Sometimes I think the long trips after school were instrumental to our wellbeing. It seemed normal to the both of us, but it was technically a tough experience for kids aged between 8 and 10 to make important decisions by themselves. Mzee ensured we had enough food during supper—not dinnar—and sometimes something to eat after school. He was also very solemn, hardly socializing with us unless it concerned critical matters such as correcting mistakes. He hardly knew anything about our individual characters, and that was his weakness. I will never blame him. He is the best dad anyone can have. This man has not only grown old trying to manage and instill understanding between families but has also raised many people. Those who knew him then have never lost respect for him.
On the weekends, he used to leave for the rural village. My two elder blood brothers had relocated after transferring schools, as earlier mentioned. This only happened after he separated from his first wife. I never followed the issues well due to cultural norms. I have grown to respect traditions, but I keep away from those I don't adore. The reason for their separation and how my mom came to be part of this family is a story for another day.
So we had mastered the fact that Mzee would always go to the village every Friday evening and show up back in our two-roomed house in town. Unlike many families within our poverty-stricken social class in this small town, Mzee could at least afford a bigger house. There was only one other unit in the compound, consisting of two rooms: a living room and a sitting room. It belonged to a Muslim family. My stepbrother and I admired this family because they often had us covered on the weekends when it came to snacks and sometimes lunch, which we never had. They consisted of three siblings raised by a single mother. I never saw the man of the house, so that was my conclusion. Their mother was always busy, often returning home at night. Her only son and lastborn was in high school, and he never spoke to little guys like us, perhaps because he was a teen. He always looked very neat. We called the secondborn Dadah, which I now realize was a nickname. Fatuma, the oldest and very tall lady, was our best friend.
Fatuma used to feed us delicacies of all sorts. In return, we made sure she would not fetch water that day. We could only manage to carry a 5-liter jerrican, but we filled several 20-liter containers in their house. Although she hardly promised any compensation before we embarked on our many return trips to the water source, about 200 meters away, we were certain that our physical efforts would be compensated. She never failed us. We really worked for our lives, despite our little stature and age, but neither Mzee nor my big stepbrother knew about it. They were always committed to their work. They were also absent and showed little concern about our well-being.
Since Mzee had the entire bedroom to himself as we squeezed ourselves into the living room, he seemed to find solitude in the room most of the time he was in town. His absence in our lives grew worse when his sister came to live with us. We soon became five people with completely different mindsets living under one roof. We were completely knocked off our feet after our aunt took more than half of this small room, which we had considered our home for almost two years. She was an adult and a lady, and she needed ultimate privacy. We had to obey the new order.
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