Friday, April 3, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
I Want To Be A Big Girl
Sometimes when you want things to go fast, it’s when things feel like they are slowing down more than ever. I was seven years old when I met Koku, she was my neighbor. After Mom died when I was five years old, I was all over the map. Grammar and I starting traveling a lot, today we would go to Morogoro City, and after couple of months we would go back to Dar-es-salaam, I couldn’t start school and finish, I was a traveler. It was an exciting time, she would force me to go to bed ready the night before and wake me up at 5am, to give me a cold bath so I would wake up and get ready to go to the international bus stop. “come on Queen, no time to waste” she would say as she scrubs my back as she is giving me a washer and I sitting in the big plastic dish, falling asleep.
I loved going to Morogoro, my uncle and his wife lived there. They had one son, his name was Joseph and he used to pick on me often. Anyway that wasn’t a big problem. Whenever he would pick on me, I would run to uncle and tell on him to his father. He would be punished very bad, and my soul would be satisfied. One day when Uncle went to register me in kindergarten school of missionaries, I met a friend, Koku. She and I were the only kids in the school with the same color of skin; everyone else was a missionary’s kid from America. My language and their’s didn’t match, I would always say “no…yes...no” those were the only English words that I knew. Koku and I spoke the same language, and by that I didn’t make any other friends. It was only me and Koku and that was fine with me. Everyday when we walk home from school, Koku and I would pass near by girl’s missionary college. We would see different big girls. Some would be talking to others and laughing loud, some will be coming to talking to boys which was a big deal and there were those who just walk around in the campus. I dreamed to be a big girl, to talk like them, to walk like them, to be a big girl and boys calling your name.
One day as Koku and I were walking home, we decided to make a promise that from now on we will act like big girls. We would study their walk, their talk, and other big girl behaviors. “They normally put there chest in front while walking…like this..” I corrected Koku as we learn how to walk for a second time in our lives.
“Well, I think that they walk like that because they got a big chest” Koku said as she showed me how to walk.
“So …we don’t have a big chest. We are still young” I pointed out after I realizing that we are not fitted to be big girls.
“My aunt said that if you put fuku fuku bags on your chest and rap a cloths around your chest to keep them tight, they will make your chest grow”
“What?” I questioned. “Are you sure?”
“Yes..thats how the big girls got there chest. We have to do it, or we won’t be big girls” Koku defended her opinion.
I had nothing to think off, Koku’s words made sense to me at that time. “So were do we get them?”
“Behind my house, we just have to collect them in the battle”
We walked right away to Koku’s house; I could see my house a block away from her’s. We snuck to the back yard of her house with our plastic yellow battles. We collected some few Fuku Fuku bags and put them in a battle. They didn’t bite while collecting them, and so I thought it would be easy to have a big chest. I ordered Koku to give me a hand, putting those Fuku Fuku bags on my chest and rap a cloth around my chest.
“They are ok, nothing going on” I said to Koku as I wrapped a cloth full of Fuku Fuku bags around her chest.
“Ok we are done, so what next?” I asked
“We have to wait and after…time. Then we will take them out”.
We sat out the porch for about one minute before the bags started to bite our chests. It felt like one is poking me with a sharp needle on my chest over and over.
“I am taking it off” Koku cried,” it hurts”
“No-o-o, if you do we won’t grow, just wait, wait few minutes” I tried to stop her from ruining the plan.
After ten slow minutes passed full of pain, we couldn’t take it anymore and so we unwrapped the cloth out from our chests, hoping to find our destination.
“Oh no, oh no” I cried as I was looking at my not anymore nice chest. I had bite marks all over me. They were red, painful, ugly marks. We stood there, not knowing what to do, what to explain to our parents. We put our shirts on and tried to go sneak inside the house to get something to apply on our chest. As we were searching thought the cabinets, we heard a sound that was familiar to both of us.
“What are you guys doing?” Aunty asked as we were applying some vaccine on our chests. “What happened? What is this?” Aunty asked while looking close to my chest.
We couldn’t hide anything, Aunty was very strict, I had to explain why we looked like we did. I didn’t expect much from her than her twisting our ears leading us to the kitchen. She applied some ashes from last night’s fire on our chest. She said that, that would keep the pain away. She told us to sit under our front mango tree’s shade and let our chests cool off. We had ashes all over our chest, sitting at the front porch bare chests. It was ok for few minutes but then it got ugly when boy of our age passing by and just staring at us as if they saw a live ghost.
“Look away. Go away” I cried. Its was a nightmare in the day time. We couldn’t do anything, Koku and I were out there at the porch feeling nothing than pain, and we got nothing but bites all over us. That was the last time I saw Koku, when Grammar and I returned to Dar-es-salaam, we never came back until when I was ten years old, returning to Morogoro to go bury my lovely Gram par.