PurplePretoria

Carrying Peace was like having a fire in my uterus. He is the first person that let me know how I truly was. If I was happy, I was and if I was sad, I was. I got sick if my thoughts were sad. I loved him whom I love with no fear or remorse. Yet, also, he pointed me to the injustices all round me. His brother’s birth had made me a warrior, his sister’s gave me courage, but he showed me what real love was, and what it wasn’t.

Peace, when I carried you, I told your father that it was like carrying a war in my stomach. You would not let things go. You would not allow me a hood over my head. Before you, everything lay open. I could feel how hot, how unrelenting you fought, so he said he would call you Zen.

Like me, you are sandwiched between, but yours is the only time I planned for. I waited for six months before you came. Eight months before, someone else had come, six weeks, and then left.

I have never felt as beautiful as I did when I carried you. I had no qualms, nothing I would add or reduce. A body shape protruding in a most elegant nature, with edges molded to my own, a light in my eyes, light and easy to carry.

When it was time to give birth, I thought April was such an uncommon month for a baby to be born. Months before, an angel had walked up to me in a hospital lobby and said that I shouldn’t be afraid and that If God took care of the animals that gave birth in the wilderness, He would take care of me too. So, when they scheduled the surgery, I did not appear. Something in me would not let me. I had heard your father speak to my own about the dates for the caesarian and for the second time in my life, I did not need approval.

Your birth started like a thunderstorm in the night. Throughout the day there had been signs. I had seen the little hand-sized cloud after weeks of desert sky. I knew it would rain. Minutes before you pushed down, the rain fell as I walked to the labour room in that open-back hospital gown.

I was squatting in the bathtub asking for hot water, telling the nurse the contents of my heart. There had been a change in shift and the second nurse’s aura had been dismissive. I looked up at her from my contractions and told her that she had abandoned me. I don’t know what she saw in my eyes but her face went pale and as she began to walk away, she said, “Tell me when you feel like you need to go.” I said to her, “I have been feeling like that for a while now.” She started to run and call for back up. I didn’t push. You came out, tilted your head towards me and you smiled. This is how you wanted to come.

The Christmas before, I had lain in bed at home with you at five months after being in hospital all morning. I had picked up COVID. Since I was carrying, all they could give me was ibuprofen. So I took ibuprofen and I hoped that the temperature would drop but it went higher and higher and my chest heaved and it was just me and you. I cried. You still would not let me hide.

You exposed my hurt. You exposed my love. You pick up on sensitivities so delicate. You are like a fire. You are both delicate and strong. You jump on the bed with blackened feet and then, you offer me a crack of a crisp. You pick up music like a maestro, praying and singing like you understand what it’s all about and then you paint the walls with markers. You come to me and you whisper, It’s okayyy, mummy. You beat your brother, who is three times bigger, with blows in his back and then at night when he is not ready to go up alone to his bed, you tell him, “Let’s go, I’ll take care of you.” No!” indignant, he responds, “I’ll take care of you, I’m the one to take care of you.”

Happy Third Birthday Zen.

*what a joy to have you all in my life*

I summarise the staple food of the Texan, so far, as meat. Burgers, Steak and chicken tenders.* A state of ranchers in a land where efficiency is the motto. Maximise the little (even if it means modify its genes or inject it with growth hormones), repackage it, make it magnificent and sell it to the world.

It seduces all whom the indignation of stagnation is worse than the abrasion of skin colour politics. Even though at night they dream of the groundnut paste they left back home, the brown one where the oil oozes out when ready, in the morning, the idea of a meritocracy pursues them. It is a place where things work.

Another thing about the Texan tribe, is that they will start up a conversation, make a joke, exaggerate a smile, pick your things off the floor, pay attention to your baby, all in a bid to earn an extra dollar or ten. Dining out is an arcade game where you do not know just how much you will have to throw up in the air and they don’t know how much they will catch.

It is interesting that tribes in the Savannah thought that whiteness was synonymous with senseless donations and unrestrained philanthropy. Only now that a certain Aid body is being disbanded is it becoming clear that corruption is a human DNA not an African one and that for personal gain, people can and have done many things, even if it means remote controlling your brain with a never ending algorithm.

©amk

The majority of the inhabitants of the Savannah grasslands and the (former) Tropical rainforest on the other hand, have for long had no understanding of money, time or even individual wealth for that matter. Generations of batter trade and communal living are behind us, but still, we will rejoice with an unexpected visitor, collect large sums of money for the very important cause of a communal celebration of marriage rites and hand cash over to babies. It is called black tax these days, and will all be way outside a Ramsey approved budget because, we give even without having.

A tribe of people, which, in comparison to the rest of the world is microscopic; people who speak the same language and understand the various meanings in the different intonations of the exclamation – Eh. EH. eh eh. Eeeeh.

We are a tribe of people who are warmed by the presence of others, relying on others sometimes without expectation of return. Sometimes though, the warmth of others inflames us, and we like to meddle in the spiritual world, easily shifting from prayer to enchantments.

©amk

Yesterday, we drove away from a dental appointment where once again, I was before strangers, in a deficit in cultural interpretation not even Duolingo can help; language being a silent understanding that people have of each other. I have found myself on the sharp end of both, looking for warmth in the white blocks and tinted glass windows where you can see only your own reflection. And yet, even here, I am in hiding. Anonymous. My son asked me if something on the television reminded me of home, of the constant noise of people and things. How much does he remember? I think of the sun. I think of the wait, the weight of it. Some days I think about the loud speakers blaring announcements of concerts, through the streets which already, are buzzing with murmurs of ‘cockroaches’ (cockroaches also known as biyenge– small radios with poor quality sound), the pickups carrying these promoters, passing lazily through the traffic jam and then slowly disappearing along the street, a web of familiarity even in the discourse of loneliness.

©amk

Some nights ago, I looked up at the bright blue night sky with twinkling stars and I saw a pattern of stars I used to find. I wondered if they too were looking up at the same sky. The night here never gets as dark. The wind, smells like, nothing. I’m far away. It’s good for me. A place of dreams. Not a place for crutches.