Dreading my day alone with baby

What you need to know:

  • I told them that Fiolina, the beautiful love of my enviable life, was a different woman. “She respects me.”

If there is any baby out there who loves his father, and whose father really loves him, it is my son Sospeter. Having not been there in Branton’s early life when Sospeter was born, I went against that long-held tradition of Mwisho wa Lami’s fathers, and decided to help Fiolina my wife to bring up our son.

“Huyu Dre amekaliwa chapati,” Nyayo once said at Hitler’s,

“Nilimkataza kuoa mwanawake mwenye ako na mshahara na hakuskia,” said Alphayo, adding that a woman who has a salary, however little, is definitely a difficult wife. “Mshahara hupatia mwanamke kiburi,” he added.

I told them that Fiolina, the beautiful love of my enviable life, was a different woman. “She respects me.”

Of course that was a big lie. You see, in public, Fiolina is beautiful, polite, respectful, and a timid woman who would not a hurt a fly. But behind the doors of our bungalow, she is a tough, harsh and domineering woman.

Once I enter the house, there is never a big difference between Branton and me. I am always commanded left, right and centre. I never seem to do anything right. When I get home late, I am asked to explain where I coming am from; when I arrive early, I am told respectable men are out there making money for their families!

“Your son is watching your behaviours and unless you change, he will be like you,” she told me a few weeks ago. “You don’t know how much I toil with this son of yours while you do nothing.”

This is despite the fact I am the only man in Mwisho wa Lami and its environs who helps with the baby.

“One day I will leave you with Sos mukae na yeye, that’s when you will know what I go through,” she told me last Saturday

“No problem,” I said. After all, Sospeter likes being with me.

Alone with my son

The next day, last Sunday, I woke up and started playing with Sospeter. Fiolina had woken up early. She was in the kitchen preparing breakfast.

But by 9am, she had not come back to the bedroom, and Sospeter had started crying. I tried all manner of jokes and games, but he wouldn’t stop crying.

I called Fiolina but there was no response. I went to look for her in the house. She was not in the sitting room, not in the kitchen or anywhere else. And Sospeter was crying even more! I tried calling Fiolina but her phone went unanswered. It must have been on my tenth attempt when she picked up the phone call.

“Uko wapi?” I asked her amidst the baby’s loud cries. “Sos analia,” I said.

“I have gone for chama, I will come back at 12pm,” she said.

“What do you mean chama, nani umewachia mtoto wako?” I asked angrily.

“Ni mtoto wako pia,” she said. “Have you changed him? Change him and give him breakfast, it’s in the kitchen,” she said, then hanged up.

I had never changed Sospeter. But having seen him being changed every day, I decided to try. I could not get the things that I needed, and it took me about 20 minutes to set everything and another 20 minutes to change him.

By the time I finished, our entire bedroom was one big mess. But as soon as he was changed, Sospeter stopped crying – giving me time to clean the bedroom.

No sooner had I finished than he started crying again. I knew he was hungry. I went to the kitchen, and saw his food. I had never fed him before. Although I struggled to make him sit the right way, he quickly took the first three or four spoons, then stopped.

He would push my hand away every time I tried to feed him, pouring the food on me. He started crying again. I called his mother several times unsuccessfully.