Sikiliza

Sundays as a kid were always superb. Mass was a very short affair (phew!!) and afterwards we were all bunched in the car and taken swimming at the local sports club (bonus lunch too when lucky!)….when money was tight we had to eat at home (then wait 20 minutes for the food to “reach the stomach” to avoid barfing in the water). We would race to change in record time and my mum swathed us all with a gob of Vaseline making us look like shiny brown blobs jumping into the water with glee…. All my siblings could swim like aces except me….I used to like belly flopping at the club’s baby pool to maximize the splash effect to those (idiots I thought) who were not in their bathing suits or ready to face the risk of getting wet at the poolside… My mother, who believed any water more than a bath tub was lethal never got near the pool. She sat under the umbrella chairs propped her feet up on another chair and sipped on tomato juice on the rocks and browsed a romance novel or those weekly women maga...

Growing up I was a gawky girl with buck teeth and a shy smile. I took a while to warm up to people hiding behind my mum’s legs when strangers were around. With kids it was rather worse…I had not really had kids to play with and so I took socializing a bit tooooo seriously…It seemed absurd to me when kids threw sawdust from the play ground at each other as fun. I was a tad too sensitive and held back tears most times…I really preferred playing with pets insects and tailless lizards around the house…they were less likely to call me names or hurl saw dust into my eyes. When I first went to nursery everything was new and exciting. I loved my tomato red uniform. My mum did my hair in little pom poms and I think I looked cute…..I had this little red box with my break tin and juice, two books and pack of 12 crayons. My Stuff was labeled by my perfectionist mother… Sikiliza Flamingo Nursery School …. Its here where I met Mrs Raja. She was a tough but ok teache...