Even
before factoring in the impact of COVID-19 and the current global economic recession
conditioned by uncharacteristic upsurge in gasoline prices around the world,
some of us already grew up knowing that months of; April, May and June are generally
problematic annually.
Here
was and still is my mom’s copping mechanism for these months: When we were
young, my mom, a dedicated school teacher never relied 100% on her skimpy salary
to support her family needs. Her side hustle has always been in the garden. Yes,
and she’s still in the garden, toiling, fighting with the brownish hard soil of
Abim.
Mom
would slice and dry sweet potatoes and keep in bags ahead of the difficult
times. My mom would also uproot, sort, boil and spread dry all types of leafy green
vegetables including; peas (boo)
and hibiscus cannabinus (amalakwang).
Then when a penny hits her wallet after 30 days of breaking different colours
of chalk, she would save in cereals, legumes so that December gets her with
some 100 kilograms of beans at home. This way, she managed to feed her eight children
(63% boys, 37% girls), meet family medical bills and pay our school fees.
Back
then, mom preferred the tinny black and nutritious beans imported from Lango, Lira. This type of beans is cheap, very cheap, affordable. Boy, this is how madam managed to keep
us alive, and to enable us grow. Yes, that’s why my face shines! We ate black
beans from January to January without fatigue. We fed on sorghum, boo, amalakwang, sweet
potatoes, shea butter and related wild fruits.
Mom
would also take advantage of family labour during school holidays such as this.
I didn’t like the four kilometer walk to gardens behind those Abim hills of
Morulem Sub County. I learnt how to use a hoe at age six. My mom put too much
pressure on me and I thought she hated me. That wasn’t the case, she just
wanted to build her children for the unpredictable future.
I
wonder how easy it is today for us to compel our children to accommodate the
type of life that some of us went through. A quick response from most of us
including this author is, “I don’t have to make my children go through what I went
through”. True, water doesn’t stagnate under the bridge, it has to drift away along
with its load so as to pave way for a fresh flow coming with a new season, with
new load.
I
wonder what our children do these days during such long school breaks. How much
garden work do our children help us with? Do we even think it is not child
abuse to allow a child hold a hoe? How do they connect with society and how do
they get friends? Methinks our children are enjoying a lot of protection, and
they may not be able to see the need to change their current life. Our children
have it, Laissez-faire.
Back
then too, we had some gaps. In the youthful days of Itachi, Panasonic and Sony,
some ‘spoilt’ children would organize village dance parties to allow them
reconnect with friends from other schools. This is how some people ended up
spotting their life-long spouses, but majority simply used such occasions for
exploration. Today, the genuine soulmate hunters are settled as husbands and
wives, but the explorers are still on flight.
