AFRICAN MOTHERS DAY

 

I was thinking this morning..... I have given up trying to understand the number of Mothers Day we celebrate each year. It's looking like we have one each quarter. I am not beefing mothers. They are special creatures of God.

I was barely eight years old when my mum got pregnant (again). As a child, knowing there was enough food at home, I couldn't understand why my mum would choose to eat small chunks of white chalk, called 'Eko.' I later found out that the Eko was Calabash chalk or baked clay, which some pregnant women eat as medicine, to suppress morning sickness, nausea, and vomiting. Our mothers had to eat clay because of us. Chai! I kowtow for African mothers.

Twenty-five years later, it was the turn of my young wife. She was in labour to deliver our first child. She has been taken to the Warri General hospital. The facilities were basic or maybe non-existent. Standing by the entrance of the delivery room and listening to the cries from labour pain and running around for extra blood, I almost fainted. I look back today at the sacrifices being made by mothers and could only doff my hat and kowtow for African mothers.

After childbirth, one grandmother will subject the new mother to hot water therapy, where they soak a piece of cloth in hot water and use it to massage the new mother’s belly. Chai! What about a Sitz bath? The new mother that gave birth vaginally will be made to squat over steaming water so that blood clots in her womb can come out so she can heal properly internally. Oh my God, what our mothers go through for us. I kowtow for African mothers.

I wish it ended there. The new mother will be given very spicy foods such as pepper soup to help to flush out unwanted blood clots in her body and help to boost breast milk production. Whether she likes akamu (Pap) or not, she must drink am. You will hear something like, 'You must finish this peppersoup or else you won't lie down.' Chai! I kowtow for African mothers.

African mothers are the epitome of strength and resilience, despite reliving Genesis 3:16 every time they give birth. In the UK, Sunday 10 March was chosen as Mothers Day while in the USA, Mothers Day is May 12, but considering the difficulties African mothers overcome daily, every day should be African Mother's Day.

Stay hopeful. God's got our back.

Happy Mothers Day!

......Just the thoughts of a certain Wey Mey