A peek into my childhood days unveils a nostalgic fondness that strikes my heart with lasting affection. I love every memory of it.
At the time, all my siblings were boys. I was very close to the first with whom I manoeuvred into every notorious adventure that popped up in our minds. We had a clique of peers whom we spent all the happy and sad days in the fantasy of adventure. We were the real celebs of the village since we were known for all manner of notoriety. I was terribly shy when it came to an encounter with my sisters of the world, not of blood. Though, I was always under admiration by a horde of lasses, I could not manage a kind look in reception to their genuine admiration. I was ever shy, though a smile always hang on my face.
At one time, a girl who was a year older than me, came and told me that she needed me to be her childhood spouse. She had a very strong urge to take care of me. I remember we used to erect safe havens in the bushes where we could hide away and take care of each other mutually. Some hidden thicket that looked like a cave was the best den for our adventure. We would busy ourselves making a good haven out of it and decorate within like a real hut. Then, some girl would sneak in a mat and some niceties from her home to grace the occasion of our solicitude more affectionately. Then, we would spend some time on the mat, expressing mutual affection to each other.
On another occasion, another girl I knew as Lilly waylaid me on the way from the river and tapped me on the back. Since my elder peers and brother had left me far behind, she used the opportunity to express her care and concern for poor me. She crouched down and beckoned me to climb on her back. She even offered to carry my five litre jerry can of water on her head as we would head back home. I would seem relieved at the not so weird offer, but my eyes would wet with tears at her invaluable care.
Right back home, she would ask for permission from my mum to allow us to go play hide and seek. That would go up to late in the night. Sometimes, mum would bump into us trying to advance further our affection by going physical.
The same affection would take another dimension while at school. I was in primary three then. My head was so thick that I could not absorb anything academic. Naturally, some two lasses in my class offered to do most of my assignments so that I would escape the wrath of the teachers. There is a time they protested in class when our English madam wanted to cane me for being absent the previous day without permission. They pleaded with her to spare the rod against me. I later learnt that she was their aunt.
A few years later, I badly hurt my foot on the floor of our class. A certain lass who had always considered me as her favourite boy used the opportunity to show-case her affection towards me in the face of the whole class. She shed some tears to express her sympathy for the pain I felt. She then took out her white hanky, carefully wiped out the blood and wrapped the wound to stop it from further bleeding. She then wiped the floor to rid it from the blood marks and sat me down for consolation. She shared the pain with me and I was so touched by such priceless show of solicitude.
"I would nurse the wound until it heals," she told me. Sometimes, as we headed back home after school hours, she would ask if it sounded right for me to climb on her back since she wanted me to reach home safely.
My elder brother was always keen on exploiting the chances which seemed to be my prerogative. He vowed to be a real conquest if the chance came his way. After some consultations with some of his peers, I saw him go into a bush to dig up hibiscus roots, which he dried and burnt to ashes. He then blended the ashes with smearing oil and made a concoction out of it.
"This will work magic," he assured me. He divided them into two portions and hid one in the grass-thatched roof of our hut.
We had a popular notion that wherever a boy applied this concoction on his palms and greeted a girl, the magic would compel her follow him to wherever he went. The phenomenon would only stop after he had a share of the sacred fruit.
The fact that I was very humble, quiet, reserved and naïve was the magic he failed to adopt. He was a hero of fantasy and couldn’t think of clinging on my ideals. I saw him greet a girl in the neighbourhood, after which they vanished into maize plantations. I tracked them a few minutes later and bumped into them expressing their naive romance to each other. I vowed to report him to dad but he begged me not to. He even promised to bribe me with a slice of bread whenever we would have bread at breakfast. He became very humble, though his permissive adventure was not so much in my mind.
A void of loneliness lies in my head over the death of those affectionate childhood days. Those are the days when girls understood the true essence of affection and who was best suited such affection: the humblest of all human creatures. Many years up the memory lane, I still long for those nostalgic days we shared in our rural home.
Now that I have not opened my heart yet for love siege, I am deeply contemplating the idea. But before that, I am awaiting a recurrence of the magic of love and affection that was owed to me by my lovely childhood ‘mothers.’
Joshua Masinde
At the time, all my siblings were boys. I was very close to the first with whom I manoeuvred into every notorious adventure that popped up in our minds. We had a clique of peers whom we spent all the happy and sad days in the fantasy of adventure. We were the real celebs of the village since we were known for all manner of notoriety. I was terribly shy when it came to an encounter with my sisters of the world, not of blood. Though, I was always under admiration by a horde of lasses, I could not manage a kind look in reception to their genuine admiration. I was ever shy, though a smile always hang on my face.
At one time, a girl who was a year older than me, came and told me that she needed me to be her childhood spouse. She had a very strong urge to take care of me. I remember we used to erect safe havens in the bushes where we could hide away and take care of each other mutually. Some hidden thicket that looked like a cave was the best den for our adventure. We would busy ourselves making a good haven out of it and decorate within like a real hut. Then, some girl would sneak in a mat and some niceties from her home to grace the occasion of our solicitude more affectionately. Then, we would spend some time on the mat, expressing mutual affection to each other.
On another occasion, another girl I knew as Lilly waylaid me on the way from the river and tapped me on the back. Since my elder peers and brother had left me far behind, she used the opportunity to express her care and concern for poor me. She crouched down and beckoned me to climb on her back. She even offered to carry my five litre jerry can of water on her head as we would head back home. I would seem relieved at the not so weird offer, but my eyes would wet with tears at her invaluable care.
Right back home, she would ask for permission from my mum to allow us to go play hide and seek. That would go up to late in the night. Sometimes, mum would bump into us trying to advance further our affection by going physical.
The same affection would take another dimension while at school. I was in primary three then. My head was so thick that I could not absorb anything academic. Naturally, some two lasses in my class offered to do most of my assignments so that I would escape the wrath of the teachers. There is a time they protested in class when our English madam wanted to cane me for being absent the previous day without permission. They pleaded with her to spare the rod against me. I later learnt that she was their aunt.
A few years later, I badly hurt my foot on the floor of our class. A certain lass who had always considered me as her favourite boy used the opportunity to show-case her affection towards me in the face of the whole class. She shed some tears to express her sympathy for the pain I felt. She then took out her white hanky, carefully wiped out the blood and wrapped the wound to stop it from further bleeding. She then wiped the floor to rid it from the blood marks and sat me down for consolation. She shared the pain with me and I was so touched by such priceless show of solicitude.
"I would nurse the wound until it heals," she told me. Sometimes, as we headed back home after school hours, she would ask if it sounded right for me to climb on her back since she wanted me to reach home safely.
My elder brother was always keen on exploiting the chances which seemed to be my prerogative. He vowed to be a real conquest if the chance came his way. After some consultations with some of his peers, I saw him go into a bush to dig up hibiscus roots, which he dried and burnt to ashes. He then blended the ashes with smearing oil and made a concoction out of it.
"This will work magic," he assured me. He divided them into two portions and hid one in the grass-thatched roof of our hut.
We had a popular notion that wherever a boy applied this concoction on his palms and greeted a girl, the magic would compel her follow him to wherever he went. The phenomenon would only stop after he had a share of the sacred fruit.
The fact that I was very humble, quiet, reserved and naïve was the magic he failed to adopt. He was a hero of fantasy and couldn’t think of clinging on my ideals. I saw him greet a girl in the neighbourhood, after which they vanished into maize plantations. I tracked them a few minutes later and bumped into them expressing their naive romance to each other. I vowed to report him to dad but he begged me not to. He even promised to bribe me with a slice of bread whenever we would have bread at breakfast. He became very humble, though his permissive adventure was not so much in my mind.
A void of loneliness lies in my head over the death of those affectionate childhood days. Those are the days when girls understood the true essence of affection and who was best suited such affection: the humblest of all human creatures. Many years up the memory lane, I still long for those nostalgic days we shared in our rural home.
Now that I have not opened my heart yet for love siege, I am deeply contemplating the idea. But before that, I am awaiting a recurrence of the magic of love and affection that was owed to me by my lovely childhood ‘mothers.’
Joshua Masinde
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