My niece turned two years this week, and looking at the gift I had bought and the toys that she plays with, the I-pad game oriented gadget, the little child laptop for English learners and all that glamour. I was taken back in retrospect to a time when the banana fiber doll and ball was all there was to toys, to the tyre rolled for a car, that contained a lot of water inside for fuel and two sticks to maneuver it forward. To top it all, I remembered the nights of riddles and stories by the verandah in the night filled with magical African tales of walumbe and Nambi, of Nsangi and the great gorilla. The telltale of what the riddles meant added the excitement to the process of learning these African heritages.
Then I thought forward,
to what technology had changed. With its many blessings it brought, it as well ended
the evening camping by the front door, the discourse with the grownups who were
the master of the stories, so much so that conversations with adults are now
with much tension and suspicion. My little nephew could not even spare time to
talk with me, he was far indulged in killing imaginary enemies on his game and
the evening passed, with little talk on
how the gadget works. It must have been the stars that made the stories so
magical, I couldn’t know because there were nights that were starless as well.
The fire stove burning with dinner was a delight for the stories, inside the
stove was always a stone burning hot for the bed wetter, they used to say it
would cure bed wetting, ah they lied, for I must have ceremoniously done so
much bed wetting up to my Junior high school.The stories were half
the fun; the games took the other part of it. School was gone through in haste
with the hope of playing with whoever was willing to play; it was far beyond
easy play, games like: kwiiso, noble, bladder, kawuna, stuck in the mud,
Nations call (you know that game, where we would have a country for
identification and once you were called, you had to do your math to the next
country) It was heaven in the early years of my life. While I would retire to
bed very tired, I would always wake up looking forward to the fun at the end of
the day.
That is what, technology and fast growing
internet has changed for the millennial and those that will come after that. We
are cut short between the simplicity of the swing and playground to game
station laden theaters for our little ones.
So I held out the Children’s
bible for little Missy, hoping that would be a start for many stories, Very different
from Wakaima and Wango but mind-intriguing stories anyway. There should be a
start to writing African tales, such that even in the age of technology, our
heritage is passed on to the little ones and even re-lived by the older ones.
That in the presence of reading Jane and Peter, they do not miss the beauties
of the hills described in Walumbe and Nambi. That while they won’t grow to have
childhood friends who changed their mathematics by playing stepping stones,
they can have friends they read with African tales. In retrospect, I write but
as well, in pride I pen a time that brought me friends for a life time,
memories to share with all that care to listen and above it all, an African heritage
I hope to pass on.
