I Am the Mau and other stories by Chemutai Glasheen

Author:Chemutai Glasheen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fremantle Press
Published: 2023-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

BEADING

‘Do the red one now, Mama’

‘Out of my way child, why don’t you go get me some water?’

‘But will you do it? Red is my favourite. Maybe with a little bit of blue?’

‘Go! I said go, now ala!’

Naisula ran into the house. She knew when Mama said ala she was not going to say another word, and she did not wait for Mama to reach for the sosiot. Naisula grabbed the mug off the table, carefully removed the lid of the water pot and reached in. The pot was full. She and her sisters had done the morning run to the river before her sisters went to school. Naisula was soon turning eleven, but Mama felt she was too young to walk the ten kilometres to school each day. Jelimo was only a little older, and she was allowed to go, but not Naisula. She took the water to her mother, who was whispering with four other women she simply referred to as her senges.

‘She is too young,’ her mother was saying.

‘Who is too young?’ Naisula piped. ‘Mama, that is four red beads. Now do more.’

Mama looked at her. She downed the water in less than the time it had taken for Naisula to walk from the hut to the tree. As she mumbled a thank you, she took Naisula by the hand and sat her between her outstretched legs, so that Naisula’s back rested on her stomach.

‘Here, let me show you.’

‘Has to be red,’ one of the women pointed out, before asking, ‘Is that allowed?’

Mama ignored the question and placed a little red bead in Naisula’s left hand.

‘Give me your other hand,’ she said, placing a needle carved out of sosiot tree in Naisula’s right hand. It was the colour of the soil and shone from the sheep oil that had been rubbed into it.

Naisula had seen the women beading countless times before, but she enjoyed listening to Mama explain how she was to do it.

‘Hold this hand still and let the bead follow the needle,’ Mama said.

‘Hold this hand still and let the bead follow the needle,’ Naisula repeated slowly, as she instructed her hands what to do.

‘Well done,’ Mama said. But it was not the same ‘well done’ as when Naisula completed all her chores. Perhaps Mama was tired, or thirsty again?

Naisula repeated the process again and again as she chose red after red after blue after red bead.

‘You are strong and brave, that colour suits you,’ one of the women said.

‘You are my child, my baby,’ Mama asserted in a tone that Naisula had not heard before.

‘Can I try the green of the bushes next, Mama?’

Mama did not reply immediately and Naisula kept on beading.

‘What are we making, Mama?’ Naisula asked.

Mama was hesitant.

‘Is it a necklace?’

No response

‘Is it a bracelet?’

Again, Mama was quiet. Naisula twisted around to look at her mother.

‘You are not even eleven yet.’

Naisula was puzzled. Perhaps when she is eleven, she thought, she will know just by looking at the number of beads what it was they were making?

‘These beads belong to Arap Terer,’ said one of the sengosiek.

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