Canvas 4U - Why Grandfather Iliaja, Hates Christmas...

Iliaja winces on hearing the word Christmas mentioned. He looks like one who has unknowingly touched ice.

Grandfather Iliaja has never enjoyed nor even liked Christmas day ever since he was invited to his son-in-law?s house many years ago. He had gone there in his usual attire: a dirt-stained overall coat, old short trouser that made him resemble an old short crane, and a half way torn hat that had an over-layer of greenish canvas.

When he arrived there, the entire family was busy eating a variety of what Iliaja thought were a mixture of small mushrooms, ground millet and meat. Everyone was smartly dressed. This reminded Iliaja of the white men and their children when they used to line up in what they called a welcome to the governor.

He stood still a few feet away from the busy family. He leaned on his long walking stick like a shepherd watching over his flock. The children laughed at him and one said through a mouthful of rice, ?Look at grandfather, he has no ma?? However, she was cut short by her mother who quickly put her hand on the child?s mouth as a stern sign of ?shut up? as she usually ordered her children.

?You can?t talk with food in your mouth, Lily,? said her father after summoning Iliaja to sit on a bench some feet away from the vast communal table. Iliaja sat, crossed his legs and dipping his hands into his pocket as usual said, ?Eiye leiye leiye leiye,? which was a symptom of fatigue mixed with deep thought.

He inhaled his snuff and sneezed. This reflex action let some brownish mucous spat out of his nostrils like soil water gushing out of double culvert in the rainy season.

He however took several minutes looking for a dirty handkerchief whose color was something in between black and brown. It was somehow inside his big pocket.

He kept shifting his hand from his right hand pocket to the left and scanning at the ceiling in the process as though he was trying to estimate the value of the dining room. All this time the mucous was lengthening out.

The carousing family just opposite was looking at him with the profoundest contempt. He intuitively sensed that something about him was the cause of such gloom in the family for no one talked. M/F?

He had not greeted them since he believed that it was not gentlemanly to talk to people who were eating. He had to wait till they finished eating. He kept himself busy ?inspecting? the large and well furnished dining room while tapping his left hand finger on his knee and cleaning his nose with the right hand.

?Give the old man some food,? a servant was instructed by the head of the family, a tall brown man with a balding big head. He was the head teacher of a primary school. The servant brought a small round table to Iliaja. On that table was a plate full of rice and stew. Salt in a bottle that resembled that of Iliaja?s snuff, a spoon, forks, and a knife, were also placed immaculately on their right places.

Iliaja?s eyes kept hovering around the servant up and down the room while his mind was away years and years before when they could roast beef and antelopes in the open field. Then they had been really men.

?You can now continue. We have already prayed,? said his daughter who was to Iliaja?s amazement clad in a body hugging blue jeans suit long trouser. This easily gave Iliaja an exact estimate of how fat her daughter had grown. She was a waspy-snow-fire woman who had drowned herself in city high life. She was Iliaja?s last born and since she was married she had never visited her father in the upcountry.

Iliaja looked at the food in front of him and said, ?What do you call these?? ?That is a knife grandfather,? John a young mischievous boy answered after munching a chicken?s thigh. He thought their grandfather was pointing at the knife. Iliaja kept quiet for some time and then he picked three small particles of rice and putting them just a few inches away from his nose he sniffed at them with great anxiety.

The entire family stopped eating to look at him. His daughter who could not help but laugh loudly went out of the house to cough out something that had found its way into her trachea. ?Oee! Oee! Oee! Grandfather that is not snuff,? said one child who quickly kept silent when her father looked at her with threatening eyes. ?I am sorry my son-in law,? said Iliaja after sniffing all the food that had been laid for him. ?I am not going to eat these,? he added while pushing the food away from him with all his might.

All the stew was poured down in the process and the knife, fork and spoon all fell in the carpeted floor. Iliaja unsuccessfully tried to safe the situation. Even a glass broke and dropped to the floor and together with the others formed a big heap on the floor.

?If there is ugali I will eat it, but if it is not there then it is okay with me. I have fulfilled my promise,? Iliaja said desperately while the servant who was still laughing kept sweeping out the mess.

However, there was no ugali, mushroom, black-nightshade, and millet porridge which were Iliaja?s favorite meals. He spent that Christmas fasting for nothing. Whenever Christmas is mentioned, Iliaja desperately recalls his great embarrassment at his son-in law?s house.

It was on a somewhat Sunny late morning hour of the best Christmas season in the land called Kapsuser in Kenya. Iliaja the puny yet funny old man had come out of his little old round hut surrounded by acacia bushes.

He had been sitting there on a slightly raised old black wattle log for hours and hours on end. One could easily guess that he was reminiscing about his good old days when he was still steady as a youth.

Thus seated, he shifted his unsteady shaking hand from one overloaded overcoat pocket to the other ? same but with different contents. His searching hand kept navigating deeper and deeper into the entrails of the bulging pocket whose contents included; rusty shaving razors, tiny empty bottles of almost all the colors of the rainbow, small sticks, curled pieces of fading papers, and a whole collection of what one may call trash.

His puckered loosely folding face gave him an awful appearance of a rock of ages. He was busy searching for snuff which he could proudly and lightheartedly tell you had once been given him by a famous apothecarist in that region as a cure-all drug and pain killer. Since then, the exact date of which no one knows, he had been sniffing it.

When he fell into a gloomy mood, and he did often find himself there, he simply inhaled the snuff to loosen the tension and to calm his mind. The snuff, he could tell you with a bright hanging smile, worked ceremoniously.

Iliaja, kept frowning disgustedly on picking unwanted piece of paper or bottle. He looked like a despondent postgraduate who has just read a letter of regret from his favorite company chief executive officer.

He had been a robust-cock of a man who was ever balanced and stern. He was credited as one of the best warriors of his time. He was bald-headed, wrestler-like with pronounced bow legs. The pupil color of his ever searching brown and intelligent eyes reminded one of those early European settlers in that land.

On his pierced ears hanged some round pieces of ornamental copper which when he nodded, dangled happily as though to embrace the owner?s temples. And sure they did.

?Hey! Chebet look at my mushroom,? said a child?s voice from across the western thorn fence that bordered Iliaja?s compound with the neighbors. ?Let us take it to grandmother and grandfather,? suggested another child?s voice. This time it distinctly sounded a girl?s.

Iliaja and his wife had been waiting for their grandchildren since dawn. These children went to a boarding mission school and often visited their grandparents during vacation.

His wife was winnowing millet outside when Kiprop and Chebet arrived like those shepherds one reads in the Bible. Between the children was a large brown basket whose straps were each held tightly in their hands. The contents of the baskets were covered with a well patterned white kerchief though from one side projected a calabash head.

Their grandmother relieved them of their burden and, before saying anything, took the basket into the hut and securely placed it next to the water pot. Coming out of the house, she crossed her hands as was customary and greeted the two children nodding in the process.

Kiprop handed her the broad-headed mushroom. Clutching it, possessively their grandmother said, ?This is a good omen my grandchildren ? a fresh white large mushroom. Where was it?? she inspected the mushroom and brushed the soil out of it. ?I found it down there at the roadside granny,? said Kiprop who laughed when he saw his grandmother nod gleefully.

?Let us go in my young ones, it is cold outside,? the old woman said waving them in. ?Why did you not bring Kiptesot with you? ? he must have grown tall these days,? she added. Kiptesot was Kiprop? younger brother whose bow legs made him resemble Iliaja when he was young.

?He is still short ? oh that one. He hit mommy with a stone yesterday and was not allowed to accompany us,? narrated Chebet, a seven year old girl with black curly hair, happy eyes and well shaped body. She wore a short blue skirt that revealed most of her fleshy succulent brown thighs.

On entering the small hut, Chebet ventured, ?You will tell us a story granny. Our other granny used to tell us sweet ones at night.? Chebet had shown a keen interest in stories ever since she could talk.

She and her brothers and sisters often went to their paternal grandmother?s house. She was a widow and a good storyteller. However, lately she had grown tired and quiet. When the children went to her hut, she threatened to beat them up. She often complained that the kids made a lot of noise. The kids had shunned going to her hut of late.

There was no child in Iliaja?s compound. It was as quiet as a pool of water all day long. His wife had given birth to seven children, four daughters and three sons, but unfortunately all the boys

had died. Two of them died during a war and one from an unknown ailment. The only children who came to Iliaja?s house were those of his daughters and brothers.

?Get seated my grandchildren,? said Iliaja who was comfortably sitting beside the fire. ?How is everybody at home?? he asked. Kiprop who was twelve pioneered to speak after settling themselves down on some round three-legged stools.

?Home is fine grandfather. Mother made us swear that we must go back home on Sunday.? When nobody talked, he added ?Our father is coming home from the city on Monday. He will bring us shoes and clothes for Christmas.? Iliaja winced when he heard the word Christmas mentioned.

Chebet smiled broadly on picturing herself with shinning shoes like those of the white man?s girl she had seen in town the previous week. However, she immediately closed her mouth when cold air filled the gap where two incisors had been cut that same day.

This article courtesy of http://www.canvas-4u.com.
You may freely reprint this article on your website or in
your newsletter provided this courtesy notice and the author
name and URL remain intact.