Child on Back

This piece is probably a paid tribute to all those Congo women I have just seen on the news; child on back, household on head and mind, threads of hope in heart, running away from the ear piercing, adrenaline pumping sound of invisible gushing bullets. This piece is probably dedicated to those like these women, baggage upon baggage, running away from the harshness of life in search of a safe haven. And these women are much like us all, living the hard way just like us, even though sometimes it seems like theirs is much harder. But think about it. This stranger called life calls on us with every waking moment. 99 per cent of our awake time is spent trying to relate wit this stranger. Its issues we bear, they become our issues. And just like the frightened Congo mama holding to feeble hands of her young, we hold on to feeble hands of the future. Child on back for me, you wonder? The struggles, the wins, the losses, the ups and downs that are meant to make us better people. If it don’t kill you, it just makes you stronger, that’s what they say. But even as we run, do we really? These ‘children’ finally get a place in our systems, tightly and safely buckled to our backsides, sort of etched marks on our footpaths, indicators of where we have been and sometimes where we are headed. Constant reminders of that we carry, so close yet sometimes so heavy, yet we just can’t seem to let go. We just can’t seem to detach ourselves from this ‘load’.
But the question still begs, with this child on back, will we ever get to the Promised Land? When will the journey ever stop? When do we get to the cross roads, how much harder, how many more long treacherous days, blood-hungry nights, how much longer? When do we finally get to breathe, let out that air that we have so desperately been rushing for? I mean, when do we get the children off our backs and let them walk? When do we let go? When do we get to listen to the lovely symphony of the avian chirps and just flow away with the music? When do we get to see the rhythmic harmony coloring of the rainbow? Just when do we let loose? When do we let the child down?
Maybe the courageous Congo mother, who has to be strong for herself and her household even more, has the answer.
Maybe we will never know.

Yester tears

You walked in. Face butted, dusty, dirty; needy. Your hands stretched out, reaching to someone, a ‘Good Samaritan’, for that extra coin that is malingering in their able pockets; what they do not know is that that coin coins out your life.

And you stood there, waiting, wanting; needing. Some gave, someone didn’t.

But someone said something, or they didn’t. But they ripped you apart, injuring your already broken heart; hurting you.

That’s when the diamonds fell. You cried. As if dreading what awaits. ‘How can they not see?’ you probably asked. ‘Don’t they know am in this life not because I want to, but because I have to?’ ‘And now you make me cry.. I know I am thousands of steps behind, but why leave me in my own perish? Why not save me from this animal called life?’

You walked in again, trying not to sink in the depth of your tears. You quickly wiped the gems from your cheeks, those gems that they didn’t see.

Again, did your rounds, stretched your hand. Some clutched their bags, others saw your ghost. She then came, held you apparently oblivious of your filth.

She gently but firmly escorted you out, saying you had had enough. Taking one look at us before your exit, as if to catch a glimpse of what ‘life’ supposedly looks like.

Then off you went, swallowed into the pit of the night, the dark streets aligned with other walking forms of life.

I stared at you as you disappeared. And in my mind you were blackened out too. But I felt this hanging cloud over me; I just couldn’t tell what it was. Then it dawned to me, when I told your story to another.

It was you. My heart went out to you, and I didn’t see that coming.

And now almost 15hours after that priceless spectacle, I still see you.

Clearly.

I remember your face.

I see your eyes.

I see your strife.

I hurt silently from afar, for you, with you.

I just wish I would have capture yester’s tears. Somehow.

Just for you.

Then maybe you wouldn’t cry.

Maybe yester’s tears might have been a façade.

Mr. Mkubwa

Last night my four kids and I
Slept hungry, on the aisle
Yes sir, that aisle that your Passat passed by
You dint see me, your tints hid my crying.

Oh and did I tell you my son goes hunting
Yeah, he just turned 13
Hunting? I meant fending.
You see I still use this language
That my mother taught me in the village

Sons went hunting, girls stayed cleaning
But I heard a word that you had invented machines
And you needed people to be working.
Problem is a thousand and more beings
Ran from all over, for your one machine.

Who was I to be left behind?
I carried what I could find
Child on back, hope in mind
I had to work at the machine
My children needed to eat.

I came here and the tall buildings caught my attention
Shifting focus for a mention, ‘What a construction?’
Then my babe burped, I shook, had to continue my mission
My daughter, on the glass, fascinated by her reflection.
My sons taken by your automobiles’ emissions.

Long short, I came short
No machine, vacancies fort
‘Mama, wewe taka nini hapa?’
‘Kazi hakuna, kazi kwisha, kwenda kabisa.’
You have to be kidding me
‘Unajua nimetoka wapi?’

So here I am, here we are
My sons, my daughters and I
Fathers of my sons and daughters of my mothers
We still sit by the aisle
Waiting, just waiting..
Maybe one day you’ll roll down your tints
And wink at us.
Throw us your ‘bakshish’ cuisine
How we will rejoice!

Ama I send you an sms Mr. Mkubwa
I heard u have just zero rated mobile phones
But wait, how do I get you number?
07.. ama +44 ending with a saba?
Aaii, lakini Mr. Mkubwa, onge bamba
Access denied!

So meet me at the aisle
Today, tomorrow, next and next..
I promise, Mr. Mkubwa, I’ll be waiting.