Haidhuru

So I mentioned that my mum had been visiting a few weeks ago right? And we go to see this girl that I know and they’re talking child rearing blah blah blah when my mum then very casually says

“But children should not really be beaten”

Whaaaatttt??? Oh you imposteress. Where is my mother and what have you done with her? I know someone that someone blogged about how folks re-write history (sorry not to credit you, I’ve forgotten who it was), but please! Mama Mutumia saying this?!!!!! With a straight face!!!

Let me debunk that.

First, disclaimers. I know my mum loves us. That’s not the point. I’m just saying that we used to get whupped like a maid’s child. As for school holidays? Double that ration! My “How I spent my Christmas Holiday” should have read “ I closed school. I was beaten. We ate dinner. I was beaten. The End”. Wanna know who wasn’t spanked as a child? They say things like “Girl, I’ma spank that ass” Next thing you know, jamaa is dressing as he flees the room calling you “African psycho!!!” Those child soldier instincts? Watch out!

Yeah…So, I was pretty surprised to hear my mum make such a statement. And when I pressed her to see if it was tongue in cheek, she looks at me and says that “Yes, I know that once or twice I might have spanked you, but that was always measure of last resort”.

I had to laugh. Like- really! OK, in my mum’s defense, I was a pretty annoying child. Like when I learnt all about stars/ horoscopes and that as a Libra, the Daily Nation had a message for me everyday (before people started saying that it was a tool of the devil), I almost got a whupping. See, I’m reading the Nation, and my mum asks me if I’ve watered the flowers. I look her straight in the eye and say “No”. So, she’s already moving on to other tasks and she’s like “OK. Put that newspaper away and go and do it now”. So I tell whisper to her “My star says that today is a good day for me to put up my feet and relax. So I wanted to rest mummy”. She narrows her eyes at me, picks up the paper, reads it and then looks me in the eye and says “Well, my star says that today is a good day for me to beat a child”. Those flowers almost drowned and as a bonus, the garden was weeded thankyouverymuch. Now, that one I escaped. But there are many, many more that I didn’t. Case in point.

Despite the folks belonging to a sports club with swimming pool, lifeguard (who used to horrid, horrid back-hair. Uber gross and disgusting like when he got out of the pool and it made little rivulets in his back - I’m still grossed out just picturing it). For us, the attraction was not really the pool- but rather the tiiiighhhttt fish and chips! And the tomato sauce!!! Damn! But as for swimming? Not so much. We pretty much used to get our swim on in a river that was quite near our house on a regular basis. Now, all the beatings hadn’t made a dent in our behavior. Plus, add to that the fact there was an (open air!) crematorium for the Indian people in our town next to the river and that ashes were disposed into the river when they were done. That still did not deter us. Nooo!!! After all, the water was flowing in the direction towards Mombasa. You know? Geography. Rivers originate in the highlands and it all drains into the Indian Ocean. If you drowned, the urban semi-urban rural legend went, your folks had to go to the Coast to look for you there and there were djinnis that converted you and they were not afraid of the crucifix. Plus, also at the Coast, there were black cats that spoke Coastal Swahili and transformed into women at night and if you replied to these women if they called you, you too became a black cat. What can I say? We were kids dammit!!!

So anyway, on a pretty drab school holiday day, we’re looking at my mum’s shamba that used to be outside our house, and we see that most of my mum’s potatoes and maize has been wiped clean! Who done did this scorched earth thingie? So we ask our “gardener and guy who washes my dad’s car” what happened (like really, that was his j.d. You could ask him “Karanja, help me crack open these macadamia nuts” and he’s like “My job is to do the garden and wash your dad’s car” *sigh*). So he looks, he makes that horrible hawking sound in his throat and says “Hippos”. Well, call me Thomas ‘cause I sure did doubt that story. But he shows us the footprints made by papa hippo and mama hippo, visiting auntie and baby hippo. And we’re off and running.

Of course Karanja tells us “Those things eat people” We’re scoffing at this point as I’d passed my multiple choice Science and Agriculture question of “What do herbivores eat?” For sure, all those kids who checked

“D) Children with dusty feet”

I’m pretty sure they didn’t get a tick (in blue!) for the correct answer. Nope! Big (red!) X for wrong answer and a “Learning has not taken place” comment in the margins. So we ignore Karanja and we go to do a Hardy Boys/ Three Investigators/ Famous Five/ Secret Seven/ Nancy Drew [insert intrepid Western child P.I who would nowadays be on a milk carton/ Amber Alert thingie]. We follow the footprints and we deduce that they’re gone to the river. We wait for the hippos to show. And we wait. We wait and wait some more. Still now show. So 15 minutes later, we decide to swim instead.

Many hours later, we go back home and my mum’s reading her big black book (“How to win friends and influence People”) and without looking up, she’s like “Take a shower right now, then come and eat, and tell me what you did today”. We’re racing to go hit the showers when my kid bro *shaking fist at the childhood him* decides to ask our mum a question. She looks at him, narrows her eyes and says “All of you, come back here now!” And she’s like “Where were you?”…I really admire stories of ati kids who went to sijui Iraq after lying to their mothers. Us? The 2 possible responses were a) tell the truth or b) shut up and look down and say “I don’t know”… So my mum’s like “I won’t ask again. Where were you?” So we mumble “near the river”. She just shakes her head, tells us to shower and “don’t finish the hot water for your father and tomorrow we’ll cancel the membership at the sports club as you’ve obviously found a better swimming pool that we can be using for free. Kwanza that money that we save can be for buying cod liver oil and de-worming medicine”. My mum- the queen of vitisho!!!

So we shower, put Vaseline on the visible parts of our faces and legs, and we’re eating supper, and my dad asks us the same question “What did you do today?” Lulled into a false sense of security, ati glasnost has entered the Papa Mutumia residence, we say “swimming…but we didn’t see the hippos that ate the maize and potatoes….”.

You know when your mum almost chokes on her food that it’s bad. Very bad. You know when your dad gets that ka-vein in his head throbbing that it’s very, very bad. These 2 things happening simultaneously? Catastrophic- cataclysmic even! And then it begun. “Ebu repeat that [insert Mutumia’s English / Baptisimal name here]” So in a small voice I say “Swimming and looking for hippos”.

Sidebar One:

Is it me, or did you just know that ‘things were elephant’ when your folks yelled out “Damaris” or “Winifred” ? None of this “Njeri” or “Wambui” stuff. When it’s “Damaris Agnes Wambui wa Njuguna come here now!” that’s being yelled? You are so dead!

Walhai we got a beating to end all beatings! “Children should not be beaten” my ass (literally).The full tag-team, pass the kiboko to the next parent drill. Mpaka my mum even got tired and told us “And tomorrow, I will finish this beating”. And true to her word, she did ‘finish off the anger that we’d put in her heart’. We’re of course over compensating on the next day, looking industrious as hell. Children are reading First Aid in English; Brighter Grammar; Hekaya za Abunwasi ;Geography books are opened up at “Wheat growing in the Saskatchewan Region” page and holiday homework is generally being done. My mum is in no rush by the way. She looks over the work that we’re doing, then tells me after correcting my conjugation and such, “Mutumia, get me my book and come with the kiboko”.

Mos def not the way to win friends and influence people.