Since Kev joined boarding school, i have visited him every first Sunday of the consequent month after holidays. That means i have visited him four times now. My boy is amazing he makes me feel special everyday. He is my life and the tears i see in him any time i appear are a true testimony that he truly loves his mother. The last time i went he told me that i had to see all his teachers and i could see the pride he had introducing me to his them.
In my village, electricity is a luxury. In fact i myself used 'koroboi' that parrafin 'jua kali' made container that we called lamp. The luxury of a paraffin lamp i only saw at the neighbors. However Kev's life is different because at least his mother can afford what granny could not those days of my childhood. But Kev has embarrassed his mother not once. I never saw the need of buying a TV set since we never had electricity anyway. But Kev would disappear into the neighbors only for my mother to call me everyday that she has to walk in the dark to literally remove him from the neighbors.
It reached a point i couldn't take it anymore and i had to buy him a TV. Never mind my struggles. He finally had the TV but the most hurting thing was that once the TV was in the house, he lost interest. He never wanted to watch TV with granny and he would sleep early saying he is tired of homework.
Now back to his school visits. During the last visiting day, the bag that i carried food dishes in happened to get torn on my way there. On telling him it did, he started the nagging that i am now used to. "Mum now see its because you don't have your own car that you go through all this. What has kept you all this time from buying a car yet i always pray for you everyday?" Of course i told him all that i was going through at the time that made me not be able to acquire a car.
But wait until his best friend was visited and guess what i felt so embarrassed when he literally pulled me to see his friends mum's car. So i had to say hi to the lady and of course start a conversation about the two boys and their performance. Kev you challenge me a lot its because of you that i am able to work hard and achieve what makes you proud. I am hoping that someday soon mum will drive to your school.
So i thought i was alone and went this afternoon to discuss with my friend Symo about Kev's embarrassment at school. He is a father of boys and so i thought he would understand and at least give me some hope. What he told me made me feel parents of boy children need to be extra hardworking. Symo lives in the suburbs. He in fact had a car but sold it to pay his wife's medical bills. Symo happens to be the only one in his neighborhood without a car. Luckily for him, neighbors offer him lifts freely to him and his children whenever they need to be dropped somewhere and in particular at church.
He told me that once his children are ready for church, they usually run to the neighbors car even before the neighbors children. But that had not bothered him until an incident that happened on Sunday. There is this elderly lady neighbor who drives a big car. He says she has grown fond of him and sometimes actually comes early to wait for them to go to church together. But she insists that Symo must sit on the front seat. So last Sunday, Symo was called to a church development meeting and therefore had to be left as the rest of the family went back home. His wife went direct to the front seat but the elderly lady refused to let her sit there. She told her that the only person she allows to sit there is Symo.
When Symo got home, the wife was so furious. He was given an ultimatum that come January they must have a family car otherwise she will prefer to walk to church till they get their own car to avoid such embarrassment.
Symo and I are in the same dilemma. We have to have a car not because its a priority as per se, but because of boy demand. The only nightmare is how on earth are we going to meet the demand yet too financially constraint at the moment? I hope Kev will understand next time i go without. I am planning to tell him that i have started saving for a car and since a car is expensive we will have to wait a little bit longer. Oh dear if he was a GIRL would i always be challenged like this? Sometimes back we went to buy a wheelbarrow as i am doing some construction and the boy shouted at me" Mum that wheelbarrow isn't good quality, lets buy a juakali one" Hey i wondered how does a ten year old understand quality? or is it I who is still thinking that my boy is still a toddler?
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