My two aunts

I look at myself and ask if I’ll be able to be the typical Zim wife
The one with the doek at a funeral, always with a zambia in their purse
Always ready to give advice,
Plays the role of aunt to anyone who trusts you enough
It’s the custom bit that I muse about
Let’s face it, I only have my two mad aunts who are the epitome of that woman
(Mad coz they laugh at any issue and are never sad faced in their duties. They provide comic relief at funerals!)
So this other day they just rock up and tell us they need to take someone to the future husband’s place coz she’s pregnant
Wow! I didn’t expect that route to marriage from the couple in question
Anyway, so it happened and in such cases the mum is the last to know if the child didn’t tell her mum
Actually, I doubt mums are ever told such things
[Allow me to digress a bit-
When a girl becomes pregnant out of wedlock it’s a bad thing & the mum is blamed. People say “mwana ashata” or “mwana aipa”i.e. a bad (actually tragic) thing has happened to your child- NB the father has no association with such things whatsoever
When a girl becomes pregnant and she’s married, it’s a good thing and the dad is proud to say it’s their child. People say “mwana anaka” i.e. a good thing has happened to OUR child]
So I guess you see the reason mums are never told lest they say they knew of the girl’s status and be blamed for being party to the whole thing- imagine that!
Anyways in my case the mum doesn’t know and my aunts need some stuff for the girl to take along
She’s the westernised Zimbo and the long skirts she has are knee length and tight
Actually the wardrobe has two skirts and kazillion slacks and shorts
A bit of a problem
She’ll need a doek/head scarf
No problem here coz any old small piece of fabric will do
Now the zambia bit
They need a decent one and they cannot part with theirs so they have to get it from the mother
But of course this has to be done without her actually knowing what it’s for until the very last minute (in this case)
So they ask for it and she wants to know why they want one
They say they need to accompany someone to future hubby’s place coz she’s pregnant
Of course the next question is, who?
They say it ME!
And the response
A shocker of course and……next?
This is the time my mum is down with hypertension and she says that’s probably why her blood pressure shot up
My mum had been unwell for the past 3 days and she wouldn’t just let on what was bothering her. She has a history of being hypertensive but as a family we had managed to grow up well and keep it low and she’d been off meds for more than 5 years
I digress too much
So they all laugh out loud when she says “ah, it happens, how can one know what their child is up to? You can only accept what’s happened?” to my mum
They just had a jol at this
My mum calmly tells her the truth
Of course it’s not what she expected
It’s easier advising someone else on their issues than accepting yours especially when the whole world knows and you’re the last to know
They also ask for a blanket and have to repack the suitcase to rid it of most of the slacks and retrieve long lost skirts that are still in wearable state and make a decent wardrobe
So they have a hard task of convincing the boy’s family to accept my dear cousin but they finally do
When they return it’s in the dead of the night but we all wake up and have a ball as they recount the negotiations
I really don’t see myself measuring up to even 50% of these two aunts of mine
I guess that’s why we’re generations apart and well, always will be.