CALMLY CHIC

Nude brown and bright tips turn into some chic stuff like this...! Awesome!

THE POLYGAMOUS POT (PART 2)

…And back to my clay pot I lit the firewood, tossed in a few dry leaves and made some yams with coconut sauce for the family, letting them all serve before I did. That is how it worked. The man of the house got served first, and then the children would eat after he has had his share. He ate the best pieces of chicken, beef and fish… if the mother had nothing left to cover the pit of her stomach, it was alright, she was the home-maker and brought up to endure the pangs of marriage, but they never mentioned the pangs of strange retrospective tradition; that you knew when you got married and it would make sense why mothers had such minimal helpings. Maybe if we lived in the Pekechu highlands, it would be better. The land was richer, greener, more fertile and the rains clearly adored her soil. They said women there were well built and could carry two children with their shapely hips; interesting, I had never met any though.

Now Okuchu would come home slightly late, having had the brew by the elders. These negotiations were consuming a lot of time, not to mention his energy. He barely touched his dinner; he only ate the nuts and wild fruits that I stashed in the basket I wove from reeds in my early years. His countenance upheld a blank look, emotionless. I sensed that this decision was wrenched out of his free will; but I could not mention this. No matter how the man felt, his wife could not share in his sorrow or joy. She was just meant to do her duty and let him be. That broke my heart, to think that he could not speak his mind and now I had to embrace a second wife, from a foreign tribe. Tough times those were.

My friend Haumu would sit with me on Sunday afternoons for an hour after morning prayers by the village priest. We would walk home with our children and while they played around the hut, we would sit under the cashew nut trees and chat the minutes away. Then we would enjoy each other’s silence while pounding dry maize in the mortar. Our friendship was one of those. On certain days she would simply sit with me in the kitchen hut after preparing her evening meal, sip some herbal tea that I made from forest herbs and not say much. I was simply glad when she graced me with her tacit presence, it warmed my heart.

The festival now draws closer. We have to prepare to receive a new individual in the community; we call it the Shanga festival. The one being received is adorned with beads, and a lot of feasting and dancing is done. The inhabitants of the homestead into which she is received undergoes quite some preparation, purification and reconstruction, ready to accommodate another. Change is not the easiest of things to welcome, but it is one of the inevitable things after death and the noose of the taxman.

VERDE!!!

Verde is spanish for green...

So the beauty stores now have magnetic nail polish and in this random green colour, it looks like this!