A Distant Journey

Abstract

Close to the end of the long holiday following my completion of standard three, Mama started packing a suitcase for me that was larger than usual; it was an old portmanteau that rarely left its location among a stack of worn and broken portmanteaus in the corner of her bedroom. She called me into the living room that morning and told me that paying my school fees was getting increasingly difficult. I already had a sense of that because I had been sent home from school a few times for not paying fees. The fees always got paid with a little help from my parents, but since they lived faraway from Itu, they always sent the money by postal order, a form of payment much like today’s money order. The money from my parents always arrived late. That may have been because it took time for items to travel by post or because my parents just did not have the money at the critical time; but the money never ever arrived on time. My grandmother was sure my parents were simply behaving as the irresponsible animals with which God had filled her house. “If I didn’t take you from them at two teeth, you would now be wherever they are, wallowing with them in the mud where they both deserve to live. Even a goat remembers where its children are; but the goats in my house only remember people outside. In my next lifetime, I would never experience the awful fate that has befallen me this time. Don’t they see where their mates are? All they know is to cook meals with tons of meat, eat with their friends, and then laugh—ha! ha! ha! Stupid! Stupid!”