When memories flooded my soul
Author: Min Atek. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- I’m mindful not to create a poverty mentality too. The one where one isn’t able to enjoy one’s blessings beating themselves up because someone in the world is lacking but rather to establish the delicate balance of responsibility.
- We are all stewards of what we carry. We are stewards of the resources we carry in abundance.
I still remember the days we were shut up inside the house. The instruction was unspoken but we all knew and understood it. Silence was golden. Every so often the gunshots went off, some close and many from a distance.
I also recall that December when all the families in the neighbourhood lined up to buy soda for Christmas along basic needs such as sugar and salt. The buying point was the local church. Each family was only allowed just a few kilogrammes.
Infact our family could not quite afford the soda.
I recall the weddings in those days. We ate popcorn and Somasas with a nice cup of tea. Coloured toilet paper was used for decorations with cotton wool and fresh flowers from the neighbours gardens.
These memories flooded my soul as we worked in the kitchen with one of the children. Initially I was not just alarmed but actually angry at the way the dear child wasted resources. The tap was running at full even when merely washing a tea spoon. There was no concern for the parts of food that were thrown without blinking an eyelid in the waste bag.
The children have no understanding of waste because they live in different times.
If you haven’t gone to the well to fight and collect water before ccarrying the heavy jerrycan it’s quite challenging to appreciate that every drop counts.
If a child hasn’t washed their own dirty jeans and felt the resultant aching of hands after clearing a heap of clothes, they have minimal regard for the ones who perform those tasks.
If you haven’t taken brown porridge minus sugar or if your only meal was but posho with a few slices of raw tomato picked up from your mother’s backyard then you won’t have much regard throwing away food on a very regular basis.
And therein lay my challenge.
How do I get them to see and understand that every resource is actually a prize item for another.
I’m mindful not to create a poverty mentality too. The one where one isn’t able to enjoy one’s blessings beating themselves up because someone in the world is lacking but rather to establish the delicate balance of responsibility.
We are all stewards of what we carry. We are stewards of the resources we carry in abundance.
