POOL PARTY.

I am enjoying my holiday in county number 17 and it's pure nostalgia remembering our childhood play time activities. One of our favourite activity was swimming in any depression where rain water had collected. This kind of swimming is known as Duf mpararo in Sheng'.

We celebrated the onset of the rainy seasons more than the farmers.During the whole season we were aquatic creatures by day and terrestrial beings by night with much of the nightlife involving us being flogged by angry parents for neglecting our domestic chores.

I remember my debut in Duf mpararo. It was quite eventful. First I had several oral sips of the muddy water owing to the fact that there were several deep ends all over that pool. Coming to think of it , the entire pool was like one big deep end. I was then  taken out of the pool, tummy full of water.After some time I was belching air which smelt of mud. I also had succussion splash everytime I moved.Later that evening I came home looking like a lizard thanks to the brown water I had swam in. I was hit like those Salvation Army drums.

After that beating I grew wiser. I started carrying some petroleum jelly to the swimming sessions. In the evening I would then appear at home shinning suspiciously like a doughnut.  Unfortunately, this trick was Short lived. A few days later I came  from swimming,  shinning as usual. I met my mom and tried to act calm and collected coz you know moms can  smell fear. The way I was shinning I am sure she was wondering whether to call me  son or sun.

 'Why are your eyes red? You either must have been swimming or smoking bhang. Which one is it?' Pleading guilty to any of the accusations was outright suicide.I was caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea.  My small brain started racing trying to find a valid explanation as to why my eyes had the color of ripe tomatoes. It churned out a lame reason of how I had encountered the village bully who had then  rubbed 3 kilograms of ground pepper into my eyes. African moms are automatic bull shit detecting machines so I got an instant beating. This time the beating lasted for so long that I had to pretend  I was dying(I think I started vibrating like a turning fork) for it to stop.

As the rainy seasons  progressed we swam even more and the number of beatings of course increased in equal proportion.Almost every night , no sooner had I finished my supper than my mom would  appear like a ninja, weapon of ass destruction in hand. She would then proceed to visit every quadrant of my gluteus maximus.(God knows how my Sciatic nerves survived.... that's why Iam a believer!). I would then be sent to bed with 'Nisiskie sauti ata kidogo'  as the bedtime story.

The next day I would still go swimming.Thug life!

It was not until the rainy seasons were over that we would stop going swimming.

We later outgrew this madness.

Many years later, I still think that all the mud mad fun we had in Duf mpararo was worth every beating.