FATHERHOOD

I salute anybody with the tag father today, though not those who are not worth this very responsible title. My few months’ experiences as a father have taught me to value these special people. Henceforth, I will make a point of celebrating every Fathers Day as if it is Christmas. This year for example: I will buy myself a new Kaunda suit with black Mwalimu Jini shoes, then I will make sure I buy some explosive stuffs and will be awake till midnight just waiting for the day to start, then I will wake my neighbours up with threatening explosions and loud singing like the one they experience only in new year. Later that day I will get very angry with my wife because I am sure she will forget to buy me a pair of new red socks as gift to go with my new shoes. Anyway, that is neither here nor there. The most important thing right now is to let you know that every time my wife will be telling my kid that she carried her for only nine months, I will be bragging for carrying him for a much longer time than that…just that when I met her [note that I used MET not MATE] I deposited the thing to her.

So this day, Mama DY sees a message from a colleague, asking me to cover her work the next week in her absence. Now she is an extremely jealous one. The text had two problems: Number one, it had an extremely toxic word somewhere. A word that does not auger well with extremely jealous wives: ‘swthrt’. I couldn't even read the word because it never looked like English but somehow my wife could and she got totally furious, leaving me wondering when she learnt Japanese. Number two, the colleague was a very beautiful lady that she knew, so I understand why she was three times furious. Anyway, for this second reason I am not apologetic because, it would have been very annoying if the text was from an average-looking girl, and horrible, if it had been a man.

I am a smart father; I know how ladies enjoy seeing their husbands babysit. It works miracles.  So I assure her that since the following day was my off-day, I would take care of the baby. She seems excited about this but I only discover the next day that she is yet to trust me when she sends the house girl to the furthest part of the town and flattens my car tyres just in case my other brain makes me think of following the house girl. So in my house that day, it was just me, my three months old tadpole and Jehovah Al Shaba….something [or is it El Shadai….that part of my Bible got torn].

I had planned to compensate for all those mornings I am forced to wake up early to go to work but just as soon as Mama DY left, DY started yelling as if I had pinched him. I decide to ignore thinking that he was messing with my mind but this kid was smart. It is not only the yelling that would keep you awake. I suspect  the mum must have given him a piece of skunk meat because the pungent chocking gas that he was unleashing, could not even allow a tse-tse fly victim  to sleep. So I get up and rush to get some milk to feed him. Only then do I discover that I was so hungry. Despite being alone, I look around twice to confirm that no one was seeing me, and I quickly take a huge gulp of DY’s funny tasting milk. It is then that my phone rings [Mama DY calling me to remind me that he had left some breast milk there for DY]. Whaaaat! The rest is History. Just know it had something to do with me trying to force myself to puke.

Now DY wasn't that kid who sleeps all the time as if he was on a dosage of sleeping pills. You needed to soothe him to sleep with several sweet lullabies. His mum had taught him this bad habit. So now I am forced to sing for him the same so that he could sleep then I could compensate for my sleeping time. Unfortunately, this is the time that all lullabies you have ever had disappear from your mind. The only song that you remember is one: “Timboroa ni mbali sana”. Now this song can only make Kibera babies sleep, not my Lavington-type DY.  Luckily Jehovah Al Shaba…something comes to my rescue. I quickly remember that lullabies have some ‘lala’ word. And so there is this Willy Paul’s song that comes to my mind. It is a fast one though, so I try to sing it very slowly to create the soothing effect. It is only when my DY gives me that crazy smile of his that it hits me that this song was a dedication to the dead. I curse myself ten times with ten different obscene words and thank God that DY doesn’t understand them. I finally figure out something: even Christmas songs sang with the right pace could be perfect lullabies and so I start singing a few. But the only person these songs can make to sleep is…me. I wake up an hour later only to find DY staring in space just like he was doing while I was singing.

I guess at this time, the boy must have done a few blunders on his diapers so I decide to fix the mistakes. Now this is the part where the baby decides to send you a very rude message right to your face.            Just when you are getting of the diapers, he sprays you with a fresh supply of boiling urine on your right eye [I have never understood why it never gets the left eye]. Am left wondering why he didn't do that mess in the diapers. At this point I must confess that I am struggling so hard not to punch his tinny red balls. Anyway, the answer was right in my face, I am taking care of his generation but not really his generation, it is more personal: I am taking care of my future generation. Assuming that since, he had just messed up the diapers, he wasn't going to do it any time soon, I leave him free and go to warm some water to clean him up. From the kitchen, a very ugly loud sound sends me running to the room to check on DY, only to find that my good boy had released all the pieces of skunk meat that his mum gave him on my brand new 5000/= duvet. Here, my black skin was turning red with anger. I rushed to the kitchen made sure that I not only warmed his water but boiled it to 112.31⁰c. He would know that I am the boss and he should not mess up with me. In my anger, I didn't even notice that I wasn't having a holder in my hands to get the sufuria off the fire so I used my bare hands. All I remember is that my hands got scalded and the water found its way to my body.

What I am saying is, right now I have two marks that remind me of fatherhood: my crazy DY and some funny looking scars on my body. This are the main reasons why I am never taking Fathers day for granted again. And any other father who has gone through the same experiences, I am welcoming them to my place this year. Remember to carry your explosives. Sorry, Mama DY reminds me that they are called Fireworks.