Dawn

In my mind, my Grandma was synonymous with dawn. This was my maternal grandmother, not my paternal grandmother who lived with us. I spent all my school holidays with her in the countryside. She lived in a quiet little village called Hasaqo which is on the other side of the Tana River from Garissa town, and the journey there on the back of an old Land Rover was adventurous and magical for my young wild eyes, and it would take an entire afternoon of cruising through red soil and endless fields of willow trees, and I was perched up on the railings among the men who were chewing khat and conversing. ​​

Grandma was always the first to rise in the morning, sat outside her house in the big open compound, on the mat, the ground around her splotched with ablution water. All around her the simple silent spectacle of daybreak, except for the bored crowing of a neighbour’s rooster, the chirping of the birds. She stretched her neck and waist sometimes, crossed the little opening in the fence to go to the latrine at the corner of the compound. She would peek into the house to pick a gourd or another household item, but never forgot to wake up people up, saying, ‘Continue sleeping, this breakfast will cook itself.’ More orders follow throughout the day, as she checked on this or that, sometimes from where she sat weaving her mats, checking which granddaughter would stoke the fire, which daughter would sweep the compound, which grandson would go milk the cows and take them out to graze. Often in the mid mornings or late afternoons, after siesta, the young kids would surround grandmother, or play nearby, in the sand. My aunts and uncles and cousins too, gathered around. A neighbour or two visited the homestead, as is the custom, sometimes walking through on their way to the market, sometimes to buy milk from Grandma. Grandma brushed her teeth with a twig, gave the latest update on her health, talking in proverb and metaphor as elderly people do. She said, ‘My waist is being squeezed dear, just you keep quiet, you have not seen anything.’ She spat sideways, wrinkles showing on her neck and her chest, the dry skin on her arms hanging loose from the bones. Grandpa was grizzled and his hennaed beard so orange. He walked in from the market, greeting everyone, his legs a little unsteady, but always up and about. He sat on his elbow outside his hut, turned on his radio. ‘Take this teapot to your grandfather,’ Grandma instructed, rinsing a cup with water nearby. She coughed, a deep hollow cough. She said, it’s like a spear on my back, holding her finger to her back. She said, ‘But who can stop illness? We cannot part with pain. I must thank God.’

She would never leave the small town and go live with one of her children in the bigger towns. It was the life she was used to. She couldn’t imagine a new one. She was always suspicious of modern medicine. You could not get her to go to the dispensary in town, or take fruits and vegetables, and drink lots of water. That would take a village, and it did, sometimes, and it would be almost too late, sending the family into frenzy to come together to get her treated and there would be respite for some time.

She was my favourite place to be.