Dear Mom

Dear Mom,
I remember the days when
We normally ran out of food.
Banging at the door of your neighbours
In quest for flour to prepare the only meal for the day(Tuo Zaafi for supper)
You did it better.
Just like the hen who supports the growth of its chicks by sacrificing for them.

At times, a mixture of different flour (maize, millet, beans, grains)
Collected from the grinding mill,
Became our only source of hope.
You hardly ate just to have us fed.
The cacophonic sounds produced in your tummy
Became the only indication to us that you are starving for us.

Sometimes, we became ungrateful by being blinded
Resulting from the recurring starvation.
Sometimes, this "without food thing" can go on for days or even weeks.
You fed us with the little you got from fetching the water from that well
Which was used for the brewing of pito.

"Ageebinge k?ma laa... " we were referred to by this street name.
In tattered clothes, malnourished wrinkled faces with dry cracked lips,
The personified umbilical cords of Agebinge; the legend are still alive.
Thank you for neither taking pills nor getting rid of us when you conceived us.