How I came to have 3 mothers – a fascinating tale

I know that mother’s day has passed already but to me it's mother's day the whole year . Now this might get a bit confusing as it’s basically half my life story, but bear with me and its going to be a long one. Well I was born in 1986 like most great men of my generation to Beata and Wilhelm. The later would pass on three years later. Now so that none of them can say I’m being unfair by putting one first before the others, we will go in alphabetical order.

Mee Beata – “Bettie”

Me and Bettie (as only I call her) are bound by the biological connection between mother and son, it’s evident when you find her looking at me with such curiosity, I flash a smile at her and she just beams with happiness (it must be the handsome face). In her eyes I am a treasure, worth all my skinny 68 kg’s in gold. If you ever wondered where I got the kindness and sincerity that some people say I have, then I can confirm that I got it from her. She’s a gentle giant, tall, elegant and ever so graceful. No one can say I stole my height because it runs in the family. If I could have one thing it would be to spend more time with her talking about the handsome confident man that was my dad (If you ever wondered where the ego came from).

Little brother Natangwe (he stole my last born slot) and I went to a wedding in a neighbouring village one fine day during August school holidays. Since Bettie is something of a V.I.P she was already there with the other V.I.P’s, so we get called over and she introduces her 2^nd youngest son (me) to one particularly elder madam who knew our father (the dude was famous). So she goes on to praise my academic exploits, at which point the madam grabs Natangwe by the cheek bones and goes “but this skinny one can’t be Tshalimba, he looks exactly like Natangwe”, Bettie explains that it’s because that is in fact Natangwe and the one next to him is Tshalimba, the elder madam pulls me by the hand and casts an inspecting eye over me and she concludes “I doubt it, he’s much too light and doesn’t have your lips”. At that point I start dying of laughter from inside, not laughing took immense strength, not to be deterred the madam pulls me even closer and ask’s “Boy!, what’s your name?”, I reply in a girlish voice (scared as a jumping springbok) “uuhm..File..uhm Filemon ha iipinge Iiyambo” , she look’s startled and says “you have his nose, but you are just too light and you smile way too much”. At that point I could not hold it any longer and let out a loud giggle much to her annoyance, it is safe to say from that point on I stopped smiling too much whenever I was presented to the elders.

Mee Nemutshi –   number 2

Christened Maria, the woman has extra-ordinary skills in child rearing. The story goes that I used to follow her to work back in the day when all the boys chased her. I honestly have no recollection of that so it must have been way back in the day, now apparently when her sister got married to this young lad called Joshua (Yoosua in oshikwanyama) and invited her to take up the post of domestic engineer I followed her, Now since Joshua was outnumbered 2 to 1 and clearly needed the back-up he decided to let me stick around. 

Most of my childhood was spent with Mee Nemutshi, she did the mothering. I remember one time I fell of Mr Kamar’s guava tree during a raid and dislocated my thumb she soothed it with hot water and this potion like concoction before snapping it back into place faster than I could say “woman, are you trying to kill me!”. When I fell  shoulder first into the empty pool in our backyard, her face is the first image I saw when I came around like 20 hours or so later, there she was screaming  “are you trying to commit suicide?”, trust her to joke about a near death experience. When I had my second brush with death at age 10 due to a really toxic case of pneumonia that landed me in ICU for 2 days and a hospital stay that seemed to last an forever, I was drugged most of the time so it might have even lasted an eternity, never the less she was with me through the not so good days when I woke feeling so drained of life that I thought that my dad, 2pac and Biggie were calling me home to thugs mansion.

But she somehow got me back on my feet with a little help from my friends in Grade 3 who visited me in hospital and came to check if I was still alive and bring my schoolwork to me (thanks a lot guys) during my stay at home, if it was not for those guys I certainly would not have passed Grade 3. In my teenage years she and I used to make fun of my girlfriends and crushes (yes, I have inside information on the workings of the female mind), I swear to you the only way to get to a teenage girl is to ask a woman how to do it. Now of course she is still putting her skills to use and sorting the born free’s (Boeti, Iyaloo, Linekela and others I’m talking about you) and she’s still using the old school punishment system of a flip-flop or slipper to the backside or whatever she gets a hold off, it’s an old method but the above mentioned are now very disciplined kids that listen, so it does work. But extraordinarily she has never applied it to me (or maybe she did it when I was too young to collect memory), that honour was reserved for the other Maria.

Mee Maria – Disciplinarian/Advisor/Mom – Number 1

She wore all three caps at once when it came to me, now in the early years I was troublesome, I never came home before sun set, bullying other kids (Aminu and Abibu have no true story, how does one skinny Wambo kid bully two Nigerian kids two years older and much bigger?), always running around like I had ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) (which was not my fault, it’s what kids do), not to forget inflicting personal injury to myself by falling of trees, kicking rocks and running into tables and barbecue stands (the scars above my left eye). But what usually tipped the scale was when I dropped one of her glass plates. Now it’s really not my fault because my reflexes were still developing and I have soft hands, but dropping the plate at home was like dropping the soap in the slammer, picking it up ends in a whole world of pain. Her weapon of choice was a leather belt, which I hid by climbing to the top shelf of the cupboard and throwing it behind assorted junk that was stored in there but she still found it every single time it’s like she knew what I was thinking. 

After my above mentioned battle for health she switched to reverse psychology which worked better than the belt I must say, because she would get me every single time, lying to her was no use but the truth hurts or at least it gets you extra chores and no playtime for three weeks (talk about torturing a kid). When we were not playing crime and punishment however she was helping me with my reading by making me read the newspaper, teaching me maths with Pandu’s (her 1^st born) building blocks, explaining nursery rhymes like why twinkle lil star and that other one have the same melody and my absolute favourite; getting lectured on why girls are the worst things to happen to humanity since apartheid. Everyone has their methods I guess. But she loves me, we still read the paper’s together like grown up’s, while the kiddies watch TV (Meggie, Iyaloo and Etuhole im talking about you).

So if you’re wondering why I turned out so well, it’s because I had more resources at my disposal not to mention I was subjected to heavier methods of discipline then the rest of you. 

The downside however is every time I have a conversation about “my mom” you can be sure that some smarty-pants will ask me which one I’m talking about (Number 1 and 2 were names that a colleague of Number 1 used to differentiate between the two Maria’s, Mr Bichi from Nigeria, science teacher at GT SSS in the late 90’s).

Me (blue shirt), Etuhole (big eyes), Iyaloo, Mee Taati, Number 1 (holding Meggie), Hendrina (red shirt) and Number 2 (white t-shirt), on a family outing.