Memories of an African Childhood

Our House in the Middle of a Maize Farm

Left, right and everywhere else was covered with maize. In the centre, occupying a small clearing stood a square mud-wood-and-grass house. It had no name but on a small door that was the only entry and exit my sister had tried to write the word ‘welcome’ with a white chalk but she misspelled it ‘WELLCOME’. So, for the purpose of this story, I will call our house ‘WELLCOME’.

My dad was also nicknamed ‘kabande’ meaning ‘maize field’ by his friends as a result of the position of our house in the middle of the maize field.

Linking our house to the outside world was two small paths that we inadvertently made by stepping on young maize plants as we go fetching water in the well a kilometer away and another linking my grandma’s house. They were small paths, when the maize were high, it was dark and scary. Worse when it rained, water retained by maize leaves used to drip on us. It was slippery too. How we wish we could avoid those paths when it rained. But then, it was the only way you could get to our only home.

There were no flowers in our little compound. But there were some thorny shrubs surrounding it where our chicken used to perch during the day. We used to crawl inside these shrubs searching for eggs. Our playthings used to get lost here too (footballs were contraband when dad was around so we used to hide them there too when he occasionally happened to be home).

‘WELLCOME’ was built on a hillock, so the foundation was dug deep such that our house was not visible anywhere when the maize plants were high. Again, when it rained, and it used to rain often those days, a pool of water used to form on the patio and drain slowly through some trenches my mom had dug. It used to make a big pool around our house such that when my mom, Polina, was not around, we used to strip naked and swim in the shallow pool. (You could not afford to swim with your clothes on because we had each a single pair of clothes those days- the white shirt and blue shorts Rotik Primary School uniform!)

When it rained when Polina was home, we used to crouch on our doorstep and cheer the bubbles made by raindrops in the pool as they flowed from the pool to the trenches and get lost in the shrubs. Some could make the journey while others were burst by raindrops. So we used to identify one and cheer it to make it to the shrubs, some did, some went burst on the way. The song went like, “nenyun nendoe kotabala ne letu” as in, Kipsigis language for “mine is the one in front and even the one which is straggling’’.

In the rainy season, the high steps from the patio leading to the doorstep used to get very slippery. I fell in those steps enough times. But we were hardy, though I lost my tooth once.

Inside the ‘WELLCOME’ house was divided into two and there was an ‘up-stairs’. One room used to serve as a sitting room and there was a string across the room for hanging our clothes. Our chickens used to spend the night in one corner of the sitting room and also incubate their chicks. Those chickens were too many. We had to sweep a lot of chicken droppings every morning.( they used to flap their wings and crow loudly we would all wake up and go to the dairy to milk cows). At times, they could get infested with some tiny white mites. They used to make a cluster around their eyes rendering them blind and we would spend the nights putting paraffin on their eyes to kill them and forcing their eyes open.

These mites used to stealthily get into us and crawl all over our body even enter our ears. You will be left rubbing them off but they were millions and millions.

We had goats but they used to have a pen near the cattle kraal but when they gave birth we used to give them a treat by bringing them to spend some few nights in our house. They would bleat endlessly at night when they misplaced their young ones. In the morning we used to milk them to make tea.

There was a tiny window in our ‘sitting room’. The walls were plastered with mud and decorated with white, red, and yellow terracotta that my sis used to collect with her age mates very far away. Words like ‘feel at home’, ‘merry x-mass’ were written on the wall. I used to complain to my sis that the word ‘merry’ in ‘merry x-mas’ was misspelled and was supposed to read ‘Mary’, as in mother of Jesus. I would also entreat her to write ‘Joseph X-Mas’ too in recognition of Joseph the father of Jesus. She never acceded to my demands. Now I know why.

On the walls were also drawn flowers and people seated around a table and a drawing of me serving them tea in a kettle. This was my favorite picture for a long time. Occasionally, there was a calendar of ‘Bai Bai Kericho Wholesalers’ or ‘Haraka V.P Building Group’ where my dad used to work. Dunno what years those calendars used to read but the smoke from our kitchen used to make them look older.

To serve as seats, there was a mound of raised earth along the walls. We used to seat here and in the process get our shorts soiled white.

In the other room that served as kitchen and bedroom, to your left was the fireplace. The hearth consisted of an oven made of mud and sand. It was a wonderful work of art. It was even written the name of my mom ‘Paulina’. Above the hearth, there was a deck that my mom kept her special firewood. These were firewood from some trees that give the most heat and some tree that produces charcoal used for coloring and flavoring sour milk otherwise called ‘mursik’ in Kipsigis dialect. She could stand and reach for them whenever a need arose. She is a tall woman.

To your right was our bedroom. Here there was made two raised mounds of earth that resembled a bed. One was for my mom and another was for us kids. My mom’s beddings consisted of rags and a blanket. The rags (an assortment of old dresses, trousers, shirts, t-shirts- I remember one written Ohio State University-etc) served as a mattress. We used to take them out to air every morning.

Us kids didn’t enjoy the luxury of a ‘mattress’ like my mom. My mom would buy a blanket and split it into two (to reduce fights amongst us at nights). Our ‘mattress’ was just but a cow skin, it was hard and cold, (the middle that coincided with a cow’s back was particularly rugged but again it was warmer sleeping between my siblings). Don’t forget we used to sleep naked to spare our school uniform (they were washed once a week on Sunday after Sunday school as we while away the time naked in the dam, catching frogs and playing with them). The first few minutes of contact between a cold, bare cow’s skin and my bare human skin were dreadful. I would get used to it after a while, what with stories and songs from Polina my mom.

It was not too cold at night though. Instead it could get hot and smoky. There was always a log or two burning in the fireplace and there was only a tiny window the size of my head then. It could only fit our cat as it made its rounds coming in and out of the house at night. (I miss that cat, we had nicknamed it Josophina, dunno why).

My dad was the only one who had a bed. It was made of wood and rubber strings from old tires. It was bouncy and my dad could sink in there. I don’t know whether there was a mattress. Just can’t remember. Beside my dad’s bed was a cupboard. It was full of my dad’s books- exercise books and some textbooks that had pictures of animals and people. Used to love his geography exercise books, they were painted with crayons. We used to keep our exercise books there when we close school for holidays. When schools open, we used to search for our books and never to find them in this black cupboard. I used to cry every school opening day because of this. Dunno which goblin used to steal my exercise books in there.

In one corner, there hanged my mom’s special bag. It was colored brown with age and smoke. She told me she knitted it in one of her missionary lessons she attended when she was a teenager. We used to keep eggs in that bag and my mom’s ID card and Party Life Member Card (Kenya was a one party state then so it was mandatory to have one. The party was KANU). Whatever was important was kept in that bag- our clinic vaccination cards were there and other stuff. I don’t know where that bag went. Will ask her.

She didn’t keep her money there though. She used to keep them in one corner that was made a pouch-like hole that chickens used to lay their eggs. There were no thieves as we were disciplined. An outsider would not think her money was kept in such a simple place. That I think was her logic.

There was no radio and of course no TV in our house. We used to entertain ourselves with stories. And my mom used to love singing. That momma can sing! No latrines or toilets too. We just ran to the forest to relive ourselves with big leaves as tissue paper. No bathrooms either. We bathed on Sundays in the big dam and jump and bask in the sun as we waited for our clothes (read school uniform) to dry.

Almost forgotten to tell you about our ‘upstairs’ room. The kitchen place was open to the thatched roof (there was a lot of soot hanging loose that occasionally could fall on my mom’s cookings. One day I brought home a bird and hid it in the cupboard, when it became hot, it flew to the roof and unleashed a lot of soot my mom’s tea became black with soot.)

The ‘upstairs’ room was a deck above the sitting room that served as a store for millet, maize cobs for planting and firewood. There was no ladder to this deck and it was a feat accessing this place. You had to climb the wall that separated the kitchen and the sitting room to get there. There was no aid and it demanded some gymnastics. In spite of my age and size, I tried very hard to reach it because my mom used to keep bananas to ripen there. There were pots there too. We used to bring avocado fruits in our school and leave them to ripen in these pots. We used to bring so many because nobody in our village could eat them. My mom’s dad was a colonial agricultural officer so my mom knew the value of avocados. Those avocado trees were so tall that one day I fell and disjointed my leg and fainted. Before my mom could take me to hospital she gave me a thorough beating I just came to.

Our school was fun but we used not to carry any exercise books, there was a dusty road nearby so we used to do our math in the dust. Our teacher was one Chelang’at, we used to pay 5 shillings a year! (I didn’t pay because I gave it to a magician who had visited our school, I owe Chelang’at 5 shillings to date and she reminds me whenever I go home!)

Tomorrow I will tell you about our school with lotsa avocado and jacaranda trees and how we used to pee on our teachers’ water whenever they send us to fetch from the dam for them.

Meantime, you are ‘WELLCOME’ to our house!