Small footprints in the red mud

Hell hath no fury like a mother whose child has been harmed

Sometimes when I close my eyes I can see very clearly how life was like back in the refugee camp in Tanzania. Every morning we would roll out of the white tents at the howling of the rooster and venture out onto the red, dusty roads. Here we would spend the day with other kids of all ages in an endless pursuit of creative ways to pass time, walking aimlessly with no plans nor structure to our day. 
I remember we used to gather plastic and ropes so we could make balls and play games with them. When the ball wouldn’t act the way we wanted, we would put a stone at its center to make it soar into the air more effortlessly and make our aim more precise. We loved the game where one person would stand in the middle and try not to get hit by the ball being thrown from each side.

Sometimes we would tie loose ropes together to make one long rope that we could skip over while singing rhythmic songs. Our most impressive creation was the drums we made using empty buckets, plastic bags and ropes; we tied a plastic bag on the mouth of a bucket and wrapped it tightly at its neck with a rope— voila! During the following hours we would fill the streets with the sound of a beating drum, sometimes two, accompanied by gospel songs we learned from Sunday school. We would sing until our voice cords went sore and it ceased sounding nice.

We played until we were called in to eat. That is if there was any food left; the elders had to eat first as they were most vulnerable and then we worked our way down the ladder. The only other time we were called inside was to shower and for that we had to fetch water. Ah, fetching water. I remember doing this a lot. I balanced a big yellow plastic bucket full of water on my head and carried it for what seemed like miles. Hard to tell if it was the distance itself or my short little legs. Soon I became so routined with it. The grown ups only needed to hand us the buckets and we knew exactly what to do next. This was a common, efficient way that they would tell us to do things without saying any words.

The evening it boiled over for my mother 

One day I went fetching water alone in the evening and there were three other kids standing around the water pump. They looked bigger than me. At first I could only see their silhouettes as they stood there chatting, covered by the obscure blue-ish light of dusk. I was a bit shy as a child and would often feel scared and intimidated by the other kids. Many of them had a tendency to bully me, especially if I was alone. This day they took the yellow bucket filled with the water that I had pumped and poured it all over me as they laughed in tandem.

I remember returning home with my tail between my legs and tears running all the way down to my neck. My mother marched out of the tent possessed with an outrage I rarely saw in her. She was attracting a crowd that only got bigger and bigger as she cursed her way towards the water pump. “This ends today!”, I remember her mumbling to herself. 

The kids were still there, and although it was starting to get dark, I could see in their faces the realisation that they had truly messed up. Not long after, my mother started swinging her hands at them, one after another. Something that wasn’t uncommon back then if a child was acting naughty. In fact, when their parents caught wind of what they’d done, they too dished out some form of punishment!

Rumour got around that I wasn’t to be messed with and that all my siblings were untouchable too. Although I'd argue that my siblings weren’t ones to pick on regardless. They knew how to fight back. Especially Anna and Samuel, who often teamed up, being the tight pair they are. Samuel was born only a year and a few months after Anna, who in turn was born two years after me. 

I was a bit of a wimp as a kid and used the fact that we were so close in age to justify it. I must’ve been the eldest by mistake, surely. Although I would grow into the role of big sister and grab it with the utmost tenacity, it was never in the form of protector when we encountered bullies. In fact, if we were treated unfairly at home, it was never me who spoke up against the injustice. It was always one of my younger siblings. I still freeze today when people overstep my boundaries. I need to collect my thoughts and theorize before I can defend myself, and by that time, someone will already be dancing on my grave. Instead I was very practical and would always cook for my siblings and babysit them when my parents weren’t home. In this way I was indeed the big sister. 

Where we learned our ABCs 

Some days we would go to school. I find it hard to remember what we learned back then, beyond the alphabet and simple math. The school was a shack made of mud with a blackboard at the front end. I remember it being a good walk away from the UN tents we lived in and we would go there strictly by foot. I don’t recall having seen a bike or knowing of any other transportation devices apart from the huge wagons that would occasionally bring more refugees into the camp and the UN trucks that brought our food. 

The food! It was always a huge celebration when the big trucks came by. They would leave a trail of red sand rising behind them as we chased behind on our tiny, bare feet. Sugar, oil, mais flour and salt. That’s mostly what I remember us getting. We grew the rest of our food on a tiny little farm belonging to my grandparents who had lived in the refugee camp longer than us. Here they would grow mais, sweet potatoes, beans and various leafy green legumes that would occasionally be plundered whenever someone desperate came across it.

Every time it rained we hit the roads in a hurry, leaving small footprints in the red mud with every step we took. The sun would shine through the raindrops as it fell on our warm, melanated, vaseline-coated skins; making us glow like small angels on a burning red flame. Our parents were obsessed with keeping us clean, almost as if they were attempting to control the one thing they could. Thus, we had to stay clean and dapper! They were therefore not too happy about the red sand getting on everything we touched.

Even though we lived in a refugee camp with seemingly little prospect of a bright future, our parents still carried hope of one day being shipped to a peaceful land somewhere far and unknown. Most of all, we had to be protected. Sometimes from the filthy red sand we inhaled and danced, played and sung in. Other times from bullies.

Despite having left the rich, red soil of north-west Tanzania behind, our memories and the imprint we once made in it remains.¹

Until next time,
M

1. Cover photo is by Snikee photography