As I wandered in the forest nearby, I could feel the calmness that surrounded the place. It was almost magical. But then, magic is only possible when one is a child. I followed the common trail through the trees, and they stirred as if they knew that they had company. They ruffled their leaves lazily as they watched me walk beneath them. There was a stream nearby. When I was growing up, it had been a river. A river that served as the swimming point for us herd boys whenever we took our cattle out to get some water. I remember this particular day when my two friends and I decided to cool down after a long morning in the fields. It was already midday and the sun was shining strongly on us. We did what we normally did; took the cattle to the river and as they drank to their fill, we splashed and swam joyfully. Our skimpy, old, and tattered clothes were on the bank and one of the cows must have caught the scent of soap in them and rushed to lick them, only that it did not have much sense to only do that. We were happily swimming until Zuri suddenly stopped moving and looked horrified.
“Our clothes!” he shouted while pointing towards the cattle, once he was out of the spell.
Swimming immediately became unimportant to the three of us as we scrambled to get out of the water. This would go on record as the shortest swimming time we ever had. When the cows saw us approaching their direction (for now, the first cow had invited the others into this chewing spree such that everyone was now a victim), they mistook it for time to go home. They led the way, with us naked, shouting expletives at an audience who took them as complements. A group of women were on their way to the river to do laundry and since we were young, we were not bashed. They gave us some of their children’s clothes to cover our bodies. My friends are now in the city and I bet that if they would visit this place, that one memory, out of numerous ones we made, would still stand out for them.
I went past the stream and beyond that, a road that would lead me right home. The walk leading home was quiet. It gave me time to take it all in. I had not been home in nearly ten years and a lot had changed. The forest had thinned, ‘our’ river had grown small, electricity poles had been erected everywhere, there were numerous bodabodas, a car here and there. The list is endless. As I headed towards my mother’s kitchen, a round, mud-walled hut with now rusted iron sheet roofs that let in water whenever it rained, I could see smoke coming up. Even the smoke had thinned! The aromatic waft of her delicious sun-dried fish, commonly known as aliya took me back many years. This kitchen had served as the formal dining room for us children. We would have this special food on Sundays after it was ‘ready’ as my mother would say. Before that day, she would sun-dry it on the roof for some days and then we would have it on Sundays. On one particular Saturday, she had set out her pieces of aliya on the roof and had gone to the shamba to weed. I had remained at home because there wasn’t much to do there and it was my sisters’ turn to herd. Mother specifically told me to watch the ‘meal’ because she had spotted hawks in the area of late. I went and perched myself on top of a guava tree close by, to keep watch. A hawk flew by once or twice, but I was able to pelt it with the pebbles I had in my pockets. It went away and I kept watching.
Out of nowhere, I could not tell whether it was the same hawk or not. I saw it swoon down swiftly and grabbed two of the three pieces of my mother’s aliya. I was quick to throw a stone at it. I must have hurt one of its wings because it came down, nearly crashing on the ground before making another attempt at flying. I had come down from my watch tower and decided I was going to struggle with this bird for our meal. It had dropped one on the grass and I decided that it was safer there. It was the other one that I desperately wanted. Before it could launch and fly, I grabbed one end of the fish, and it would not let go. I was so feeble that I felt it dragging me but I could not let go. The bird pulled as I pulled and it only ended with me tumbling backward and landing on my bottoms when I heard my mother screaming. The bird had won when I became distracted. I felt bad, but my mother assured me that everything would be alright. In any case, what we had was more than enough.
Everything there reminded me of what used to be. A past so simple yet very exciting. One which was cheap, yet fulfilling. I was back home for a week. I could not wait to unlock other memories this place had held for me for the past ten years. I went into the kitchen to have dinner with mother; it is where we always had our dinner, except when my father was home. We would have it in the formal house. As I sat on the three-legged wooden stool, I suddenly remembered that time when I almost rendered my sister bald.
“I see you smiling son, what is it?”
“Ma, this place brings a lot of memories, the best ones.”
“That is how it should be. This is home and it always will be. Now let us dig in,” she said nodding lovingly.
“We forgot to pray ma,” I said and prayed.
We ate our dinner in complete silence, not that there was nothing to say, but, it felt right at the moment. I needed to process all my thoughts and my mother needed to process hers. It was good to be home.
Read – Bless the Dead – A Short Story by Ngollo Ida-Sharon, Kenya
——-
The Writers Space Africa(WSA) Magazine is published by a team of professionals and downloadable for free. If you would like to support our work, please buy us coffee – https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wsamagazine
