Pudd’ng wants to know what ‘kukalia chapati’ means

This day, as we alight from the matatu, we hear these animated touts, all at the top of their voices, haggling for passengers. “Why are the touts asking people for wood?” I asked baby girl, taking the translation from the touts hollering, “Mbao, mbao”. ILLUSTRATION | BARASA

What you need to know:

  • Kids are quicker at memorising lyrics while adults are still playing catch-up. I make it my business to know what our daughter is “feeding” on.
  • Pudd’ng and I like to make chapatis together. It is something we just stumbled upon. It gets messy, because to her, it is playtime. Once, a loose tooth was almost pulled out by the big ball of dough she was chewing.

Not so long ago, when Pudd’ng was still learning dental hygiene ropes, Tenderoni would help her, something that would many times lead to the little girl complaining that she could do her own brushing.

“I’m not a baby,” baby girl would whine, only for mama to insist that she would do what mama’s supposed to do.

At times, when baby girl wanted to retire her mama out of this gig, she would act up to frustrate Tenderoni. Like this day, Tenderoni was, I reckon, griping because Pudd’ng was playing, literally, a tongue-in- cheek game …

“Hio ulimi yako unaizungusha na saa ile nataka kuisugua hunipatii ni isugue,” Tenderoni snapped.

If you were overhearing this from elsewhere, without the benefit of knowing what was going on, you would be forgiven to thinking that Pudd’ng’s tongue can be removed and reattached after it has been cleaned. 

Hear the direct translation of Tenderoni’s complaint. “You’re taking this tongue of yours round in circles, but when I want to brush it, you don’t give it to me”.

SHENG TEACHER

Pudd’ng thinks I’m a Neanderthal from some of the questions she asks, plus some of the things she hears me saying, jokingly. Such interactions make her believe that she knows more than I do. This day, as we alight from the matatu, we hear these animated touts, all at the top of their voices, haggling for passengers.

“Why are the touts asking people for wood?” I asked baby girl, taking the translation from the touts hollering, “Mbao, mbao”. In Sheng, Mbao is Sh20.  Man, Pudd’ng almost took me to the museum. “Dah-dee?” she said. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what mbao is?”

“Mbao is wood,” I coolly replied.

She gave me the classic, dad-please-don’t-embarrass-me look.

And then the Sheng lecture started. Which was more like a newborn puppy teaching an old dog how to bark.

Day Tenderoni beat the house

Moving to a bigger house means that there are more responsibilities. Like a bigger house to clean. Pudd’ng “helps” with the mopping. But Tenderoni and I do not want to discourage her. So we let her “help”, however she does it. The other day, I was telling my wife how our daughter helps, yet barely touches the floor with the mop, before she says that she is done.

Me? I have been known to take a couple of days to do the mopping, but then again, I’m a man. To each their own.

This day, Tenderoni was tired of juggling those multiple balls that sisters juggle. She decided she wouldn’t mop the crib, but the way she said it made Pudd’ng and I look at her like she wanted to punch the walls.

“Hii nyumba leo si ipigi.”

Direct translation? “Today I’m not beating this house.”

SITTING ON FOOD

The morning I sat on chapatis 

Kids are quicker at memorising lyrics while adults are still playing catch-up. I make it my business to know what our daughter is “feeding” on.

At times I’m overtaken by events. Then, to quote Tenderoni, I will wonder, when I hear baby girl singing an unknown tune, when she learnt that. And in a way that only a little girl can, perhaps to show her old folk just who’s with it, she will say, like it’s no big deal, “I just knew”.

This calls for a little back story. Pudd’ng and I like to make chapatis together. It is something we just stumbled upon. It gets messy, because to her, it is playtime. Once, a loose tooth was almost pulled out by the big ball of dough she was chewing.

“What does kukalia chapati mean?” Pudd’ng asked one day, after hearing the lyric in a song by the Sauti Sol quartet.

Man, this calls for tact. Tonnes of tact. For the clueless, this, I hear, is what some sisters do – literally sitting on a chapati – then serving it to a brother. Which is meant to “tie” this brother to this sister.

“It means,” I chose my words carefully, “to sit down, and get down to business, like I do when we’re making chapatis.”

Bad move.

Knowing Pudd’ng, one of these fine days, not fine for me though, she will brag to an aunt: “Auntie? Leo asubuhi daddy alikalia chapati.”

And then? The cat will get my tongue.