Showing posts with label Childhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Childhood. Show all posts
Did you know a whole person can disappear into a book?
For hours if you do it properly.
Undisturbed and uninterrupted.
Open the book, flip the page and start to read, before long you find your self in a world with no recollection of when you stepped through the door or how you'll find your way back again.
I learnt this when I was little girl. My love for books grew from my parents reading me bedtime stories before I learnt how to read. It's the longest affair I have ever had. My Father loved to read Three Billy Goats Gruff with a booming animated voice for the troll.
"WHO IS TRIP TRAPPING ALL OVER MY BRIGDE?"
(If you know, you know)
All the schools I attended up to 13 years of age, had the best libraries, magical colourful places with endless shelves of books for all reading ages and tastes, bean bags and kind helpful librarians.
I remember the first book I couldn't stop reading was Matilda by Roald Dahl. I hid it in my French exercise book during the primary school lesson and I think the smirk on my face gave me away. I got in trouble, but it was light trouble...How can one be mad at a child obsessed with reading?
I enjoyed bringing books home to read to my mother in the evenings as she knitted scarves, hats , baby sweaters and booties.
My handwritten membership card filled up quickly because I reveled in the compulsory one hour a week reading time in the library.
I was a Red House Book Club member! I got to order new books every year from their catalogue. I don't think they exist anymore...if they do correct me in the comment section
Remembering and blogging about these memories brings me so much pleasure.
Some of my favourite books included:
Goodnight Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone- J.K Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets -J.K Rowling
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
I hope part of my legacy will be the books I leave behind... a private library maybe?
What about you?
When did your love affair begin?
What are you fondest memories?
Oh gosh where do I begin? I am taking part in Writers Write WLD. I am late by a whole week. The above title is today's writing theme so here is
my list…
- We got to play outside. During weekdays we didn’t watch more than one hour of television a day. There were only two channels before DSTV, so we learnt to play outside and use our imagination. We also learnt how to enjoy reading books. This is before I got to secondary school, unfortunately it was all downhill from there….now I love reality TV
- We went to church every Sunday as a family. People used to dress for Sunday Mass in those days. Until I learnt how to read, I used to spend my time looking at all the ladies' outfits, the shoes, the hand bags, the dresses… God please forgive me.
- When they bought you a soda it was a treat! A plate of chips was a treat. Fried chicken was treat. Now its an actual daily meal for some people...
- We ate together as family, which meant we watched TV together. We watched The Cosby Show, Roots, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Family Matters all together as a family.
- My school had great school lunches, never had posho and beans for lunch. Not once. Not never!
- My father insisted we ALL learn how to swim, that meant swimming lessons on the weekend and swimming lessons after school, no excuses!
- If I behaved myself my big brother would let me ride my tiny bicycle to the local shops with him (kiosks).
- On Christmas eve we would go out as family and look at the Christmas light decorations on all the big commercial buildings around the city. It was also when our parents did the bulk of the Christmas shopping. But it’s not last minute people, it’s Africa!
- Power cuts were fun. We were not addicted to so many little gadgets like phones and laptops in those days. We would sit together with one candle or a lantern and tell stories. Once, one of my brothers convinced me it was the end of the world and Cyclops was coming...
- My parents would buy food in bulk. We used to sit in the back garden and help snap beans or sometimes we’d be in the kitchen with our Mum making a big batch of fresh passion fruit juice to be stored in the freezer for the week.
Love is a REALLY powerful.
But is it's strength really that useful?
I don’t know. Romeo and Juliet killed each other. Didn’t
they send a whole army of ships after Helen of Troy? I hope she was worth it…..
I feel so defeated
saying this, but I must confess. I have let people get to me.
I have let the worst
possible people get to me. I have let them ruin a fundamental part of who I am.
The part that believes in love. I am at that
point in my life movie where I want to chuck the bottle into the sea and never
look back. Literally. Please God don’t send that troublesome two-timing lying
bottle flowing back……
What if it’s just too
overwhelming for me? Maybe I’m like a child who gets given chocolate/sugar for
the first time. I’m that child who got that sugar rush and run around the house
for a full hour afterwards. It was just too much for me! I can’t anymore… I don’t know how to be
patient, and hope I figure it out.
Either all my cards are on the table or they’re not… I don’t
know how to bluff!
“ But you are always too intenseFrightening in the way you want himUnashamed and sacrificial.” ~ Warsan Shire
I am not a poetry expert or that much of a fan but I feel poetry
should speak to your soul. That quote speaks to MY SOUL. It makes me sing gospel like Aretha
Franklin in my head … so I had to place it somewhere. Please bare with me as I chop,
dissect, mold, pound and cook the ingredients
of this story into a lovely meal of a blog post
for you. Forgive me for the sad aftertaste, I have yet to discover the right kind of seasoning to
disguise it.
When people ask me about grief, I often tell them about the
strangeness of losing my mother.
One odd moment still stands out.
I remember us. When I say us I mean my siblings, their wives
(soon to be), their children, and family friends who I consider siblings all
hurdled up in the masters bedroom upstairs, looking through family albums.
Theses albums were created by my mother. She always had a
camera. ALWAYS. Do you remember those
cameras in the 90’s? The one which required you to carefully roll out part of the
film. Do you remember the rewinding sound? Do remember how you had to try so hard
not to touch the film? That was my mum….. always prepared to capture that
moment; to capture those memories for the albums. It’s really a wonder she never became
a professional photographer. I mean she knew nothing about technology in that
way, but she certainly enjoyed taking photos of the people she loved.
So there we were all hurdled together, a day after her death
looking for photos to put in her funeral book. You know the one that has the
order of mass, the hymns, and a short bio of the deceased? Yes, that one. I am not sure how this odd moment occurred
but somehow it did. All I can tell you
is that grief is strange. Maybe it was
my mother’s spirit upon us , who knows?
She always loved bringing people together. She really was the
quintessential definition of ‘ home’. Anyways …two minutes into looking through
the albums, we started recalling the stories behind these captured moments ,
and before you know it we were laughing, the fresh mourning tears were still
streaming down our faces…but we were laughing. All those happy childhood
memories came flooding back, including the awkward moments where our mother
would pull out the camera and chase us down till she got her photo.
As we flipped through the pages, pulling out our favourite
photos, I had one of my famous epiphanies.
It was really special.
My heart is smiling as I write about these next few
sentences.
I figured out what my mother's legacy was.
Her legacy was LOVE
It was LOVE.
It will always be LOVE.
My mother’s legacy was her ABILITY TO LOVE. She LOVED hard
and she LOVED strong. I don’t know
anybody in my life who can LOVE like my mother did. That’s what they said at her funeral. They
said her heart was too big. They said people could wrong her and she’d still be
there. I don’t know whether they wanted to give the impression that it was her
weakness, but it stayed with me. People failed my mother. People knowingly
failed my mother multiple times. I feel like the world was always telling her
to seek power, to be vengeful, and ditch people when they misbehaved. She couldn’t.
It wasn’t her nature. She was loyal. Lord knows she should have been treated better
by those around her, and they know it too. Yet they want to make it her
mistake; they want to make it seem like she was flawed in that way.
"You can’t make a home out of human beingsSomeone should have told you that.” ~ Warsan Shire
When I look in the mirror, I see her. I see her cheeks. I
see her lips. I see my mother’s vulnerability staring back at me. I love all those things about my mother, but I wonder if they are things I need to change
in myself. I don’t know if I am as strong as her . I hate that when I break up with a boyfriend they never truly leave my essence.
I still love them despite all that they are. Which brings me back to the
question that I asked earlier……. Is the power of love really that useful? The
world keeps telling me that Love doesn’t win
Love. Doesn’t. Win.
I need to pack up my favorite fairytales and romantic
comedies, the ones that I had stashed away to share with my daughter someday.
It’s time to give them away.
I am so sad I am
coming to this realization. I have to
throw away that part of me that that was holding on to ‘love wins’. Is it a
just a concept? An idea that was constructed? One that stayed with us for
centuries until we thought it was true, like a really good myth, a story some
grandma told long ago.
There is no happy ending to this story, except maybe the
fact that I was able to write it, and now hopefully let it go.
"Grieve, so that you can be free to feel so meting else" - Nayyirah Waheed
I met Paulina* about two weeks ago in Masaka on International Day of theAfrican Child.
It’s her bravery that stayed with me.
She is in her mid teen years but she’s already fought tough
battles none of us will ever dream of, nor understand, and yet she’s not shy
about speaking up for what she believes in.
When people stand up for what is right, despite the
disapproval of others, I admire them. As we get older it tougher for adults to
do. To survive in the adult world you must be part of the social
circle and adher to the subtle rules. The ones that step outside may become
GREAT, but the socials risks involved will deter many, therefore it is rarely
encouraged.
Let’s get back to story….
We arrived at Hotel Brovad in Masaka around 9.40am. My colleagues
and I were late. We had missed most of the children’s roundtable discussion
with Government representatives.
In the last 30 minutes the MC asked the children, “Children,
does anyone have anything else to say to the adults?”
After three or four children had spoken, up went Paulina, given
her skin you really couldn’t help noticing her, grabbing the mic she
confidently stated. “Children like me want to be treated like everyone else, we
can run, we jump, we can play. We shouldn’t be left out. The Government should
consider us too!”
Shortly afterwards the discussion concluded, but I was
curious about her story and what had prompted her to speak out so loudly and assertively.
We all made our way to the grounds where
the celebrations would continue, I sought out the MC of the roundtable
discussion to see if I could learn more about Paulina.
When I found her, she agreed to share some of her story. Because
she’s a minor I have changed her name and used a picture without her face.
Paulina says her eyesight is a problem, she’s been out of
school for a year so that she could get a special operation. The operation
helped, but she still has sight problems because in school when it rains her
classroom becomes dark and she can’t see the board. When I asked if she had
electricity in school, she said they did, but her classroom’s light wasn’t
working and they had neglected to fix it.
“ Other classrooms have light.” She said
Paulina told me that children like her have to put special ointment
on their skin but not everyone can afford it. These are the things she wants
the government to consider supporting.
“They make huge difference in a child’s life.” She said.
She told me she is brave because she comes from a
loving family , that’s why she can speak up for herself,
“Many children like me don’t come from a good family. School
is difficult if your teachers don’t understand. They are scared to be
themselves, to be free. I want to be a human rights lawyer when I grow up, so
that I can speak for children like me.” She told me.
That is what this blog #HappilyFlawed is about. It’s about
being comfortable in your own skin, no pun intended, and sharing your life
lessons with others. It’s about accepting that we can’t be perfect and there is
no need to be. We should just happily be ourselves.
Thank for sharing Paulina! #BraveGirls #HappilyFlawed
Albinism is a rare,
genetically inherited condition found in all ethnicities. People with albinism
have little or no pigmentation in their eyes, hair and skin owing to a lack of
melanin. They are sensitive to bright light and have a higher than average risk
of skin cancer from sun exposure. Most people with albinism are also visually
impaired. To find out more about Albinism click here
There has been a lot of talk about #refugees in the media lately, so it shouldn't really come as a big surprise to learn that we visited a refugee settlement during the #InvestInUGchildren media tour. #Uganda hosts over 130,000 refugees in the districts of #Adjumani, #Arua, #Koboko, #Yumbe and #Kiryandongo. 85% are women and children, and it is well known that these are the most vulnerable groups when it comes to conflict and war. The #Kiryandongo refugee settlement has 45,000 refugees from South Sudan, Kenya and Rwanda. We spent some time at Panyadoli child friendly space, and although, it was pouring with rain the community showed up, excited to meet these visitors from UNICEF and share their stories with key media houses. 1215 children can access this one space. In fact some of these children learn how to read and write for the first time in this special space. It's actually the perfect place for staff to carry out psych-social assessments of the children and see whether they require any additional needs, as result of the trauma they have experienced. My favorite part was when one boy proudly stood up to show our Chief of Communications how well he could read, and all the women around him cheered him on as though all of them were his mothers. No matter what is happening in life, Children should always be allowed to be children, and it's great that spaces like this remind children to play, have fun and be curious. #InvestInUGchildren
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| (Photo Credit: UNICEF Uganda) |
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