HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Growing up I was tiny or petite if you may call it. I did not at all think for a second I would grow up and become a woman or a mother. My mother is in the nursing profession and I remember how I would watch her every day during routine in the morning or at night preparing to go to work. My mom was very particular in how she did things, she still is, she would run the bath, wash her face with a face wash. Let me tell you I grew up knowing that a woman has to do the three step routine on her face from an early age, face wash, tone and moisturize  It was part of my upbringing. She would also put on a rich lipstick, nylon stockings and walk to the kitchen to make strong coffee. She would sit and comb her permed hair, put on her perfume and she would seal it with coming to my bedroom and using my long mirror to take one final look at herself. The scent of her perfume would fill the room and I would not be forced to wake up. I would wake up wave her goodbye as she walks down the dusty road in her white nurse uniform. She took pride in her routine. I would rush back to the house so that I can finish her coffee; I just wanted some of that lipstick that would live a mark on the coffee mug to rub off on my lips.

When she came home she would cook up a storm, Sunday was even more special, she would cook a colorful meal while listening to the mellow sounds of old school Rhythm and Blues, she had such great taste in music, she would play the song Prayer by OJ’s while she cooks, but she had a thing about dirty dishes and a clean kitchen, you had to wash after her and mop every single time. It was not an easy thing to do my mom can pile up dishes when she cooks and she never cooks less than three dishes per meal. So there were always dishes to wash and the golden rule was that the kitchen sink was to be empty at all times. When she says mop the floor she meant spotless clean, I mean the woman had an eye for picking up missed spot. My mom did everything with a passion, her garden was forever green, she nurtured her flowers with so much love, and she loves flowers. Her vegetable patch would flourish. Her work uniform was always white as snow with no crease. I would admire her and just say I could never live up to that, no ways. I am going to pass my high school and get out of there and gain my independence; I will never wash a single dish in my life or tend to my garden.

My mom loved her home, she injected love and passion everywhere in our home, her “off days” where spent sweeping the yard, mowing the lawn, moving the furniture and cleaning the house thoroughly and yes cooking up a storm and she would always serve her food in her best china, there was no such thing as kitchenware for visitors in our home. She would change the bed linen, my bed linen was always in a bright colors (pink or white) and if I cheated and not wash before going to bed, she could easily spot it with my dusty foot prints and make me do my own laundry (I despised doing household chores, I would hide behind my books, I was so determined to be a professional and did not want to be domesticated). Everything was always in order in our house, everything always had its place, and before her routine starts she would make sure she freshens up and comb her hair. Yes comb her before cleaning the house, the yard and watering the garden, I am sure you are thinking, who does that? I used to ask myself the same thing over and over till this day I still do.

As a young girl I never appreciated it, I felt it was such torture. I am going to study my way of such a life, I will have a helper, a gardener and I am determined to be a professional woman, you will dare not see me slaving in the kitchen. I am not going to be like my mom, I looked down on her way of life in a way. Today I am a professional woman, a wife, a mother of two and yes I am also what can call an independent woman. I have achieved more than she has achieved in many ways. But it is what she wanted, for me to have a better life, to be strong willed, to be passionate about all aspects of my life, and be it at work, school, and home and as mother. She wanted me to be grounded, be a God fearing woman and have the basics right. Our worlds are very different yet similar in many ways. As I look myself in the mirror while applying toner in my eyes I cannot help but to see her reflection in my eyes, and smile, I apply the moisture and sunscreen with pride, and when my perfume fills the room, I am filled with pride and gratitude. I am because she was, a single mother who despite life challenges did her best with what she was given and gave us her best. She went back to high school, got a Nursing Diploma and built her own house so that I too can have a dream.

My little girl is 3 years old, she is such a fun loving child who adores me, I have never seen such love and admiration until I look into my own eyes and realize that it is the same look I would give my mother when growing, I would try her shoes, her lipstick like my daughter does. I would want to emulate everything she did. The truth is that our kids learn better by watching us in action than us telling them what they should do. As I mature and get wiser I am learning that my mom and I have more things in common than I could have ever wish for. I might have full time helper, but I am still hands on with the day to day running of the house, I might have a gardener, but I still walk around in my water boots and with my little hand fork looking for weeds. I actually call her for gardening advice. I love good food, I can cook up a storm, and the difference is I will buy any cooking gadget that will cut my time in the kitchen into half. I dress up and adorn myself, maybe not as conservative as my mom, but I see her influence in every area of my life and I must say I am very proud. I guess I am my mother’s daughter.  Happy mother’s day, I hope to have the same influence on my kids one day. 

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.