A TRIP DOOWN MEMORY LANE

I grew up in a village called Tshisahulu in Venda Limpopo, in my grand parents’ home. There were five girls in the house and my brother was the only boy. My three aunts and I were more than close, we did almost everything together. We played, walked to school together; we would share house hold chores, do homework together, played in the streets together, went to Sunday school together, were confirmed in church together, we would make plans to cover each other’s back when we wanted to see our boyfriends. My grandparents were very strict and we knew if we would get caught, the rule was an injury to one was an injury to all.

In the past week I was really taken back memory lane because of  the death of my old time favourite singer Whitney Houston, I started reminiscing about how active and innocent we were as kids growing up in the dusty streets of Tshisahulu. We played house, hide seek, jump-rope, double Dutch, marbles, kick, hopscotch to name a few and of course some indigenous games, We would play outside so hard until late and my grandmother would have to shout for us to come back to the house. We would rush back home covered in the red soil from head to toe. My grandparents’ yard is full of mango and litchi trees and we would climb the trees, daring each other on who could climb the highest and reach for that yellow ripe mango or simply climb up during a game of hide and seek, we would also enjoy going to the nearby bush for catching locust and birds to come back and play house. I remember even having a pretend wedding at one point as a child. How Can I forget trying to make Marula drink called Mukumbi during marula season?

 The festive season was so much fun and extra special when I was growing up; we all looked forward to it with so much anticipation. My mother or grandparents would buy us “Christmas clothes” and I would sneak into my mom or grandparents’ Wardrobe to look and admire the clothes when no one was watching, counting down the days. Christmas Eve would be accompanied by the smell of freshly baked scones, muffins, cakes; we would stay up late while my mother or grandmother make the traditional dessert of custard and jelly, we would fight to lick the custard pot. When Christmas day came we would get all dressed up and Christmas clothes were usually a dress, and a new pair of shoes and blow dried hair. The shoes would still be so tight because you are wearing them for the first time. I looked forward and cherished those days. Back then you were really blessed if they bought clothes for you just out of the blue, you really appreciated it. I really struggled with keeping myself tidy the whole day, come lunch time I would have red spots of beetroot salad covering my pink or white dress.  We would walk from one street to another parading our brand new clothes. It was the only time you were allowed to eat a lot of sweets and get away with it. 

As we progressed to our teenage years the ballgame changed we became obsessed with music, we would keep musical books and try our best to write the lyrics of then popular songs, my mother use to call them national anthems. We would record the songs on radio or a VHS, and I would be so angry when the DJ would talk during or towards the end of the song. We would rewind the song until we get the words right. Thinking about it we would sing songs that we did not even understand their meaning; I actually believed I would be a famous singer one day and become like Whitney.  We would stay up late, and I can still hear my grandmother’s disapproving voice, saying to us if only you knew your school books the same way as you knew the words of those songs you would be coming first in your class. In our household an average pass was not enough because it would be followed by my grandmother’s speeches about how those songs were a bad influence in our lives, we knew one thing for sure there would be no Studio Mix that Friday night because my grandmother will be praying the longest prayer to remind us of how much she disapproved of our hobby.  

Looking back I appreciate everything about my childhood, the dusty streets, and the indigenous games, the locusts, the music book, and the pretend concerts we would have because they shaped me into the person I am today. You see there were no video games at our home; there was no swimming pools, no extra mural activities at school, no park with swings. The dusty streets and the nearby field was our park with no boundaries. The nearby stream was our swimming people and if my grandparents dared to find out we knew we would be punished, but this did not stop us from sneaking to the stream from time to time. The fact that if  one of the village elders or neighbours saw us they would make it their business to shout at us and warn to tell our parents, would not stop us from testing the boundaries. We were having fun, innocent fun and all we had was each other, we had to be creative. The neighbourhood kids were a very important part of our upbringing. We learned to make the best with what we had.

I am now older and have kids of my own; they live in a world that is very different from mine. Their world is what we use to dream about as a young girl running in the duty streets bare footed, instant and fast food; swimming pool is part of the norm, video games, PlayStations, Xbox, Nintendo DS, the internet, a fast paced world of Google, Facebook, reality TV and music channels. I must say I do acknowledge the advantages of their world but I cannot help to wonder if they can be as creative as we were and if their world lacks the space to be creative and the chance to think outside the box? Does their world create a culture of ungratefulness and sense of deserving? My view is that my parents had different challenges, and I am now faced with different challenges when it comes to being a parent, I need to make sure I raise well rounded, grateful, appreciative kids, who are well aware of our history or were we come from, our upbringing so that they do not take for granted the strides made by those who came before them.