My granny told me that when she went to tumutumu mambere, they used to be told that, ‘mathiī kūnyua maaī na ciongo cia andū. They have gone to drink water with people’s heads. The head in this case was the bowl which came in an array of colours but red seemed to be the most dominant. For some reason this bowl got a very noble role in the school feeding program otherwise known as soup row. I don’t know why it was christened that way, or if that’s even the correct spelling. I guess it was because you had to queue in an endless line before you got your share of a few monocotyledons (maize) and dicotyledons (beans) in an endless river of soup and floating ‘thuthis’ weevils babies.Yeah that’s what comprised our lunch those days, yet the minutes before lunchtime always seemed to drag by. In the morning we had to carry a Jerry can of water for cooking purposes. That meant when it was your class’ turn to supply water for the soup row, It was either you carry tap water or river water. That doesn’t mean that some people didn’t take Kīria’s (swamp water) or that some boy child didn’t pee in the water. When you know you know 😉. So mama Esther may she continue RIP ensured that we were well taken care of. The soup was always ready when the bell rang but the queue was always too long. Some big boys could manage to ‘kuonoranio’ (empty) one bowl’s contents into the other and render someone else mealless. The tears that flowed when you reached the end of the line only to be told the food was over 😭😭 Sometimes though mama Esther would have mercy on you and give you some of the teacher’s food. That was soup row, thin and in plenty with a few oil drops shining here and there. Still we survived and still we chronicle albeit with chubby cheeks despite all that soup. I guess the thuthis (baby weevils) played a vital role. For now lemmi try to get some fishy angalau nikumbuke hizo proteins.
Vitality
