My mama used to say a real African man doesn’t eat chips or pasta.  That’s food for a mzungu man who gets his nails manicured, face scrubbed and lips conditioned with lip balm.  A real African man eats ugali, my mama used to say.  With their calloused fingers with rough nails he would mould the stiff porridge into little balls, dunk each ball into a stew then dunk the stew covered ball into his mouth with chapped lips.

 

I would sit at the corner of the room watching his Adam’s apple bopping up and down as he swallowed a ball of ugali and meat stew.  His jaw always moving in super-human speed as he chewed, making the veins on his forehead pop out angrily.

 

Ugali would make your man strong, my mama used to say.  Strong enough to take care of you and our family, she would add.  What she didn’t add was that ugali would make him strong enough to beat me black and blue.  But maybe she was always right, because it was a plate of ugali that gave me strength today.

 

It had started with his plate of ugali not being warm enough.  Then the following time he beat me black and blue it was because the bowl of stew did not have enough meat.  The other times before that it was the disciplinary slap, as the elders called it.  Married women needed the slap every now and then, they would say, to keep them in check.

 

Then he beat me again black and blue when I failed to pound his kisamvu the way he liked it.  I had been vomiting the whole day; infact even getting up was a problem.

 

“My mother cultivated a whole farm the day she was giving birth and you say you can’t cook for your husband?”  He had bellowed.  “What kind of a woman are you?”

 

“But mume wangu, the doctor said …” lamenting, I had tried to explain before I was interrupted by a slap.  The room started spinning around me.
“Has the doctor married you?”  He gave me another slap which sent me reeling to the floor vomiting blood, “is the doctor your husband now?  Or are you having an affair?”

 

My baby did not make it.  I almost did not make it too.  I broke a few bones and I almost became blinded on my left eye.  After that I became numb to the pain.  It was one reason after another – as long as I was his punching bag – and almost always it was a plate of ugali that started it.  Yep, his source of strength.  Like the hair on Samson in the bible.  Maybe ugali makes one mad.  Maybe it had a drug.

 

Today he broke my two front teeth – after breaking four others last week.  I laughed madly as I looked at my four year old with his milk teeth missing.  He grins at me nervously showing his gums.

 

Today he beat me because I refused to serve his mistress a plate of ugali.  Like my body numbing to pain, my heart had numbed to reason.  Maybe it was my fault when the plate of ugali wasn’t warm enough because I had run out of coal to warm the food; maybe it was my fault when I didn’t negotiate with the butchery to give me more meat than the money could buy; maybe it was my fault that I was too lazy too pound cassava when I was due; maybe it was my fault when I had used to the last of the flour to cook my baby porridge for lunch instead of cooking him his ugali; maybe it had all been my fault.  But how could this be my fault?  My mama told me my husband came first, then my children.

 

I had put some food aside for my husband, then fed the remaining to my children.  How was that my fault?  I never said anything when he brought her and moved me out of our marital bed.  I said nothing.

 

He kicked his plate of ugali when there wasn’t enough for his mistress and made me eat from the floor after beating me black and blue – wounding the scars that had not even healed.  On all fours I bent down and ate like a dog.  As I lay clutching my stomach I see the mouse that I have been trying to catch for a while, rushing to the last crumbs of ugali on the floor.  No amount of rat poison seemed to kill it.  Rodent.  Maybe I had been giving it the poison with the wrong food.  Rodent.  Rodent.  I should have mixed the poison in ugali.  Rodent.  Or is it rodent and man.  Rodent man.  Kick.  Rodent man.  Kick.  Rodent man, I think.

 

I feel humiliated when I hear her cheering him on.  It was okay before, as I probably needed disciplining.  But it’s not okay now.  She is not supposed to be here, cheering on.  But the ugali gave me strength.

 

“Stupid woman!  Go make another plate,” he had kicked me on the shins as his mistress laughed again, louder this time.  “And make it enough to give us strength for the work ahead of us tonight!”

 

Ugali has given me strength too.  I look down as I limp to the back yard.  I don’t want them to see my face.  The smile on my face.  Yes, ugali has given me strength.

 

Quickly I grab a khanga to hide my new scars, covering myself I dash to my neighbour to borrow me some money from her.  Just as quickly I send my oldest to the market.  Flour, kisamvu, coconut, curry powder, peanuts, nyanya chungu and some powder that will kill that rodent.  Today I will make the best plate of ugali ever.  The kisamvu will have peanut sauce and the dagaa will have coconut milk and nyanya chungu.  Today I will catch that rodent with a plate of ugali for sure.

 

© Sandra Mushi 2009. Sandra is the author of Sahara Soul Food, Sandra’s Den as well as the poetry collection book titled Rhythm of my Rhyme.

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