I awoke on the floor in a weird room with square holes for windows. I layed around for a second before I heard, “Shila! Up! Up! Up! We have a long day of work ahead.
I sat up in my cot and looked down into the next room, where a lady with long, black, straight hair and dark chocolate skin stood at a counter breading something.
What are you making? I thought but didn’t ask the lady. Instead I said, “who are you?”
The woman looked at me like I was crazy. “Well, I’m your ‘Umiy aint I?”
UMNEE!? What the heck is that?
A little girl, looking about three then got up and yelled “‘Umiy! What have we got to eat?”
Ah. Umiy must have been ‘mommy’ or ‘mom’.
“Figs and beer. Now sit at the table and I’ll get you your pot of beer.” apparently our Umiy said.
“Beer!?” I said shocked. “She looks less than five! How are you going to give her beer?”
“Girl, get up and eat your food so we can sow them dang seeds!” Umiy snapped at me. “You’re already dang late waking up today.” oh my gosh! Umiy sure sowed the word ‘dang’ real good in her sentences!
I wanted to be stubborn and not listen to her, but when I looked around there was nothing in this room. Nothing. So I uncrossed my arms and walked over to the table where I sat next to the little girl.
The word Miko came to mind.
“Miko,” I said aloud.
The three-year-old girl turned to me. “Yes?”
I sowed the seeds in the field. Umiy let the cattle step over the seeds so that they would be buried in the ground.
I smiled at her. She smiled at me.
As my father came forward, I automatically knew what to call him. “Hi baba.”
“Hello Shila. Good work on the field today.” Baba told me.
I looked down at the sandy floor, wondering how I even got here once more.
“Yeah, you wouldn’t even believe she woke up late today.” Umiy couldn’t help herself but add.
“Hm.” Baba took a second look at me.
“I’m Joshua,” said Joshua.
I kept staring at him.
“Okay, now she knows you, and now she’s going to leave.” Kira told her brother and looked at me with daggers for eyes. Her eyes quickly swished to the left. The obvious friend language for ‘uh, come here! Don’t flirt with Joshua!”
“Oh, yeah.” I pointed to Kira. “I gotta go. Kira was just showing me around town.”
“Oh, sure. I’ll see you around.” Joshua smiled his what I was starting to know as his signature smile, then ran off to play with the others.
Kira then continued our tour. Here’s what I learned.
City square- Food market, Church
Downtown- dance and sing club, sports stadium
Uptown- military build up, nile river
Farther up- The Neighborhood, the pyramids
It went from dead hot to really cold. I rubbed my arms.
Soon though, Deja, my brother came up to me.
“Mom’s pissed at you, you know that right?”
I was starting to get tired of that mother.
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