Posthumous lessons and laughs from Madiba’s life

Singing the national anthem while on parade is compulsory, I think, in all Kenyan schools. When Pudd’ng started school, she would get the wording – especially the second line — of the anthem all funnily wrong: “Oh God of all creation/Bless this our ‘London’ nation.” I’m sure this blooper made sleeping settlers smirk in their graves.

Our daughter still doesn’t get it. I mean, insofar as the significance of a nation’s anthem is concerned.

When Pudd’ng heard the South African national anthem playing at the funeral of Nelson Mandela, she was dumbfounded. From her line of questioning, I deduced that she thought all countries sang similar paeans.

“Dah-dee? kwani that’s their national anthem?”

SUCCESSION POLITICS

For the better part of last December, the life and death of Tata – as Mandela was respectfully called — was the talk in every metropolis and medina. Pundits kept reminding folks, incase they’d forgotten, that Tata was the first Black president of South Africa.

Pudd’ng took it from where pundits left. Hers was a brainteaser of a question. What baby girl was asking, essentially, was that there were two ruling presidents, doing their thing concurrently.

“Dah-dee?” she piped, “President wa kwanza akikufa, wa pili ndio anakuwa president?” Meaning; when the first president dies, does the second president take the reins?

A WORK IN PROGRESS

Sorry. That’s a word many fathers don’t say to their kids or spouse. He might have, but I can’t remember hearing my father saying sorry. I reckon he was cut from the same cloth as Madiba.

Madiba’s daughter was saying how the elder statesman was lousy at saying sorry. She opined that, perhaps, the reason was because her father was an old school cat. He much rather preferred showing he was sorry by doing something.

Me? I’m not so good at saying sorry. But I’m working on it.

I AM WHAT I FOLLOW

This quote I gleaned from Mandela’s book, No Easy Walk to Freedom. He was addressing the court in 1962 before his sentence.

It made me ask myself that, as a man, what am I following? There are so many voices out there competing for prominence. Sometimes one’s conscience can be drowned in the static.

Like Mandela, I hope this will ring true when my life’s thesis is marked by future generations: “I … followed my conscience. If I had my time over, I would do the same again, so would any man who dares to call himself a man.”

A MAN OF THE PEOPLE

The day Nelson Mandela passed away, my favourite South African series, which comes on a station from the same country, didn’t air. Instead, they were doing back-to-back tributes to the late great.

“This is a South African television station,” I told Pudd’ng when she questioned the weight of Madiba’s demise.

From her next question, I could tell what she thought. See, when we scrolled through tens of channels, all were showing glowing tributes of Mandela.

“Dah-dee? Are all these TV stations from South Africa?” she asked.

Food for thought; from plutocrat to plebeian. All politics may be local. But a super-politico’s influence cuts across all frequencies and frontiers.

MOVING ON

The Sunday of Mandela’s burial, we were watching his funeral service on TV right before we rushed to church. To Tenderoni and me — and I’m sure many others — this was a must-watch.

In our house, we have a long-running battle for the TV’s remote control. Usually it’s our daughter who hogs the doodad. It’s not unusual for Pudd’ng to hide it when she was watching cartoons, and has been asked to do a chore.

Besides, baby girl has all cartoon stations on speed dial. This Sunday, while watching Ahmed Kathrada giving his moving eulogy, Pudd’ng changed the station. Our protestation made her to hit the return button pretty damn quick.

Moral of the story? Moving on. After the dust has settled — on the grave, season or relationship — we should, hurting as it is, change stations.

PSST. Moving on swiftly to a loony note. We’re watching Caught on Video segment on MSNBC. A pervert’s caught in the act in a subway. The incensed woman who was victimised narrates how she saw the man’s erect member out … and how he was rubbing it against her.

“Dah-dee? What’s that about?” Pudd’ng inquires. “Ah, Alikuwa … ana … anamfinya,” I stutter. Which means that the perv was squeezing his prey.

From the “try-another-glib” expression in baby girl’s eyes, it’s evident she can’t buy, even with fake currency, half the answer I’ve sold her.