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Children are the most wonderful angels we have in our lives. Among the Agikuyu, when a child was born, women had to ululate in order to signify the addition of a new member to the society. Four ululations meant that the child was a female, while five ululations meant the child was a male protege.
Today, my younger sister has to be given four ululations. I don't know how children are welcomed in our tribe but i bet they are welcomed in way that befits a new member. Children are the best gifts that God can bestow a woman in life. They bring joy, give us hope and lighten our world. They are angels. There innocence is pure and unrivaled. Yes children are our hope that the future is sure.
I remember it was our mum who broke the news that my younger sister was paged. I could not believe it at first. It was something that i had not expected. It took me time before i could come to terms with the fact that there was going to be a new member in our family.
So my niece had been born immediately after my siz sat her last exams in campus. I remember a certain friend telling a female friend that she should have named her child "Degree" when we went to school to graduate. The lady had a bouncing baby girl delivered on the eve of the lady completing her exams. Together with my three friends, we still owe the boy something. It haunts but time will tell.
These days, insurance policies have gone hi-tech. When my lil siz got paged, my mum learnt about it while she was five hundred miles away. My young siz had joined the gym in the hope of reducing the devastating effects of the bulge in her stomach.
However, our family doctor alerted my mum when she realized that my mother's daughter blood had human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG). Trust me, a person in America can be well versed with gen about Kenya than Kenyan in Kenya if the latter is not conscious about his aura.
My mum never got mad. She was kind of having a mixed feeling but as long as her daughter was going to give her a new grandchild, it was something she could not afford to take lightly. She advised her accordingly and that is perhaps what she needed most.
So today, I am happy. Happy because my niece was born healthy and bouncing. I hope I will see her soon. I will be singing Kanji Mbugua's "Am Just a man." I am now a man even when the tragedy of the travesty become illuminous.
