The life lessons I learnt from a brief stay with my grandfather
My brother soon gravitated towards tending the animals while I enjoyed working on the farm with my grandmother.
What you need to know:
- I protested going to the village at first, but now I am happy I did.
- I had never liked being around my grandfather for so long because he is such a strict disciplinarian.
With the schools closed, my parents got tired of me and my three siblings quarrelling and sent us to the village to stay with my grandparents.
More than any book or class, this visit taught me so much about appreciating what I have in my life and being open to the differences that I was blind to.
I protested going to the village at first, but now I am happy I did.
I had never liked being around my grandfather for so long because he is such a strict disciplinarian.
However, staying around him taught me why he is the way he is. He taught me about the value of hard work and integrity.
My grandfather is not one to stand lazy and idle people. So he taught me that I needed to structure my day to the tasks I needed to accomplish and spend time in the evening enjoying leisure.
So in this plan, we wake up in the morning to sweep the compound clean. My sisters then join my grandmother in the kitchen to make breakfast, as my brother and I help grandfather feed the cows before milking them.
Tending the animals
After breakfast, we would all go to the farm to weed. The afternoons were more of reading and playing. My brother soon gravitated towards tending the animals while I enjoyed working on the farm with my grandmother.
I also loved fetching water from the stream. We then spent the evening watching television to catch up with the news.
The discipline also made us more mindful about how our lives affected others, even when no one was watching.
We carried enough sanitisers and face masks to last us the duration of our imposed stay. We were careful because our grandparents were at that age of being vulnerable to the virus.
I noticed that many villagers were sceptical of the existence of Covid-19. They argued and dismissed the global pandemic as a hoax.
Some said they were yet to see anyone who had succumbed to the virus. Some were really tickled to see us donning face masks all the time, but we stayed true to the act knowing my grandparents’ lives depended on it.
This is how my grandfather raised my father and his eight siblings, and I am happy I got to learn this.
