We all have varying memories of times when we were kids. Some, like mine, are quite scanty. But Stevens in the below piece seems to have been digging in his memory archives for the follies of childhood.

I used to wonder:

Why was mum forcing me to leave for school if she really loved me.

Si we would just stay together in the house?

Why couldn’t they allow me use a biro instead of a pencil?

Why didn’t they let me eat meat instead of mashed bananas?

Why didn’t they allow me to go for the main service in Church instead of asking me to go for Sunday school (and the way I was serious about God)?

Why did they ask me to pray for food – only when visitors came to our place?

Why did they ask me to go to bed early when I wasn’t even sleepy?

Why did they buy me stuff I did not like – like those ‘ yellow dungarees’ and the green suit that came that Christmas day?

Why did Cucu say I was her husband?

Why….

Me at Pre-unit was a whole rebellion

Only if I had a choice!

I can’t remeber any clothes I had that long ago. Ohh. There was one pink dress and red shoes (were Bata Bullets and Bubble gummers in shops then?). And there was that dress with a name associated with Moi, commonly used to make seat covers (Ntonga Nkere Moi- meaning touch and I will go and tell Moi, the then President of Kenya.)

But I remember our dog Sim and the photographer in his motorcycle, who used to come home every sunday coz that is when people were clean and smart enough to have their photos taken.

I also remember my grandmother’s kitchen, with the pole in the middle; and her cowshed.

There is also the maize that was planted in a place where there once used to be a cowshed; its leaves were dark green and it was so tall it felt like a forest. Next to it was the sweet avocado tree that bore fruit once in a year, and always, too few fruits. Below it my grandma’s grave with sisal and red, yellow and purple flowers.

My aunties spoke about ghosts of Lang’ata Cemetery, especially one that carried a bucket, and I got too spooked to pass near that grave especially after dusk. Times I had to take food to my then still single Uncle Miice and I had to pass by that grave at night or take the longer route via the gate. Spooky. What was I so afraid of? That was life on the farm and no one was likely to be idling around ready to scare dear me out of my skin.

Childhood!