In the 90s there was a friendly Luhya gentleman in our estate. We nicknamed him Omwami. His wife lived in the countryside, taking care of business in the sticks, while he lived with his children in the city.
Omwami was cool with all the boys in the hood. He often regaled us with witty cracks when he came to Mykie's Barbershop, where we would kill time while those chewing khat built castles in the air.
“Now that my children are home during the holidays,” Omwami would joke, “I must control the amount of food they eat.”
“Please, Omwami,” we would say. “Wacha watoto waharibu jina na wajenge mwili.” This means letting children spoil their names and build their bodies.
“No, that will not happen in my house,” Omwami would reply as Mykie trimmed his beard. “To make sure they don't consume more ugali than they are supposed to, I have drilled four holes on four sides of sufuria ya ugali.”
“You can't be serious, Omwami, ” we would laugh. “Why did you do that?”
“They can't put more maji ya ugali than the holes I have drilled,” he would reply, deadpan. “Lazima mzazi akuwe mjanja.”
“And if I don't want them to cook ugali, I leave a live mosquito or housefly on top of the sealed container where we store maize flour,” Omwami would continue. “If they open the container, my spies will fly and I will know someone touched the maize flour.”
As if that was not enough, Omwami gave us more tricks that he had up his food-pinching sleeves …
“I have the biggest palms in my house. Once in a while, I will leave my palmprints on top of the maize flour. If any child uses the maize flour, I will know!”
Omwami may have been joking. But, with school closed, and children home for long holidays, many parents find themselves in this feeding quandary.
For many of us, and especially in the harsh economic times, we have been forced to regulate our meals. Circumstances have forced us to tighten our belts. Many of us have just one meal per day, and two square meals if we are fortunate.
“How did our parents do it so effortlessly, with seven children, three live-in cousins and multiple visitors per day?” I often wonder.
I was a child then. Now I am a man. And it's only now that I realise our parents had their fair share of “feeding struggles”. Feeding us wasn't always effortless. They just hid their struggles in acts of love and selflessness.
For instance, mama almost always ate last, ensuring that all her children had all the helpings before she would grab a bite to eat. I always thought that this was something all mothers did.
And whenever we ate meat (my dad loved meat) pops had a habit of always giving us his pieces of meat. I always thought this was love. Or that pop's stomach was full and my little belly had enough space to fit a whole cow. Now I know that pops was just sacrificing what he loved and the little that he could buy, so we could have as much as we desired.
Here is a suggestion to ease the feeding burden. If you are in a supermarket, and a still small voice urges you to pay for the groceries for the person ahead of you, heed that voice. It may be just a packet of milk or a loaf of bread, but for some families, that's what they have between them and starvation.
And if you're stressed out by your feeding struggles and want to let off steam, go the Omwami way. Flip the script and turn the situation into a whole comic set at your local barbershop. After all, laughter is the best (and blessed) medicine.
