I am floating around on a raft of sadness and gloom as my stormy seas cry out to the universe in mighty bitter waves. This week is the heading to her 23rd anniversary and I know that I am supposed to have moved on but the little girl within my most secluded walls thinks otherwise.
I remember her smile most as her voice has long joined the screams of the all aware breeze. She swayed in confidence and wore the colour of the night with pride. Hers was a reliable word and boy was she fun.
She taught me how to dance. To clean. To cook. To want better. To be bold. I am her shadow in so many ways.
My favourite girl didn't have it smooth but somehow she had a solution to everything. It has always been interesting and probably understandable that I often tackle most of my decisions by asking myself how she would have. It doesn't always get to be black and white considering she grew wings before I even turned eighteen but somehow I feel like it works for me.
I would say that she was and still is such a huge influence in my life. I mean, who wouldn't ape a woman who managed to do so much in such a little time and considering the circumstances.
My mother was a daughter of a hardworking man but he was in love with his traditional brew. They had a special bond with her father regardless of the then more common strained patriarchy taboos. Even after she had me out of wedlock.
She witnessed him abusing his wife physically enough times and I am not sure how she felt about it but I guess the fact that then no one would question a man especially one who was an elder why he was battering his wife, scored him some manly points.
When she eventually had all of her children, she tried everything legal and lucrative under the heavens to make ends meet. I remember how she made our house warm with her travelling escapades.
You see, in the mid-eighties, as she was raising me and her second born daughter, she was also zigzagging across East Africa as a trader as she juggled the responsibilities of a young mum and a new wife.
She was in her early twenties by then.
Somalia was a huge hub for finding rare stuff where she came from and so was Tanzania. She would bring home the most exquisite bedsheets I have ever seen from the now war-torn Somalia and the most authentic khangas from the Swahili nation currently under their first female President, Tanzania.
She brought to life the frequented mosques in Somalia. Scenes of a peaceful capital Mogadishu and a welcoming business-oriented environment. This was before hell broke loose in 1990 and the civil war broke out after a decade of trying to keep it from happening.
Tanzania had a share of her awe at their mastery of the Swahili language. The majority of East Africans can't speak the pure version of the language and my tribe top that chart. Over the years we have corrupted it for our arrogant tongues but this dating back to the eighties tells you a lot.
Lest I forget and the usual hilarious stories of how the practice of black magic shielded merchants all over the ethnically diversified nation from unsuspecting thieves. The story goes, you can't steal from shops in Tanzania if you know what's good for you and until this day, that stands as the truth.
To be continued...
wambuku w.
