Sour

Omondi was a cute boy, but children are usually cute. He was about three years old. He used to come to our Plot to play with my nieces, nephews, and the neighbor’s kids. He was playful and naughty, but in a childish way. He did not harm the other kids at all. He seemed to like it so much being away from his own home where he stays with his mother. But being away from home usually landed him in trouble in the evening when he returns back.
Their house was four plots away from ours, about three hundred meters. His mum did not like him being in neighbors’ houses because she feared he begged for food. They were not poor, neither were they rich. She had a husband and a new six months old baby. But the husband was not Omondi’s dad. She had five other babies, but were all taken by their dad when he left. He could not trust her with them.
We all know the value of disciplining a child. Spare the rod and spoil the child. Children should be taught good manners from their young age. But as parents, we should not lose focus and understanding that they are still young and fragile. We have our limits with them while taking them to task.
Omondi preferred neighbors because his mother was too heavy handed in her punishments. But there are things that she did to him that bordered on cruelty. She was a lazy woman, did not like cooking and other chores. Omondi would have to wait for supper after having a half cup of tea in the morning. You wouldn’t blame him, a kid’s gotta eat. And when he complained about hunger, his mother would slap him hard on the face. At first we thought she was a strict disciplinarian, but we all came to the rescue one day when she was beating the young boy just as she was fighting a fellow adult. She had slapped and pushed the little boy for fifteen minutes. And despite his sorry cries, she didn’t want to give it a rest.
The boy had wounds all over his body, and he had difficulty turning his head. We insisted on taking him to the nearby Magongo health centre and the mother followed. He received treatment but was told it’s better to take him to Coast General Hospital (Makadara) where he will be X-rayed and his neck problem to be looked into further. The mother said she would take him the next day, but she didn’t.
Omondi continued to feel better and after a week his neck could turn well. But the mother did not stop her cruelty ways. He kicked Omondi with her foot and he was thrown to the toilet where he fell down and hit the ceramic bowl. This was just because Omondi complained of the cold water she was using to bath him. That was not enough; she followed him to the toilet, held him up and pushed his head against the wall. Neighbors that were in the same plot started making noise, pleading to her to leave the baby alone. But she continued beating him until three women went and held him to stop.
Afterwards, she insulted those women very nastily. She was foul mouthed. She asked everyone in the plot to mind his and her own business. Neighbors were confused. That kind of cruelty is usually portrayed by feminists to be from fathers. There are many governmental and nongovernmental organizations today championing the rights of women and children. They brand themselves victims. But we forget, or we turn a blind eye when it’s a woman doing something cruel to a fellow woman. This was Omondi’s biological mum; she was expected to love and care for him more than herself. But what we witness is contrary. And it did not start with her; neither will it stop with her. We have read and heard many cases where mothers throw their just born babies to dustbins. Others murder their own kids even after growing up. I guess it’s not a masculine or feminine thing, it just depends on the kind of heart a person has.
The next day, Omondi could not open his eyes. He had to hold the wall to be able to reach the toilet. We thought it would just be a one day thing, but after three days Omondi could not see still. His mother took him to a nearby private clinic and brought him back. We all suspected that her beatings had damaged the little boys veins to his eyes. Furthermore, he was breathing in difficulty. There seemed to be wheezing sound that suggested pain whenever he was breathing.
It has been two months since Omondi came to play with the kids in our house. We asked about him and were told that he spends the whole day sitting in his mother’s room. He Goes out occasionally to the toilet, or to sit outside his mum’s door. His mum had made him blind. We also heard that his mum is still mean to him concerning food. We missed him. We wish we could help but the mother was so foul mouthed that no one dared start anything with her.
After just a week, we received news of Omondi’s death. His death stirred up emotions of neighbors to ten houses radius. Most parents who loved Omondi and knew he was a friend of their kids went to console the bereaved mother. People were sad. No one expected the little boy to die soon. They thought he would grow up and move away from his mother to lead his own life. I heard one woman say she wished she had reported the cruel mother to the police and Omondi taken away. But it was too late.
I saw his mother in tears as she lay under the bed where she had covered Omondi with a lesso (Swahili cultural garment) leaving only his face out for neighbors to see. It’s true, he was not breathing. His eyes were closed. We wanted to say he was sleeping peacefully, but how could we? It was an injustice death. Someone was not fair to this lovely boy, and that someone is responsible for his death. At four in the afternoon a pick up car came and took the dead boy. Some neighbors boarded the pick up while some took other means of transport. Omondi was to be transported to Chaani, that’s where his fathers’ family was. And that was where he would be buried.
One woman in the pickup was fed up with Omondis’ mums’ sobbing and she laid out to her openly that she was the one who killed her baby boy. “You beat a 3 year boy as if you are in a boxing ring. You had neither mercy nor love for this boy. Yours are crocodile tears, you must have wished that he was out of your life from the way you were treating him. We feel for Omondi today more than you who is his own mother. I despise you. I’m only accompanying you here because of the boy. But you dint deserve him, neither do you deserve having any kids. Do me a favor and stop pretending you are sad with your hypocritical cry.”
There were other mothers who joined in to rebuke Omondi’s mum. They were really bitter with her. But on my part, I only thought how I would go on missing the good boy who used to play with my nephews and nieces. Rest in peace Omondi.