no major financial constraints, drama free and best of all, I worship a God that loves me no matter what and no man will or shall come before him. Peace.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
An Ex-Mas Feast
An Ex-mas Feast
Now that my eldest sister, Maisha, was twelve, none of us knew how to relate to her anymore. She had never forgiven our parents for not being rich enough to send her to school. She had been behaving like a cat that was going feral: she came home less and less frequently, staying only to change her clothes and give me some money to pass on to our parents. When home, she avoided them as best she could, as if their presence reminded her of too many things in our lives that needed money. Though she would snap at Baba occasionally, she never said anything to Mama. Sometimes Mama went out of her way to provoke her. "Malaya! Whore! You don't even have breasts yet!" she'd say. Maisha would ignore her.
Maisha shared her thoughts with Naema, our ten-year-old sister, more than she did with the rest of us combined, mostly talking about the dos and don'ts of a street girl. Maisha let Naema try on her high heels, showed her how to doll up her face, how to use toothpaste and a brush. She told her to run away from any man who beat her, no matter how much money he offered her, and that she would treat Naema like Mama if she grew up to have too many children. She told Naema that it was better to starve to death than go out with any man without a condom.
When she was at work, though, she ignored Naema, perhaps because Naema reminded her of home or because she didn't want Naema to see that her big sister wasn't as cool and chic as she made herself out to be. She tolerated me more outside than inside. I could chat her up on the pavement no matter what rags I was wearing. An eight-year-old boy wouldn't get in the way when she was waiting for a customer. We knew how to pretend we were strangers—just a street kid and a prostitute talking.
Yet our machokosh family was lucky. Unlike most, our street family had stayed together—at least until that Ex-mas season.
The sun had gone down on Ex-mas eve ning. Bad weather had stormed the seasons out of order, and Nairobi sat in a low flood, the light December rain droning on our tarpaulin roof. I was sitting on the floor of our shack, which stood on a cement slab at the end of an alley, leaning against the back of an old brick shop. Occasional winds swelled the brown polythene walls. The floor was nested with cushions that I had scavenged from a dump on Biashara Street. At night, we rolled up the edge of the tarpaulin to let in the glow of the shop's security lights. A board, which served as our door, lay by the shop wall.
A clap of thunder woke Mama. She got up sluggishly, pulling her hands away from Maisha's trunk, which she had held on to while she slept. It was navy blue, with brass linings and rollers, and it took up a good part of our living space. Panicking, Mama groped her way from wall to wall, frisking my two-year-old twin brother and sister, Otieno and Atieno, and Baba; all three were sleeping, tangled together like puppies. She was looking for Baby. Mama's white T-shirt, which she had been given three months back, when she delivered Baby, had a pair of milk stains on the front. Then she must have remembered that he was with Maisha and Naema. She relaxed and stretched in a yawn, hitting a rafter of cork. One of the stones that weighted our roof fell down outside.
Now Mama put her hands under her shuka and retied the strings of the money purse around her waist; sleep and alcohol had swung it out of place. She dug through our family carton, scooping out clothes, shoes, and my new school uniform, wrapped in useless documents that Baba had picked from people's pockets. Mama dug on, and the contents of the carton piled up on Baba and the twins. Then she unearthed a tin of New Suntan shoe glue. The glue was our Ex-mas gift from the children of a machokosh that lived nearby.
Mama smiled at the glue and winked at me, pushing her tongue through the holes left by her missing teeth. She snapped the tin's top expertly, and the shack swelled with the smell of a shoemaker's stall. I watched her decant the kabire into my plastic "feeding bottle." It glowed warm and yellow in the dull light. Though she still appeared drunk from last night's party, her hands were so steady that her large tinsel Ex- mas bangles, a gift from a church Ex- mas party, did not even sway. When she had poured enough, she cut the flow of the glue by tilting the tin up. The last stream of the gum entering the bottle weakened and braided itself before tapering in midair like an icicle. She covered the plastic with her palm, to retain the glue's power. Sniffing it would kill my hunger in case Maisha did not return with an Ex- mas feast for us.
Mama turned to Baba, shoving his body with her foot. "Wake up, you never work for days!" Baba turned and groaned. His feet were poking outside the shack, under the waterproof wall. His toes had broken free of his wet tennis shoes. Mama shoved him again, and he began to wriggle his legs as if he were walking in his sleep.
Our dog growled outside. Mama snapped her fingers, and the dog came in, her ripe pregnancy swaying like heavy wash in the wind. For a month and a half, Mama, who was good at spotting dog pregnancies, had baited her with tenderness and food until she became ours; Mama hoped to sell the puppies to raise money for my textbooks. Now the dog licked Atieno's face. Mama probed the dog's stomach with crooked fingers, like a native midwife. "Oh, Simba, childbirth is chasing you," she whispered into her ears. "Like school is chasing my son." She pushed the dog outside. Simba lay down, covering Baba's feet with her warmth. Occasionally, she barked to keep the other dogs from tampering with our mobile kitchen, which was leaning against the wall of the store.
"Jigana, did you do well last night with Baby?" Mama asked me suddenly.
"I made a bit," I assured her, and passed her a handful of coins and notes. She pushed the money under her shuka; the zip of the purse released two crisp farts.
Though people were more generous to beggars at Ex- mas, our real bait was Baby. We took turns pushing him in the faces of passersby.
"Aii! Son, you never see Ex- mas like this year." Her face widened in a grin. "We shall pay school fees next year. No more randameandering around. No more chomaring your brain with glue, boy. You going back to school! Did the rain beat you and Baby?"
"Rain caught me here," I said.
"And Baby? Who is carrying him?"
"Naema," I said.
"And Maisha? Where is she to do her time with the child?"
"Mama, she is very angry."
"That gal is beat-beating my head. Three months now she is not greeting me. What insects are eating her brain?" Sometimes Mama's words came out like a yawn because the holes between her teeth were wide. "Eh, now that she shakes-shakes her body to moneymen, she thinks she has passed me? Tell me, why did she refuse to stay with Baby?"
"She says it's child abuse."
"Child abuse? Is she now NGO worker? She likes being a prostitute better than begging with Baby?"
"Me, I don't know. She just went with the ma-men tourists. Today, real white people, musungu. With monkey."
Mama spat through the doorway. "Puu, those ones are useless. I know them. They don't ever pay the Ex-mas rate—and then they even let their ma-monkey fuck her. Jigana, talk with that gal. Or don't you want to complete school? She can't just give you uniform only."
I nodded. I had already tried on the uniform eight times in two days, anxious to resume school. The green- and- white-checked shirt and olive-green shorts had become wrinkled. Now I reached into the carton and stroked a piece of the uniform that stuck out of the jumble.
"Why are you messing with this beautiful uniform?" Mama said. "Patience, boy. School is just around the corner." She dug to the bottom of the carton and buried the package. "Maisha likes your face," she whispered. "Please, Jigana, tell her you need more—shoes, PTA fee, prep fee. We must to save all Ex-mas rate to educate you, first son. Tell her she must stop buying those fuunny fuunny designer clothes, those clothes smelling of dead white people, and give us the money."
Now that my eldest sister, Maisha, was twelve, none of us knew how to relate to her anymore. She had never forgiven our parents for not being rich enough to send her to school. She had been behaving like a cat that was going feral: she came home less and less frequently, staying only to change her clothes and give me some money to pass on to our parents. When home, she avoided them as best she could, as if their presence reminded her of too many things in our lives that needed money. Though she would snap at Baba occasionally, she never said anything to Mama. Sometimes Mama went out of her way to provoke her. "Malaya! Whore! You don't even have breasts yet!" she'd say. Maisha would ignore her.
Maisha shared her thoughts with Naema, our ten-year-old sister, more than she did with the rest of us combined, mostly talking about the dos and don'ts of a street girl. Maisha let Naema try on her high heels, showed her how to doll up her face, how to use toothpaste and a brush. She told her to run away from any man who beat her, no matter how much money he offered her, and that she would treat Naema like Mama if she grew up to have too many children. She told Naema that it was better to starve to death than go out with any man without a condom.
When she was at work, though, she ignored Naema, perhaps because Naema reminded her of home or because she didn't want Naema to see that her big sister wasn't as cool and chic as she made herself out to be. She tolerated me more outside than inside. I could chat her up on the pavement no matter what rags I was wearing. An eight-year-old boy wouldn't get in the way when she was waiting for a customer. We knew how to pretend we were strangers—just a street kid and a prostitute talking.
Yet our machokosh family was lucky. Unlike most, our street family had stayed together—at least until that Ex-mas season.
The sun had gone down on Ex-mas eve ning. Bad weather had stormed the seasons out of order, and Nairobi sat in a low flood, the light December rain droning on our tarpaulin roof. I was sitting on the floor of our shack, which stood on a cement slab at the end of an alley, leaning against the back of an old brick shop. Occasional winds swelled the brown polythene walls. The floor was nested with cushions that I had scavenged from a dump on Biashara Street. At night, we rolled up the edge of the tarpaulin to let in the glow of the shop's security lights. A board, which served as our door, lay by the shop wall.
A clap of thunder woke Mama. She got up sluggishly, pulling her hands away from Maisha's trunk, which she had held on to while she slept. It was navy blue, with brass linings and rollers, and it took up a good part of our living space. Panicking, Mama groped her way from wall to wall, frisking my two-year-old twin brother and sister, Otieno and Atieno, and Baba; all three were sleeping, tangled together like puppies. She was looking for Baby. Mama's white T-shirt, which she had been given three months back, when she delivered Baby, had a pair of milk stains on the front. Then she must have remembered that he was with Maisha and Naema. She relaxed and stretched in a yawn, hitting a rafter of cork. One of the stones that weighted our roof fell down outside.
Now Mama put her hands under her shuka and retied the strings of the money purse around her waist; sleep and alcohol had swung it out of place. She dug through our family carton, scooping out clothes, shoes, and my new school uniform, wrapped in useless documents that Baba had picked from people's pockets. Mama dug on, and the contents of the carton piled up on Baba and the twins. Then she unearthed a tin of New Suntan shoe glue. The glue was our Ex-mas gift from the children of a machokosh that lived nearby.
Mama smiled at the glue and winked at me, pushing her tongue through the holes left by her missing teeth. She snapped the tin's top expertly, and the shack swelled with the smell of a shoemaker's stall. I watched her decant the kabire into my plastic "feeding bottle." It glowed warm and yellow in the dull light. Though she still appeared drunk from last night's party, her hands were so steady that her large tinsel Ex- mas bangles, a gift from a church Ex- mas party, did not even sway. When she had poured enough, she cut the flow of the glue by tilting the tin up. The last stream of the gum entering the bottle weakened and braided itself before tapering in midair like an icicle. She covered the plastic with her palm, to retain the glue's power. Sniffing it would kill my hunger in case Maisha did not return with an Ex- mas feast for us.
Mama turned to Baba, shoving his body with her foot. "Wake up, you never work for days!" Baba turned and groaned. His feet were poking outside the shack, under the waterproof wall. His toes had broken free of his wet tennis shoes. Mama shoved him again, and he began to wriggle his legs as if he were walking in his sleep.
Our dog growled outside. Mama snapped her fingers, and the dog came in, her ripe pregnancy swaying like heavy wash in the wind. For a month and a half, Mama, who was good at spotting dog pregnancies, had baited her with tenderness and food until she became ours; Mama hoped to sell the puppies to raise money for my textbooks. Now the dog licked Atieno's face. Mama probed the dog's stomach with crooked fingers, like a native midwife. "Oh, Simba, childbirth is chasing you," she whispered into her ears. "Like school is chasing my son." She pushed the dog outside. Simba lay down, covering Baba's feet with her warmth. Occasionally, she barked to keep the other dogs from tampering with our mobile kitchen, which was leaning against the wall of the store.
"Jigana, did you do well last night with Baby?" Mama asked me suddenly.
"I made a bit," I assured her, and passed her a handful of coins and notes. She pushed the money under her shuka; the zip of the purse released two crisp farts.
Though people were more generous to beggars at Ex- mas, our real bait was Baby. We took turns pushing him in the faces of passersby.
"Aii! Son, you never see Ex- mas like this year." Her face widened in a grin. "We shall pay school fees next year. No more randameandering around. No more chomaring your brain with glue, boy. You going back to school! Did the rain beat you and Baby?"
"Rain caught me here," I said.
"And Baby? Who is carrying him?"
"Naema," I said.
"And Maisha? Where is she to do her time with the child?"
"Mama, she is very angry."
"That gal is beat-beating my head. Three months now she is not greeting me. What insects are eating her brain?" Sometimes Mama's words came out like a yawn because the holes between her teeth were wide. "Eh, now that she shakes-shakes her body to moneymen, she thinks she has passed me? Tell me, why did she refuse to stay with Baby?"
"She says it's child abuse."
"Child abuse? Is she now NGO worker? She likes being a prostitute better than begging with Baby?"
"Me, I don't know. She just went with the ma-men tourists. Today, real white people, musungu. With monkey."
Mama spat through the doorway. "Puu, those ones are useless. I know them. They don't ever pay the Ex-mas rate—and then they even let their ma-monkey fuck her. Jigana, talk with that gal. Or don't you want to complete school? She can't just give you uniform only."
I nodded. I had already tried on the uniform eight times in two days, anxious to resume school. The green- and- white-checked shirt and olive-green shorts had become wrinkled. Now I reached into the carton and stroked a piece of the uniform that stuck out of the jumble.
"Why are you messing with this beautiful uniform?" Mama said. "Patience, boy. School is just around the corner." She dug to the bottom of the carton and buried the package. "Maisha likes your face," she whispered. "Please, Jigana, tell her you need more—shoes, PTA fee, prep fee. We must to save all Ex-mas rate to educate you, first son. Tell her she must stop buying those fuunny fuunny designer clothes, those clothes smelling of dead white people, and give us the money."
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Say You're One of Them
As an avid reader and supporter of Oprah's Book Club, I am savoring this month's selection Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan. This book is a collection of five short stories told from a child's unpretentious prospective. Each story's setting takes place in different countries of Africa, from the sandy beaches of Sierra Leone to jungles of Kenya. Ukem is from Nigeria and he is a Jesuit Priest; switch points out the readiness of biblical terminology and awareness.
Brilliantly authored, An Ex-Mas Feast is the first short story that captures my interest and compels me to want more out of life for Miasha. Miasha is the reason why I love this story, because her story touches my heart. Not only does she make me see things she goes through, she almost makes me feel them. Maisha is a twelve-year-old prostitute that sells her body to provide for her family's welfare. Approvingly, the family applauds the fact that Maisha is lending her body to rich white men who drive fancy cars and desire Maisha's body. Maisha's life's story is an amazing survey of prostitution in Africa and what it could mean for other women like her. In the end Maisha does finally decide to leave home; however, Ukem does not tell the specifics of her where-a-abouts after that. By ending the story this way Ukem has left me to delineate my own hopes and wishes for her future.
The second short story, Fattening for Gabon touched my soul. This story was very emotional and the realism gave new meaning to slavery and what it means to be family. It is not my intention to give the story away, so you must read it for yourself. I assure you, you will not be disappointed.
I am on to the third story, Luxurious Hearses. I am about twenty pages into this sensational story. It has definitely made me reevaluate my religious beliefs and be more considerate of others.
In addition to reading Ukem’s book, I recently completed an oldie but favorite American Classic, Native Son by Richard Wright. Native Son captured my interest like no other book that I have ever read. I strongly advise every person of color to read this book. Bigger Thomas is the main character and his story is something to behold. Set in Chicago during the 1940’s, Native Son shed a new light on me in the respect of what it must have been like to me an African American male during that time period. You will not be able to put this book down.
Okay people, I am getting tired. So until next time stay focused and let a book take you to unimaginable places. Live.
Brilliantly authored, An Ex-Mas Feast is the first short story that captures my interest and compels me to want more out of life for Miasha. Miasha is the reason why I love this story, because her story touches my heart. Not only does she make me see things she goes through, she almost makes me feel them. Maisha is a twelve-year-old prostitute that sells her body to provide for her family's welfare. Approvingly, the family applauds the fact that Maisha is lending her body to rich white men who drive fancy cars and desire Maisha's body. Maisha's life's story is an amazing survey of prostitution in Africa and what it could mean for other women like her. In the end Maisha does finally decide to leave home; however, Ukem does not tell the specifics of her where-a-abouts after that. By ending the story this way Ukem has left me to delineate my own hopes and wishes for her future.
The second short story, Fattening for Gabon touched my soul. This story was very emotional and the realism gave new meaning to slavery and what it means to be family. It is not my intention to give the story away, so you must read it for yourself. I assure you, you will not be disappointed.
I am on to the third story, Luxurious Hearses. I am about twenty pages into this sensational story. It has definitely made me reevaluate my religious beliefs and be more considerate of others.
In addition to reading Ukem’s book, I recently completed an oldie but favorite American Classic, Native Son by Richard Wright. Native Son captured my interest like no other book that I have ever read. I strongly advise every person of color to read this book. Bigger Thomas is the main character and his story is something to behold. Set in Chicago during the 1940’s, Native Son shed a new light on me in the respect of what it must have been like to me an African American male during that time period. You will not be able to put this book down.
Okay people, I am getting tired. So until next time stay focused and let a book take you to unimaginable places. Live.
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