In Search Of Recognition
Nyamu was walking to the shops when he heard someone calling out his name. Turning, he saw Sammy running towards him. Sammy was a precocious 7-year old who was always right in the middle of any mischief that the children of the estate indulged in. Still, Nyamu was glad to see the child. Sammy could always make him smile, even when he was in a low mood.
“Hello, Nyamu”, shouted the child. Sammy’s voice always seemed to be set at a single volume – loud.
“Hello, Sammy,” replied Nyamu, adjusting his mental earmuffs as he usually did whenever Sammy was around.
He held out his hand to the boy and the boy grabbed it in both of his. Nyamu steeled himself for whatever was coming next. One never knew what Sammy would do next.
Sammy, however, seemed content to hold Nyamu’s hand. He turned the hand over several times. Then he pressed and folded it, pummeled, and pinched it.
Nyamu tried to withdraw his extremity but the boy clung like a piece of chewing gum. They wrestled over the limb for several minutes. Nyamu felt ridiculous. Worse, he felt handicapped by his age. Here he was, a grown man, wrestling with a child – a very small one, for Sammy had the stature of a 3-year old – in the street over his own arm.
He wished he could pinch Sammy in a place it where it would really hurt. Only the certainty that the child would enjoy shrieking – and exaggerate it for the edification of all the surrounding estates – stopped him.
Luckily, Sammy suddenly seemed to tire of his pastime and let go, probably because he spotted one of his little friends coming out to play. He ran off to join her.
Nyamu was just glad to have his sore limb back. He cradled it in his other hand tenderly. How could such a small scrap of humanity be capable of inflicting such pain?
A few days later, Nyamu was washing his car outside when Sammy’s father, Daniel, passed by. He started laughing as soon as he saw Nyamu.
“Sammy told me what he did to your hand,” he guffawed.
Nyamu still didn’t find it funny and wondered how he could get Daniel to move on.
Daniel did not appear to be in a hurry. Tears of laughter ran down his face as he continued. He said he folded, punched and pinched your hand.
Nyamu was taken aback. He stood still and stared at Daniel. What kind of parent laughs as he retells the pain his offspring inflicts on another human being to that same person? Thoughts of a possible apology that might have been floating in Nyamu’s mind dissolved into nothing as he watched the man in front of him struggle for breath.
“He told you?” was all he could think to say. Sammy’s brutal honesty was one of the few – very few – redeeming qualities about the child. Nyamu was always amazed when he came across examples of it. Maybe that was one of the reasons why he tolerated the little monster.
“Yes” replied Daniel, when he finally stopped laughing. “Do you know why he did what he did?”
“No” said Nyamu, although he was getting curious. What possible reason could there be for such a departure of manners... no, not departure: it was Sammy, after all. Where the boy was concerned, exercise of manners would be shocking.
“He said,” continued the father “that he wanted you to know that he, too, was a man.”
NB: This story is based on an actual incident.