REFLECTION STORIES &THOUGHTS

The bed was tiny at the end of the ward. A little blue slab firmly printed above the bed. It read No 4 and she wondered if it should have meant something. She was warm in that tiny bed. Two white sheets, a brown duvet and Maasai bed sheets with the hospital name printed on top. She loved  windows, but could not open this particular one. She could not withstand the cold air. She particularly missed the sun, it was three days indoors. Once in a while the curtain opened slightly and a familiar face peeped in. She smiled slightly amidst the pain and engaged in pep talk to while away the minutes. The nurses were a nosy bunch, always talking about something. They gossiped on everything. They talked of a man whose wife had AIDS, of the Somali woman whose labor was prolonged. They noisily cluttered to their stations once in a while, to fill syringes and write in charts. They would appear at her bedside with blood pressure kit and thermometer in hand. They would disappear several hours ...

Once upon a time in the land of Batoto ba Mungu, there lived a frail old man by the name Mhela.He was a man of few words who would make everyone turn away when they heard his footsteps. He had a scar on his face that scared everyone who saw him. They said he was a known gangster in his youth. However, he did not look the part. He looked like a very bitter man whose life had taken a bad turn. You had to look at him straight in the eyes to see all the bitterness. His walking posture betrayed him. It spoke volumes about a man whose future was bleak. We were pretty scared of Mhela as young children. My mother would use him to scare us to bed. She would scream at us from the top of her voice. “I will let Mhela have you for supper, just wait I hear him knocking”, she shouted. We did not have to wait to find out as my brother and I scurried to our bed in fright. It was several years later when I learnt that my mother and father were in cohort with each other and it was he that went thr...