Photo by Moses Londo on Unsplash
I turned ten in 1980. At the time, my family lived in Warri, located in the South of Nigeria. My mother had told us that we would be going to Kenya for the holidays. I remember being filled with such excitement that I could hardly breathe, let alone sleep. It didn’t matter that she also said that we were going to Kenya to say bye-bye to her mother, my grandmother, Mwaitu. My parents had even bought us brand new sandals from Bata for the trip. My 10-year old joy was completely without measure, expansive, boundless.
Mwaitu… That was the name we had always called her. My older sister and I had stayed with her in the village until I was 6, giving my parents the latitude to work in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. I remembered her as a strong matriarch.
We flew to Nairobi from Nigeria. From Nairobi to Mwala (my mum’s village), we went by car. Oh the vast expanse of yellow-green grass (or lack of) and the sparse short-short trees on the way to the village. I’d missed it so so much. It was great seeing everyone again. Everyone had changed, the place seemed different, somehow smaller than I remembered, and the children could not get enough of each other’s stories from two different cultures. The adults had to force us to sleep those nights. I’d missed herding and milking the goats and roasting corn in the fields of Mwala, sitting by the village’s local lake. I wanted to do everything once again before we had to leave, and the time was so short.
Hmmmnn. That trip to Mwala changed my childish thought-free life, and awakened deep parts of my consciousness.
Mwala is a village, and our residence in Mwala was laid out in an interesting fashion, a setting that was practical for villages at the time. There was the main house block with the living room and bedrooms. Beside it was the kitchen building where we cooked using firewood. It had to have ventilation, and was a separate building from, though near, the main house (I guess now maybe because of fire and carbon dioxide hazards?). In the compound, a little apart from these other buildings, was the outhouse. These buildings were fenced in with a curious plant with smooth-textured thick green branches and no leaves that brought out a milky white liquid when cut. And the generous land my grandfather owned surrounded the residence. This vast land housed all the livestock and the farms of corn, potatoes, and other vegetables our family owned.
I had spent the holiday up till that time in complete and heavenly youngster adventure and abandon: Riding on calf-back making believe I was a cow-girl on horse-back, taking long walks in the farms roasting corn cobs we plucked along the way, visiting the big lake I remembered from my younger days when we had stayed with Mwaitu… the lake didn’t look quite so big anymore…
One night, in my boisterous nature, I bounced into the kitchen…and met a sight that changed my perspective on life and Mwaitu, and grew me in ways I never imagined possible.
There were about four/five women in the kitchen around the fire. Mwaitu, my mum, aunties, family friends. They were tending to Mwaitu. She was naked from the waist up. In place of her right breast, I saw what appeared to be a massive wound. My young brain struggled to make sense of what I was seeing, I was extremely confused and suddenly weak around the knees. My mum shouted at me to get out NOW! I was transfixed however, not from my usual youthful stubbornness, just that my joints were locked in inaction and shock. Mwaitu put a hand gently on my mum’s arm. And just as gently said, “Let her stay.”
I sat down and watched as they gently tended to her “wound”. What amazed me then, and still amazes me now, was how Mwaitu kept calmly discussing with me and the women around her, as if the painful open-flesh breast wasn’t hers to feel. Ah-Ah… how could she have been so in pain, and yet so calm and happy that her last-born and Nigerian grandchildren had come back home to see her. I know now that it must have taken a lot for her to do that. Because that “wound” was not just a wound.
I watched her closely.
I remembered my Mom saying we were going back to say goodbye to Mwaitu, and tears welled up in my eyes.
I cried for Mwaitu before she died. That was the night I first heard the word Cancer.
One month after we got back to Nigeria, Mwaitu passed on. I am a woman and over 40 today. I have never forgotten that holiday, the lesson I learnt about empathy, strength, sacrifice and love, or the woman who inadvertently taught me that lesson.
Continue to rest in power Mwaitu.
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This is an amazing story. thank you for sharing it.
Thank you!
Sorry for the double comment – I do hope you keep blogging, as I see this is your first post!