Together with those who can’t say a word but throw punches, there are those who speak so loud that you can’t even hear yourself think. 

.

There are those who can listen and reason... and given time, speak as well. 

Then you get the silencers... screwed to their guns and aimed at peoples’ brains.  They are told it’s for their own security and those who can’t think twice would indulge themselves in a trance. 

Pour moi? Oh my darling... you shouldn’t have!

Why do people keep on saying the same thing?

Maybe they went mentally deaf a long time ago.

Well, we’ll see about that and, as always, time will tell.  But to mind a few gaps in between, we’ve the children who can sense the slightest spark of sound vibrations from afar.

Unfortunately, every next generation has few options but to repeat the mantras by which it was conceived and dance to the same drumbeat – the more aggressive, the better the chances.

Some memories are made of these.

The following story could be a typical Eritrean family setting or a social unit in a culture that is heavily tilted towards the patriarchal. The irony is, over a long period of time, it’s taken as the norm and a virtual institution by which ‘identity’ is engrained.  It doesn’t mean individual members of that society are at ease with it.  Perhaps it is the only form of behaviour they know.  

What else can be done with limited opportunities anyway?  How many role models are out there to look up to?

As for the new Eritrean generation, the going is tough while lessons are not being learned even as we shout... in print. 

How about that for starters?  Here comes the main dish.

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“SHUT UP!”

“Don’t speak unless you are spoken to!” was the burst of authority the father enjoyed whenever one of his dear children begged to differ.  The surround space would collapse to a deafening silence and the waiting would begin for permission to speak or, perhaps, vibrate the air waves.

Sound became a precious commodity subject to a new currency of exchange. The little voices, trying to establish a sense of worth to their underdeveloped throats, were worthless in exchange for his thick, deep and commanding vibration that could almost frighten away or swallow the air that engulfed them all.

Breathing became the only means by which they could respond back and survive within the confines of compressed air.  Instead of being encouraged to use their heads, hearts and tongues, they somehow became more familiar with their lung pressure and extra conscious about their larynx.

The girls differed in the sense that they shed tears or rang bells of silent rage. The boys acted as if they were in control of the atmosphere within that tight space.  They were liable to unpredictable explosions every now and then. 

Like father like son.

Whenever they had the opportunity, the children would run away to the kitchen in search of their mother. If she happens to be there, she would serve like a relief valve to compressed lungs. 

In current lingo, that would probably translate as carbon trading in kitchen stock exchange.

Feeling relieved, they would forget what happened and go on playing around the house as if nothing was there moments earlier.

It was magical.

The mother would go on with whatever she was doing to keep the spirit up and the home alive.

What were they talking about anyway?  You might ask.

It was about their mother who had no way of getting her message across.

Sometimes, the home or the sitting room felt like a superstore with long queues to buy 100 Kg of firewood to make injera (their daily bread) and keep bones and flesh in close proximity.

The father would explode, “I bought 400 kilos last month. How come it’s all gone?”

“But that was four weeks ago!” 

No one would dare say that.  They did share the injera – bless the name – and now, they need more!

Simple – one would assume.  No! No! No!

“Economy!” the father would roar like a lion under threat and in the wild and goes on, “the most important thing you need to know in life is how to make it better and last longer.  You, I mean all of you, are still children and don’t know what it takes to keep a family going.”

Last longer?  It must have made them feel like dry cell batteries.  And what is this idea about going?

Till then, the children thought they were alive, living and staying put.

Going?  Going where?

They couldn’t figure out how many of them were meant ‘to keep going’ because their number kept on changing and increasing every year or two.

For most of the time, they used to think, “Why is he always talking about the Economy?”

There was this assumption that the word ‘economy’ was a thing that had something to do with the government.  One of the sisters actually discovered a new course. 

“Home economics,” she said one day – as if she discovered a new religion.

Bless her soul.

For most of the kids, the two words wouldn’t glue.  No way!

Home is in here and the economy is out there.  Sorry sister.

Normally, it is a word they would only hear on the radio - the economy thing.  It’s just a thing.

And what has firewood got to do with it anyway?

They couldn’t understand this man who happened to be their father. It was only much later – after they became adults – they realised the word ‘economy’ had something to do with savings. That was, hopefully, what he was talking about. 

But it was too late for some.  The tendency to burn their earnings later in life and emit more carbon took hold.  Trading wasn’t an option.  The economy had to go amok – all over again.

Maybe the father’s income and the economy got stuck somewhere and making ends meet became next to impossible. 

Someone got to shake the airwaves and use some big words to compensate for what is not there.

It was about downloading stress on the home-front while raising the children to survive in the outside world. The little children didn’t have the slightest idea what the big world was all about.  Their little place was the only cave where they could buy time.

No wonder they always felt like a battery being charged for later discharge.

“For as long as I am alive on this earth, I am your little god!” he used to declare his credentials.  The big god must be much worse, they used to feel.  They didn’t like the idea of heaven or the afterlife.

He probably felt like a general with an army of child soldiers.  You never know.

All this was during the ‘70s and ‘80s in Asmara – in the heart of the Eritrean highlands.  The price of fuel – in all its forms – was rising.  At one time, when firewood was nowhere to be seen – let alone be bought – they had to settle for cow dung.

“We can’t be reduced to this!” the little voices would scream from inside.

Something must be seriously going wrong with the big Economy – they would think. The war for the independence of Eritrea was raging mad outside and disturbing the airwaves at home.

Later, much later – and later still – the father couldn’t help but meditate about humans, the earth and cow dung.

When cow dung is mercilessly used for cooking food – for lack of firewood, electricity, kerosene, gas and whatever – is it the land or the people who lose out?

The answer, as he found out for himself in his own good time, had to do with both.  For lack of fertilizers, the human and the dung must go to the fires, inflate the ‘Economy’ and roar to the heavens within that confined space of compressed air in the sitting room.

And shouldn’t women and children express their pain and protest against lack of this and that?

It really is (or was) a daunting task.  Limited by his income while the price of basic goods was rising, the father, in a micro-sense and in tune with a male-inclined world, had to deal with all that.  Most Eritrean families must have gone through similar situations within their own habitats.  In those days, the light at the end of the tunnel was so far away people would put their bet on anything that moved. 

Pitch dark it was. 

There was a time when the whole city was on candle lights for over a year.

That was exactly when the children felt for their father who ruled from the sitting room during lunch time, evenings and weekends. From whichever part of the house, he always tried to work towards putting chaos in order – or order in chaos – in which the whole family was immersed for good and for a long time to come.

He fought and lived like a lion, or so he thought, trying to protect his children from extinction and in the only way he saw fit while there could have been so many other ways of showing care.

One has to just leave that to the imagination.

The children were so used to the word ‘shut up’ in a range or rage of languages that they tended to turn to stone the moment they heard the word. They felt the urge to shout or sprout like beans soaked in lime.

And the mother?

She is still around and most definitely in the kitchen trying to do something with firewood and the word ‘economy’ the father used to roar about.  She is probably soaking beans for later use with nothing to lose except her voice.  She keeps the family going – against all odds – and hoping against hope that her children, wherever they may be, would return to her or scatter around and do something useful.

And for dessert?

A glass of tap water will do for the time being.  Sorry