A gift unmatched

The knock on any car window is commonplace around the Sarit Centre in the Westlands area of Nairobi. Street children, each sniffing PVC glue fumes from a bottle, roam around the area begging for money and sometimes, grabbing it. Like other motorists caught up in that Thursday afternoon traffic jam, our doors where locked and windows rolled up. It’s a wonder no one sizzled in that sweltering heat.

A few young street boys, while kicking each other and dashing around cars, came by a few times. When their hope of getting money was dashed, mumbled a few words and moved onto the next car. 

Our three children and their friends at the backseat of the car all wanted to know why those children where out there in tattered clothes, some staggering, some sleeping on the walkway and others, just staring in space. “Didn’t they have parents, how about food and blankets?” They fired off questions. “Can we lower the windows and chat with them?” These and a barrage of other innocent questions flew off from the back. To some, there where obvious answers, while others where baffling as much. 

The sweltering heat didn’t help much and cries of “Will I really live to see another day? I am hot, I am thirsty, I am hungry, my heart is boiling, my sweat is sour,” was interrupted by one fellow. Like all the others, he wore tattered clothes, had a few flies jogging around his face and of course the bottle. He extended his hand out to beg for money, his lips hanging so low it threatened to abandon his face. 

When he saw the book our kids where craning their necks to read, he joined them from outside the window. With his dirty, soil covered little finger, he slowing started to trace across the window as he followed the story. A smile replaced the sullen face he had presented earlier for money. His teeth shone through his bloodied lips as he conquered every single new word. 

The squabble among the five children at the backseat was how to position the book so the little fellow could read with ease. “Should we open the next page?” They asked him. With a nod of his lice laden head, a reply came, and it was immediately acted upon. Often, he would signal for patience.

When traffic finally opened up, a new debate emerged from the back. “Should we give him the book?” This is a favorite to some at the back. “We might never see him again?” Others reasoned. “How will he know what lays beyond his bottle if we don’t share our book with him? What about hope, this might give him a glimmer of it?” The debate raged on until the mamas where brought into it. 

With the book clasped tightly between his dirty hands, his treasured bottle abandoned by the shrub, the little fellow sat down on the walkway, oblivious to the foot traffic around him. With his stubby fingers, he followed the story as a whole new world seemed to open, right there on the spot associated with theft. 

To the five at the back, making their way home after a fun packed day at the Writer’s club, the smile on the face of another child was the cherry on their cake. The gift of a book made the little fellow peep into a world of possibilities. He shifted his focus from the bottle to the horizon.

Realizing Life

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The Official Colonel Sanders Podcast

The holiday season seems to come at us faster and faster every year. I feel like we just put away the 4th of July fireworks and now I’ve got pumpkin ice cream in my freezer and Egg Nog in my fridge.

The dust hasn’t even settled on the rolls of wrapping paper from last year.

Having just turned a new decade, no one needs to remind me how quickly time flies. But I still need the reminder.

As you gather around the Thanksgiving table with your family next week – whether you like them or not – I want to challenge you to really take the time to relax, and breathe. Enjoy your families, regardless of the circumstances. One day Uncle Fred or Grandma or Dad aren’t going to be sitting at that seat, and you’ll miss them.

If you feel that the holiday season has become mundane, soak…

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Who are you?

This morning, we sat around the table and the question of ‘who are you’ came up. The word of God seems to bring a calming sense to our daily learning. Sometimes we sing it loud in unimaginable keys, other days we memorize or draw it out.

Of late though, everybody seems to have an opinion which the rest of us must listen to. And so it was that the first chapter of the Gospel of John sent my children talking about who they are.

It seems a few people had an opinion as to who John was. “Are you Elijah?” they asked. “No,” John replied. “Are you the prophet, the coming Christ perhaps?” they persisted to which John replied in the negative.

“Who are you?” I asked our four year old daughter. She rattled off her full names and age before settling down to, “I am beautiful on the inside and then the outside.” She lisped her way through, “I love eating with my family, I love mama and daddy.”

The two oldest children dwelt on their heritage. “I am a son of God,” our son said. “Then I am a Kimunya, which means I treat my sisters with love and tackle them gently.”

Echoes of ‘I am a daughter of God, I am a girl who loves mathematics, I can’t say the same about writing’ filled the air.
But this lesson was double edged, it pierced through their little hearts as much as it did mine.

When our children are clear on who they are, sprinkled with doses of affirmation, encouragement, hugs and a sense of belonging, then ownership happens.

Now mama does not have to be a constant drizzle from dawn to dusk because the children get it, who they are is hinged on their maker.

The Different Breed

My children and I were at the top of the first ramp at a hospital in Nairobi, trying to will away the inevitable-injections.

We had walked out of the laboratory to supposedly catch fresh air, allow some stretching of tired feet and permit our tummies to ramble without judgemental glances from our neighbors.

An elderly lady, moving at a snail’s pace was making her way up the ramp, assisted by her daughter (its all in their twin noses, shimmering skin and the weaves). She was bent over in pain or old age, was all covered up, perhaps feeling cold and we noticed her ankles were swollen.

She finally made it to the top of the ramp and slouched over the rail breathing heavily it’s a wonder we did not run.

A nurse walked towards her, ‘Do you need a wheel chair?’ Duh! ‘Yes,’ she labored to answer. ‘I will send someone to bring it,’ said he of the white lab coat before he walked off like Enoch, never to be seen again.

A few minutes later, two nurses strolled right past the ailing woman towards the loo- to perhaps touch up on their make up. I doubt you can have the runs or a full bladder and still walk daintily like those two were.

They did not even see her, they did not even see my little ones who were hoping in one spot protesting about known causes, hunger, fatigue, thirst and fear of injection. But what if it was a bee sting or a twisted ankle!

A senior looking nurse cared enough to stop and ask the same duh question,’is everything okay’, really. “Yes, everything is perfect. Wait a minute, I am slouched over in pain, trying to move my old over weight body up the ramp to enjoy a cocktail of unmentionable tablets, yes, I could not be better.
I usually take my hot afternoon strolls in your esteemed halls, soaking in wails from kids afraid of the doctor and communing with parents whose nostrils are flared to Michelin-size from taking stool samples.

She, just like her buddies, disappeared through the corner to the blood bank.

Is this the culture of this hospital? What sort of training did these nurses go through? How can I teach my children to care for others? Is this a discipline or monetary question? Is there still a human residing within those shells that took the training to care and yet are not?

And then she appeared with the widest sunshine smile and a quickness to her step. I thought she would topple over or be blown away by the air conditioning. She must be about four feet tall, maybe weighing 40 kilograms with a shoe size of a mouse.

‘How may I help you mama,’ she started off her conversation. The old lady lifted her head to say… but the nurse stopped her. ‘Let me bring a wheel chair,’ she disappeared round the bend. Shortly, the sound of the wheels up the rugged ramp assaulted our ears as she dashed to the aid of the old lady.

In no time, she was wheeling the old lady to the lift to see her doctor. That tiny, four-foot smiling woman taught me the importance of teaching my children to care and serve others.

Our learning has changed course to ‘inner discipline’. Will my children be steered by an inner discipline to look after themselves and those around them without being told?

Now, when it comes to our children’s education, I care more about their servant heart than their success in dissecting slugs or de-feathering African robins in our back yard.

I am fully aware that their names will not appear in the press as the best performing students or be lifted high by a headmaster in a school for topping in the country.

I am fully aware that in homeschooling them, their excellence will originate from inside and hopefully manifest on the outside.

photo credit: APS Museum via photopin cc

Back in Time

We are all excited about this new adventure ‘The Railway Children’. The journey into this classic will hopefully take three months.

The Writer’s Club with kids from 1year to 11 years have different levels of interest here. While the littlest ones listen to stories and play (everything is punctuated with a snack), the middle ones just climb anything that’s off the ground and express their opinions in amazing ways. Yes they listen, and participate, from window sills and on mama’s backs. They are an absolutely fun age to engage with.

The journey for the biggies is all about reading, interpretations, opinions, reviews which mercifully will not be punctuated by echoes of B-O-R-I-N-G.

We will experience the book like Edith Nesbit did. If there is a train ride in the book, we will ride a train. Any food mentioned in there, we will find it and cook it. There is excitement over pigeon pies, each family will make a catapult and hopefully it is legal to hunt pigeons. The children will visit a doctor’s clinic and learn what they can learn.

In a nutshell, by the time we are done with it, the whole family will have travelled back in time and delved into the life of ‘The Railway Children’.

photo credit: oldandsolo via photopin cc

Mama Time

I am sporting a fierce hairdo. It’s sky high and causing a major concern-the invasion of nostrils in the night. My eyebrows are trimmed to perfection.

I experienced pain to a foolish magnitude today but the results are awesome. “Babes”, my husband roared,”you look like a manyanga”(artistic Nairobi buses). “Mama”, the little ones yelled, “you look beautiful”.

Sometimes, taking a few hours out of home seems like a miracle for a homeschooling mom. Our days are packed with adventures of learning and dealing with different emotions that a few hours away is welcome.

I appreciate the walk in town. There are book vendors at every turn with all manner of children’s books. I can window shop at high end boutiques and look for the best buys or just walk about. Usually, I come home ready to inject new ideas into our learning. Not this time though.

I got thinking about the different choices of career that my children have to make. My hairdresser, a father of three teenagers approaches his work with a passion and a smile to top it off. He epitomizes what it means to embrace and appreciate your gifting and passion. He just loves hair.

He of the white apparel, a lengthy dark fellow with ankle length pants and white shoes is fast approaching with beautification tools to torment my eye brows. The searing pain shooting across every nerve on my face has me in tears. He is plucking baby hairs, running a tight thread across my sore eye brows and grazing through the rest with a new razor blade.

He is a sadist, I determine all on my own. That smile on his face is evil. Here I am, with countless stars dancing behind my shut lids, beads of sweat jigging on my nose and my chest up tight with fear, and he of white pants with red under wear is smiling. He was saving his best tool of torment for last, Surgical spirit to soothe the just now violated eyebrows.

Non payment thoughts start to linger beyond the stars in my eyes. ” I don’t remember asking for a guillotine of my face”, I now reason. With all the non surgical reconstruction going on right now, I start to imagine tiny gaping holes on my face.

I highly doubt if by tomorrow any inspiration will arise from my few hours of mama time.

photo credit: lecercle via photopin cc

Home

A generation of women in my lineage lived supposedly simple lifestyles. They put their own economic and social pursuits on hold so their children could experience mama in all her fulness. Today, we all have fond memories of our childhood, holding on to the faith above anything else.

You all know when mama is home, there is a mind reading game going on. Sins can not go unnoticed but rather perceived at conception and dealt with at a wink with any available tool. She sometimes hurled a spoon or broom, and once, the duck she was de-feathering for dinner.

A little naughtiness is sniffed from a mile away and one killer-look was enough to rest that case. When we hid half teaspoonfuls of sugar under our tongues, mama prolonged the conversation so the drool would give up the sin.

We boiled our drinking water and scrubbed our pans, that was the work of the under 15’s. We also cleaned our shoes and swept under our beds without batting an eyelid. Then on Saturdays, we cleaned the windows with newspapers and rid the pantry of vermins, then crept all over the walls to clean out cobwebs.

Being young scholars meant that we could only cook over the weekends. We learnt to boil molokony (cow hooves) before I could make a cup of tea. Mama sometimes let us make sabulenya (Nile perch) for dinner and today I pride my mastery in fish dishes to the many fishes I clobbered.

Mama was home to pull my ears when I did not clear up the table after taking millet porridge. She served breakfast every morning until we were old enough to serve her. She did it with her head held high and a smile dancing on the corner of her mouth.

My confidence in school had nothing to do with grades. It had everything to do with the security of mama waiting with open arms after school, looking through my bag and unleashing goodies from the kitchen. She listened to my tales of the day and nodded in approval or jeered at the foolishness of children.

Oh how it felt great to disappear in her embrace and feel the beating of her heart.

I am following in mama’s footstep one day at a time. I am honored to homeschool our children and share in the laughters and tears as and when they happen. I cherish the funny expressions and milestones. I love the songs of the moment at Bible reading times.

What an honor to be the commander at this post and taking the bullets as they come. When my children correct me to my face, then I know I am a sinner after all in dire need of grace every time.

It appears that God did design me to be here, at home, dishing out hugs and wiping snort from little cute noses. I am here to sort out squabbles and dig out thorns from toes, make meals and guide meal making processes. I am where The Lord wants me to be-home.

Are you where the Lord wants you to be?

photo credit: Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton via photopin cc

Heavenly sandpapers

It simply read, “Mama, I am feeling bad. I think your tone was harsher than necessary. I know I disobeyed your instructions. Please give me a chance to apologize. I hope we can be friends again.” P.S: You still are the sweetest and most best cook, also the beef you made for dinner was of star quality. It is a shame we had it with ugali (mealie meal or corn bread) instead of chapati.

Shame and its kin saturated my whole being with a vengeance. I thought back to the scenario that brought this ‘bad feeling’ to my seven-year old. It had to do with a request for an early morning picnic in the back yard.

‘Hey,” I blindly reasoned, “but I woke up with a nine-point plan of proceedings this day.” It included among other things learning personal responsibility. I laid out a game for my son to remember that his sisters heartily appreciate a dry toilet seat after his target-practice shooting at imaginary enemies.

I thought the girls could begin to interrogate their attitude toward oatmeal and broth. I had a clever plan of sneaking in nutrition and milky skin, but alas!

Her choice of paper did not hide her true feelings. It was a purple, scrunched up piece of wrapping paper from three Christmases ago, torn in no particular fashion.

She wanted to have her breakfast while cradling dewy grass. She wanted to watch the sun rise and catch up with the bird’s chirping before the noise of the day took over. She had asked to climb the dead tree in our backyard that is littered with termites to which I saw premature death due to termite bites, accidental falling, broken collar bones and teeth peeping from under the nose and…

She even enjoys watching the trees sway to the morning breeze, and the sky, clear from last night pollution.

I hurt my child’s feelings because I did not want to inconvenience myself early in the morning. I painted a horrible picture of her Heavenly Father by being selfish and self centered. What a horrible witness I was. Each time I said no, it seemed like a little life drained out of her eyes. I learnt a huge lesson from it.

Mama’s tone or demeanor each day has the power to either make or break the day. Mama can destroy or build precious spirit within each child. Mama really can soothe away pain and yet inflict it in equal measure by singing no all the time. Mama can open a whole new world of learning if only mama is willing to be ‘inconvenienced’. Mama can bring the sky lower so her babies can reach and grab it. Mama can trade her high heels for dewy breakfast on a mat to the chagrin of the neighbors. Mama can take in the sneer and the high opinion of those around her so her children can experience life to it’s fullest.

So now I am having a lesson on obedience. I am heading right back to the classroom of hard knocks. How can I speak of obedience to God when mine is questionable? Staying at home with the children puts me at the forefront of noticing sins and truancy-which I quickly relay to their heavenly papa and the one right here. And this team continue to work together towards lovingly guiding our precious ones to the ways of the Lord.

I sure learnt the hard way that mama can tame her voice to speak life with kindness and selflessness and yet attracting honor from her little ones-that way they will live long and enjoy life to it’s fullness.

National Treasure Trove

The national library was always going to be a non-negotiable place for my children to visit. And so faithfully like lambs to the slaughter, once a week we check in and head straight to the children’s section.

The near skip-out-of-the-socket-eye-popping-excitement from my children is worth the barrage of questions that come my way from the library officials. You see, we check in there at 10:30 or 11:00am.

The stares and murmurs from the library assistants should have sent me and my brood scampering for the safety of our home but no, like Templeton, the greedy rat in Charlotte’s Web, we devour the books and bury our heads in them. My children’s counterparts are probably consuming copious amounts of English composition and copy work. I can sense that the officials here are clearly questioning my sanity.

I can’t claim that this beautiful place had raving recommendations. Previous visitors had baptized it all manner of unimaginable syllables. This is what drew me to it. It was everything they had said, dusty, unkempt and after my visit, my nose was tingling with all the dust and smell moldy books. My eyes where sore from viewing an impressive athleticism from vermin of all genealogy.

Today, I pat myself on the back for keeping at it. We discovered an amazing book by Alistair Ross on the story of mathematics. What a beautiful read! We have learnt about the Joloff of Africa and the Maya of Central America as well as Chinese. I am as wide eyed about learning judom, fook, yat and yanet as my children are.

Mathematics has never been more fun. I am having fun facilitating a learning by my children. I didn’t think my jaws would be dropping as low as they have in the past two weeks. This is worth the time we spend together reading, playing, eating, cleaning and learning from one another. It is also a good reason to continue homeschooling.

Of Geckos & Confusion

"Tell me mama," said my daughter, "Were you once a little girl like me?"
"Well, yes of course, sweetheart," I replied.

"Are you sure about that mama? Hmm, did you ever get in trouble with your own mama?Like when mama, tell me, when did your mama look at you with criss-crossed eyes?"she pressed on.

This is a jab below the belt, beads of sweat pop on my brow. Alarm bells are going off in my mind. This, I suspect, is a trick question. The truth I remind myself, must be spoken at all times because only then will I remain free.

This is a lesson we stress in our household. However, I feel bombarded from all angles. I can see her brother rolling his tongue to bellow out a guilt-laden question. Something like, "Where you obedient, did you always eat all your spinach? Yea, how about brushing teeth, did you never get cavities? Did you nearly turn yellow from eating too much pumpkin?"

Nothing is going to plan. The first order of the day, as had been for a while, is to start off with our Bible and hymn books. However, the hymn books conspire to lull our sleepy eyes back to dreamland. I make a mental note to postpone hymn singing.

My son has chosen to commune with a lady bug that was patched on the sheer overlooking the flooded backyard. He has counted all its legs and spots and made deductions out of it. He keeps an eye out for Rounder, the scrawny gecko that seems to be on a ’round our ceiling in eighty days’.

His sister, my firstborn daughter has requested for a pedicure. She is reading the Greek myths and in between mouthfuls of excessively buttered bread, she lets us in on what king Eurystheus is up to and Pygmalion as well. "With my eyes closed," she chuckles, "I can see my feet twiddling in water."

The youngest one is on her third page of coloring every warthog and it’s cousins purple.

Here we are, nearly two hours since we woke up, and I can not claim that the order of learning has yielded much. My little perfect idea of a perfect day is literally sliding through my fingers, I am losing control of the day.

By now over one thousand words have fallen on deaf ears. But I had been categorically clear with myself about not repeating myself as a manager in this household. I whipped open Proverbs and read out in staccato, my voice laden with pain about not training up children.

The effect was right on point as concerned faces stared at me in disbelief. "Mama, is your back hurting?" asked the littlest one. "I hope you didn’t bite your tongue again," quips his brother with his head half turned to ladybug. Let me see your poor toes, did you stub them on the stairs once more.

As I sat with echoes of concerned voices in the periphery of my brain, a nagging arose within the depth of my heart. "Must I militarily organize the day for any learning to take place? How do my children learn? Is it possible that learning can be unstructured and knowledge retained? Could I instead facilitate learning instead of pushing and forcing and threatening? I was an awkward child too, can I extend the same grace my own mother extended to me?

As my head pounds with memories of a sweet mother who was patient, loving and a disciplinarian, I decide to come down to the mortal level of my children and extend the same love that my own mother showed me.

My children are now front row watching mama descend from the ‘I-know-it-all high to there is plenty of room for mama to learn’.