Previously on The Girl Child Has Seen Days, GC lands a job as the new maid in the Kyayisewa house. Mabel is finally at peace. But not for long…
After her nap, and now that the house was rat-free, Mabel had returned to her home office. It was going to be a tedious time. Harley, a new team member on the call, felt he should say something sympathetic in reply to Mabel's excuse about African internet. Unfortunately, he used the term “Dark Ages”, which Candace took exception to. Candace demanded he apologise and check his white privilege instead of using “problematic” language.
The rest of the hour was filled with white guilt, white finger pointing, and white virtue-signalling until Mabel realised that it was time for African Internet to strike again.
She needed a break from her meetings. The next one was in about a half hour and would require a higher level of fortitude.
GC was solidly entrenched in the household, meanwhile, and was already at work, preparing for supper, and was chopping vegetables when Mabel wandered in.
GC: Coffee break?
Mabel remembered that coffee GC had that morning. She remembered the smell and believed that it smelled that good because it was that strong.
GC took the pot off the stove, sneered at the electric coffee maker the way a ninja would sneer at a matron’s slipper, poured out a cup and passed it to Mabel.
Three sips and it kicked in. Soon a freshly-energised Mabel was sitting on the sideboard swinging her legs and telling GC her life. Enter dialogue mode.
Mabel: ...So one minute we are laughing-laughing, and the next day, I'm pregnant. So I had to marry the guy.
GC: Basically, he trapped you.
Mabel: I even had to take a dead year to be married, finish pregnancy, then do maternity leave before I went back to uni.
GC: Trapped just. Men!
Mabel: The jamaa trapped me, mwana.
A carrot earned some respite from GC’s knife. She paused.
GC: The jamaa? Eh. Madam, I am from the village not from the 90s. Please don't use the term jamaa.
Mabel: I’m Mabel, not Madam. And what is wrong with the word jamaa?
GC: It's so old school. The only jamaas I know are, like, my grandfather’s brothers.
Mabel took a moment to think about how she fell so out of touch with slang.
Not Madam: Okay, but I don't have a social life. I work from home, plus raising kids for 24 years…
GC looked Mabel over in a way that would have been inappropriate if she wasn't the employee. That is to say, GC checked Mabel out. She craned her neck round to see her bum.
GC: You? A hot chick like you, how do you have two mature kids?
Mabel adjusted her bum to help GC get a clearer view.
GC: No way that's two mature kids.
Mabel: I wouldn't call them mature. They are old. But not mat…
Their convo was interrupted by a bellow booming in from the sitting room. A Kampalan male Gen Z voice. Loud, too loud, and completely unmodulated, never caring to adjust itself to cater for the fact that it was indoors now.
Edwin: Mummy! It's me!
Mabel: Not exactly mature, as you are about to find out.
Fortifying herself with another swig of the coffee, Mabel sprung off the sideboard and exited the kitchen.
Edwin swaggered into the living room. He wore his Lebron jersey over a white t-shirt and above a pair of ripped jeans, and the whole ensemble led an empty black bin bag that was slung over his back.
His mother met him as he walked through the living room and hugged him warmly.
Edwin: Hey mummy. Nga the house is clean today?
The embrace instantly ended.
Mabel: Mbu nga the house is clean. How dare you say that to me?
Edwin: I mean, wow, it's so good to be back home!
He hadn't tracked back enough, though.
Mabel: What do you mean home? This isn't your home. You came to visit.
Edwin: Visit?
Mabel: Edwin Kyayisewa Jr, you don't live here. Your dad and I were clear on that. Empty nest means empty nest. You don't live here anymore.
Then she noticed the empty bin bag.
Mabel: This is what has brought you? Kale I thought you had come to see me.
Edwin, forcing a hug through her scowl: Of course I came to see you. I miss my mum! But since I'm here I might as well gather some provisions. I mean, you're not letting me leave empty handed.
Mabel: Silly! You boy you just came to do a bit of shopping without money.
Edwin: Just a lil bit.
And that ancient dance, as old as time, for as long as there have been families with only sons, played briefly out, with Mabel trying to look offended, attempting to be annoyed, then crumbling before her baby boy and surrendering to spoil him a bit more since she's been doing it all her life and it's too late to stop now. Besides, most of her stuff was safe. It's his father's deo that was about to be stolen.
Just then, though, her smartwatch beeped. It was a reminder that her meeting with Johannes and his team in Maryland was due.
Mabel: Oops. I have a meeting. By the way, your room is now my home office so don't disturb me.
And she headed off down the corridor. He turned up the other end of the corridor. He began to hum his own special mumble-rap remix of a classic.
Edwin: This world is not my hoooome, skrrrrr, I'm just a-passing through, skrrrrrr.
And through he passed, a wind swirling through every room with a cupboard. In the toilet he picked up a couple of rolls of TP from a stack and popped them into his bag. Then off to the bathroom. There were two cakes of soap on trays, one black, one blue, his and hers. He picked up the black one and dumped it into the bag. At the sink, he knew he would be pushing it if he just took the toothpaste. After realising that the soap was missing, his dad's concern would certainly increase if he then found the toothpaste missing, too. Edwin had a small bundle of little jars that he had been carefully collecting from restaurant takeaways. They pack the coleslaw in little plastic pots. Edwin had a dozen of these at the ready. He squeezed half the tube of toothpaste into one. He got a maker out of his pocket and wrote “2thpst” on its side. The dressing table was next. Shaving cream, lotion, and his and hers deodorant. The little pots were half-filled and labelled as was appropriate. “Lotn”, “4trshv” and “Deo” because there was no way to abbreviate the word deo.
Mabel, back in her office, put her Jessica Pearson wig on, added a pair of spectacles and a burgundy jacket and logged in to the next meeting.
She was in mean-boss mode and Johannes, as well as his staff, were soon bearing the brunt.
Mabel: Tell Cassidy nti, those terms? He can keep. I mean, what do these people think? They think we have giraffes and elephants in our backyards? I know we need their money, but come on.
Johannes, in the computer: You garra tryan unnerstan, Mabel, some-a these people are nar as exposed, they garra really narrow view-a the worl.
Mabel Pearson: Well, we have options, Joe. They need us more than we need them, so tell them to get out of their… what is the offensive stereotype for America that I can retort with? Trailer Park? Tell them to get out of their trailers, cross the swamp, climb over a Rockie, fight off a bear, and get to a town where someone has an iPhone, then Google and see what Kampala looks like. Then they can adjust their offer accordingly.
Johannes: They're Canadian, actually…
Mabel: Good. Makes it even more offensive.
Edwin had moved on into the kitchen and was rifling through drawers and filling his bag with a swag of biscuits, sugar, coffee, cereal and other foodstuffs, careful not to touch anything that was not ready to eat immediately and did not require any cooking or any preparation his microwave would not handle with more than that push of the only button on the machine he ever bothered with.
That is when a voice suddenly interrupted him.
It was a voice that carried an accent that blended Ankole and Luganda with a drawl and a staccato that wasn't often heard beyond the edges of Lyantonde, and it spoke only one word.
GC: Freeze!
Edwin froze, recognising the terminology of threats from TV shows and movies, even though it wasn't rendered in the more familiar American accent.
The voice continued.
GC: Drop the bag and put your hands up. Sloowly.
Edwin complied. Sloooowly, as instructed.
GC: Turn around. Siroooooowleh.
Edwin turned. That is when he saw that she was holding a broom, not a gun, not even a knife.
Edwin: Wait. That's just a broom. I thought it was a weapon.
GC: I'm the one holding it. That makes it a weapon. A lethal one.
Edwin was dropping the bag siroooooowleh and had not completed the job. He could stop now, halfway to the ground.
Edwin: And what are you going to do to me with a broom?
She pointed the broom at the relevant parts of his body.
GC: Skull fracture, dislocated shoulder, bruised pancreas. Just know you have up to the count of five to drop the bag or find out what I can do with a broom.
Edwin was still not sure.
GC: One… Two… Three… Fo…
Then Edwin, still grabbing the bag, made a dash for it. Out through the door.
GC broke out in pursuit.
In Mabel’s office, she was still scolding her Zoom.
Mabel: We have to do something about the portrayal of Africa as riddled with war and conflict. Carla, not all of us are fighting all the time. We are peaceful people in Uganda.
And that is when Edwin burst into the room. GC sprung in right after. She was fast. In half a second she had tackled Edwin to the ground. When he was down, she swung a punch.
Edwin: Oww!
She swung again.
Edwin: Ouch! Please just knock me out! I want to be unconscious so I stop feeling them!
Mabel quickly shut her laptop and turned round.
Mabel: What is going on? What are you doing? What?
GC and Edwin talked at the same time, over each other.
Edwin: A thief!
GC: A robber!
Edwin: She's trying to rob me!
GC: I found him stealing from the kitchen!
And this was the moment for Mabel to roll her eyes. She already understood what was happening here.
Edwin: Why would I rob my own kitchen?
GC: You were stealing food!
Edwin: No! You're the one who threatened me and told me to give you the bag!
GC: I will defend my place of work from thieves!
Edwin: Your place of work? I live here!
Mabel sighed. She got up to lift GC off Edwin, who was still cowering beneath her.
Mabel: No, you don't live here. We kicked you out. Joyce nawe, get off my son.
GC: Oops.
Mabel: Edwin, meet Joyce the maid. Joyce, my son Edwin.
They looked at each other.
GC: Okay. It is my bad. Sorry.
Edwin: You're the maid? Who taught you kickboxing?
GC: It's househelp, not maid. Don't be racist. But sorry. I thought you were a thief.
Edwin: I just come back to get soap and snacks. It's hard out in these streets.
GC: Gwe, I'm the girl child from the village. You think I don't know the struggle? Come, let me put something on the part which I punched so it doesn't swell.
With a hand on his shoulder, she started to lead him back out of the office.
GC: Bambi, sorreh. Sorreh.
Mabel watched them leave and then returned to the desk. She could flip the laptop back open.
Mabel, not as Pearson as before: So, where was I? Yes. Ugandans are a peace-loving people.
GC beat up her boss’ son on her first day at work. But it looks like everything turned out alright. Or did it? There’s still one more child to clash with…
