THE TRUE BAOBAB OF AFRICA.

By blogger

Gwemela

MY name is Gwemela Conradi Michael; I was born 3^rd September 1995 at Maweni Hospital. After being born and hours to have passed, my mother and her escort were discharged from the hospital to give room for other patients that were in the queue.

         It was until three days to pass, that I started sucking milk from my mother’s nipples, as for that past three days I was refusing to suck milk from her. The reason behind this incidence, explained by mother, that, the name to be assigned to me didn’t match up, and it was until when they asked me to agree (in our native language) which is called Gwemela, so Gwemela= means agree, but agree about what? It was about agreeing to suck milk from my mother’s nipples and that I can assure my survival  and for real the plea was heard by God, the almighty and gave them their wish, so then I survived and allowed to complete my early months of childhood.

THREAT TO MY LIFE.

Early in my childhood, I had encountered two big threats over my life that, one being refusing to suck milk from my mother’s nipples for three consecutive days, the other threat was disease called “Surua”; this is a disease that affects the skin and raises body temperature (fever).  Also, there were some minor threat to my life, that was puncturing the left side of the nose to the stone and the mark is still existing up to date showing how large the incident was, and the other  catastrophic blow was being walked on my body skin by ants(Siafu) on my head where I nearly died, but by the grace of God I also survived and shared the same oxygen till now, my mom took the ash and started smearing on my head and later on, all the ants were vanished, as then I felt relieved from the verge of nearly death experience.

NEXT TO DEATH VERGE

Based on what happened to my life I think threats above weren’t big enough compared to that one that nearly put me to death, well, I was raised by both my father and mother but my entire childhood was much spent with my mother in whom every move and behaviors of mine, all of them were rectified by her, as far as my optional and critical thinking is a concern. I remember in 1997 when I was only two, and at that time my mother asked us, me and my two sisters, saying, “Gwemela” and I replied “Naam” in Swahili meaning “yes” and she continued saying, “you and your sisters(Aneth and Mwanvua) have to go and find food to eat next house” this followed after her discovering that we’d not eaten for days, and that day was going to be the third day, so her resort was to not allow us to die over pride but rather damp the pride and make the right move at the right time. So we had no way to refuse that when we were at the verge of death, and therefore my older sister took us to Mwingereza, the man who lived next-door and we waited till time for lunch, the beautiful young girl Helen and called us to go, and off course we never asked because we knew that we were going to have our stomach being filled like the sandbag sacks.

Back to my mother who had been now hungry for three days continued to tighten the piece of cloth that tied her waist and stomach to make her feel no pain. And previous before alerting us go to Mr Mwingereza, my mother used the same trick of tightening piece of cloth in our stomach not to feel the related pain.

Telling you all sort of this incidence without including my father might have frightened you, and off-course it is because my mother always stayed at home hoping my father to come home with all necessary and therefore that made her fail herself and her dying children in whom, the power of not regretting kept haunting her and them and therefore they went on with minimal fail of ignoring pride and admitted the weakness to their neighbor, Mr. Mwingereza in whom life came to prosperous moment, when he even allowed us to go there again and again(that is how we live in Africa, living as a family)

RIGHT UPDATES AND SUNKEN OUTDATES.

Like the revived man, after my mother, Angelina John Myankano, to awake from the verge of death, as a result of my father to have acquired all the necessary in very late time, my mother called a meeting and made herself clear to us and to my father who never knew how we and our mother had gone through during his late search for meals and other necessity like kerosene and mawese ( an oil palm oil), so my mom said to us that she is going to start her own business and therefore not to continue depending on carpentry which paid no bills to our general requirements. As we all knew that she meant what she said as she asked my father to rent her some amount of money,  where she said “ Baba Pato, ninaomba unipatie kiasi cha fedha ambacho kinaweza kukidhi ufanyaji wa biashara ya mahindi ya kuchoma, nikizipata nitakurudishia” meaning that “Baba pato, please lend me some money that I may start selling boiled and heated maize, and when I gather some more, I’ll give your money back” my father Mr Conradi Michael Madugu gave in and hence sold out our house which was located near Kigoma airport Apron area, and moved to new area called (mtaa wa simu) simu street, where my father started living a new place lending a room 3000tsh as the price per month, and living near the main road, Lumumba road, the street named after Patrice Lumumba(Congolese courageous man and the first prime minister of Congo) wasn’t the first time, because I was carried to my mother’s womb at Mabatini street and brought up to my early childhood, a few days before moving to Kasuku, the place where all threats took place,

My mother and father started selling off maize, with my sister Mwanvua being the brightest kid, mother entrusted her with oranges and mangoes, to pass off-road and sell them, for most case my sister managed to sell them with high price and brought profit home, my mother loved her because she was bringing more  than just a profit. For example, my sister usually walked with a basin in street with oranges and mangoes of 800tsh and came home with 4000 more than just 100% profit, this was only possible with her sly tongue to conquer westerners and foreigners, with her skill of tidy and neat vessels, that maintain cleanness.

                                                     

                                             *************

As far as my sister brightness is concerned, I would like also to declare how clever she was, was only due to God blessing, because one day my mother told us that, “you're older sister helped us gain 16kgs of maize grain as she used to collect them in the market with no fear, so she knew how embarrassing was hunger, now Gwemela, you need to learn from her even though she never went to school, so don’t underestimate her and always respect” and so I do respect her.

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK, SEE YOU

I am writing this not to tell you that my childhood life was tough, but tell you that life is grace of God and when the grace of God stops, also does our life (stops).