coldturkey

I had a happy childhood, quite in contrast with that of my friend Francky of Angelas Ashes, in his hometown, Limerick, in the Republic of Ireland. Ours was not in affluence but in satisfaction, just like that of Dr Primrose of the Vicar of Wakefield. We had most of what little children crave for, in terms of sweet things and playthings. We were happy and by God, healthy.

My friends were many and we met to play every morning at the field or around the stream of houses, during holidays and weekends. Our parents were friends. Christine was there, as was his brother Douglas, Eunice, Heze, Timothy, Rieu and even Joyce, the girl I gave preferential treatment. I loved Joyce so much that I one day gave her a tomato from among about 5 that my mother has sent me to buy. I can’t remember what I told mama but little Joyce had been taken care of.

Christine, as I now know was a hyper active child. We called her The Arrow for her dashes on the corridors. You could hear her small heels pounding the floor as she run all over the compound. The gang of Heze, Douglas, my little brother and I had the fun and adventure that any boy today would give a limb to have. We stole fruits. We smoked dead ciggie butts. We boiled and ate uncooked rice. With our slings we shot and ate doves. It was great. Douglas will later die at 17. We never imagined we could die young.

Last Christmas eve as we sat late in the night stories of childhood came up. They always do when the family is together. We reminisce. We remember. We ponder. We thank God. It’s an invaluable moment. On this night the topic was radios. You know how stories spin like yarn from one to another all related by a word here and there. My father was now telling of how he got the family its first radio.

The family of Christine and Douglas was doing a little better than the rest of the families. They had a big radio before others could. I loved radio a lot as news was very captivating to me. I was always second after father was done with the newspapers. As he arrived from work one evening, he saw me with the ear dead stuck to the wall of Christine’s house. We lived in town houses, lined up one next to the other. I was too attentive to see him. Father says he watched me for about 5 minutes but I was so sold to the radio to notice. That is what touched him. He says he felt it so sharply and decided it was time the family got a radio to listen to whenever they wanted. He told mama of the incident and it was agreed that the family was going to own a radio.

The next day he visited the ART shop and made his selection; A Sanyo 2 speaker cassette player of a mighty thing in those days. It was expensive he says and had to take it on installments. I do remember when he brought the black shiny Sanyo and showed us how to operate it. I could now listen to BBC at 6:30pm, my mama could play her favorite gospel cassettes and they could together listen to Jangala, late in the night, a program on TBC – Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation.

I have the Sanyo in my collection of things with memories to them, one more reason why a father would get another score on his card of good deeds.