Njoki Wane - From My Mothers Back: A Journey from Kenya to Canada

It feels like just yesterday that I was a little girl hopping my way to the river to fetch water only to rush back home with an almost empty container because half the water had spilled on me. I can still remember trying to balance a small steel sufuria that my mother or my elder sisters had designated as my container for fetching water from the Ena River.

The container felt special because it was small, just like me, and my mother never used it for cooking. It was always left in the kitchen, on the wooden drying platform made of twigs, ready for me to pick it up and run to the river to fetch water. Everyone in the family knew how fast I could run (unless I was instructed otherwise) and because of that I was always the one sent for errands: buying salt or sugar from the village shops, delivering a pint of milk to my grandmothers house, being sent to the bush to look for firewood. I took great pride in my tasks even when the results werent quite what had been expected. The only firewood small enough for me to collect was supposed to be used to make tea for my brothers visitors. They could only laugh when I regularly returned home with a load of twigs that were not nearly dry enough to burn and could not be used for weeks, if not months!

Who cares? I thought. As long as I brought home a load of firewood, even if it could not make anybodys fire, I had fulfilled my purpose. I was imaginative and ambitious, always looking to the future and painting my world with images of wonder yet to come. I was quick to point out to my brothers or sisters that it would only be a matter of time before the world changed. That I would just press a button to prepare a cup of tea for them or turn a knob and water would flow my imagination always carried me away. I always thought of the day when I would never have to go to the river to bring water home or go to the bushes in search of firewood.

Many times I would arrive from the river, soaking wet, and would turn to Mother and say, Mami! When I am done with school, I will make sure you have piped water right there. I pointed to the centre of the compound. No more calabashes or big containers on your head or back.

My mother would laugh and say, You know, Njoki, I believe you. One day you will have water in your own home, not here: far, far from here.

All members of my family knew me as a happy little girl, very playful, full of life and nothing bothered me. I was a joyful child.

Not all my imaginings came to fruition before my mother passed on, but she was able to enjoy cooking with a gas stove and having water piped up to her compound but not inside her house before she died. However, she did not live to enjoy a cup of tea produced by a microwave. Who would have thought that the small girl who used to run to Ena River to fetch water, or go to the bushes to look for firewood, would one day stand in her kitchen far from her kijiji which means village in Kiswahili and be pressing buttons for cooking. That shed press a knob and water would flow, press a button and dishes would be washed.

Probably for many Canadians, my childhood seems far-fetched. It is not for someone who grew up in a small kijiji in rural Kenya. Kijiji for me was that place where everyone knew one another. Where the women assisted each other during childbirth. Where neighbours ploughed and harvested for you when you were not well. Kijiji had a sense of belonging. There was one primary school, one Protestant church, one chief. Later in the book, I talk about our evacuation during the fight for independence. People from the kijiji were forced to leave our homes; however, when independence was declared in 1963, everyone returned.