My grandmother, the oldest member of the family alive is my big friend. I ask her any question and she answers. She cracks jokes so effortlessly, she beats me. She is one funny woman. On a recent drive to one of her daughters places. She asked me to drive slowly so we could easily spot a beautiful girl for some of my younger brothers. She strongly believes in procreation. I second. And she has been telling me stories and tales about just everything from farming, polygamy, parenting and everything else except Christianity. She hardly believes in the Christian God and when she drops something on the floor she does not shout Jesus! like my wife. She either shouts, Cherongony ne tui!! meaning Cherogony who is black. She must have fell in love with the colour of my late grandfather. He was four or seven times darker than me. His palm was dark. Mine is a bit light. At least you can see my hands when I am driving. But I have to keep smiling to enhance visibility. And I love everything about this inheritance. If its not her husbands name she is shouting, it is her clans name. She will go like, Kipngotop!! Thats the name of their clan. She loves it so dearly yet she has been living in a different family for at least seventy years! I dont understand. My grandmother believes her husband was a successful man. He talks about how he went raiding, how he fought village fights and how he was called in to make key decisions in the community. She vividly describes how he cooked for him and even the many cats she killed for eating her husbands meal. She smiles when discussing the many times he almost killed her. In her time, it was a sign of humble submission to be beaten by your husband. She actually doesnt miss the beating but she tells me that the men of my fathers age and also mine are weaklings. It beats logic - she laments- to laugh everyday at and with your wife. She thinks a slap or two is good for a healthy family. I disagree. She laughs again. But what strikes me most about her is that, apart from approving wife beating, she has never forgiven her husband for never marrying a second and even third wife! And on this I agree with her. How could someone born in 1920, traditionally circumcised around 1938 and married in 1945, rest in peace a man of one wife!! It has never added up. I actually sought an explanation to this when he was still alive. He had laughed loudly and replied, kichilil soretye!! I will not give the full translation but it partly means she fled. Maybe during those long months when he went raiding. He returned to find her gone. He was too proud to pursue her. I told him I would have understood if he was an evangelist or something like a guide for the missionary. He was too traditional and he only had one wife. Ah ah Pwot Thats my grandmother for you. The biggest stand up comedian who never tickled his husband to even smile. What a tragedy. Enjoy the weekend.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 05:05:42 +0000
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