The baby boy After my father came from detention, my mother became pregnant, but my father stayed at a rehabilitation facility before joining the family. My mother was in labor from early evening until morning when finally, the baby boy was born. In the middle of one night, my mother called me and asked me […]
IN MEMORY YET NOT FORGOTTEN: PART III Read More »
My employer’s father While working as a house maid, I took breakfast to my employer’s elderly father. That man did not answer my calls, and would not wake up no matter how hard I shook him. When I removed the blanket from his body, it looked like he was still sleeping. I touched his face
IN MEMORY YET NOT FORGOTTEN: PART II Read More »
DeathThe death was unknown to me – one morning, my mother had slept in too late, and I went into her room to find her. To my surprise, the baby was sleeping next to her, comfortably wrapped in a baby blanket. I touched the baby’s hands even before talking to my mother and noted that
IN MEMORY YET NOT FORGOTTEN: INTRO Read More »
We have grown up believing that it is an omen for the Gīkūyū man to be in the kitchen. However, this is not the mentality in the diaspora. On our first day in the US, we visited the home of a postgraduate student at Emory University. He is a family man, a Gīkūyū man, and
I think the wives in my generation were the last to place a bowl of food and tea in a kettle on the dining table and turn around, wash the husband’s hands, and serve the meals onto plates and drinks into cups for the husband to eat and drink. They would also collect the dirty
“Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them,” (Proverbs 13:24, NIV). As a young parent, I used my parents’ discipline methods on my own kids. I grew up knowing that parents and adults were never to be questioned, and I found it difficult to
PARENTAL DISCIPLINE Read More »
My father died when he was 85 years old. He would recount his experience growing up as an only child, his mother having been the first wife of Mugo, son of Nderi. His father, Mugo, was considered to be wealthy enough to support his three wives and other sons and daughters. As the only child,
Things that seemed imaginary or a paradise in my generation are happening in the real world today. Science and technology have developed and have made those imaginary things a reality, doable, and possible. If I belonged in the current generation where the things that seemed mythical are possible, I would have planned my life in
One Sunday afternoon in December 1982, my husband and I had spent time with my mother-in-law in Nairobi, where she was visiting her daughter. We made it back home at 11:00 p.m., and I was notified by the gatekeeper that my supervisor needed me to report a theft to the police. My supervisor and I had
When my children were young and before they were of school age, I believed that only the teacher was supposed to teach them because they were trained to do so. Therefore, I focused on teaching them everything else except academic-related things until they started attending daycare at age three and four. Today, I know that