The Person Who Makes My Days Brighter

CHAPTER 4: SOMETIMES, HOME IS A PLACE

"It's time to get up Jordan," his mother said to him. "You're going to miss the school bus. Your brother is already awake." Sibling rivalry was and always has been a good motivator. Something you could use to make little ones do anything that you wanted them to do; especially if they were boys. Boys are always trying to outdo one another and well—that's just boys being boys.

"I don't want to go to school today Mom," Jordan said to his mother. And she almost didn't believe he could say something like that to her and mean it, but kids say things all the time—it's really up to the adults to filter through what they feel and what they do or do not mean. Jordan and Caleb's parents weren't originally from Botswana, where they were residing at the time; and frankly, they had moved a lot—all across the world and back they had been, and after all the galavanting, they had decided to settle down. With two little boys, it was important to them that they find some solidarity; a consistent but healthy environment for their kids to grow up in. Added, they weren't getting any younger either to contribute to the list of reasons.

"Why not?" She enquired. "Tell me what's wrong or perhaps I should bring your father in here to sort this out."

Jordan shook his head in disagreement. He thought to himself about what he was going to say next, he didn't know a lot of things, but what he did know is that African parents aren't the most supportive or conscious about their children's emotions.

"They always make fun of me Ma, every single day. I even tried to talk to Ms. Lusambo about it but nothing happened.I thought since she is Zambian too, just maybe she could make them stop but it's useless. I hate them—all of them." Somewhere along the line of that rant, she strongly resisted the urge to smack him for acting spoilt and ungrateful. The urge was there fully detailed by the disdained look she failed to mask.

"Why do they make fun of you?" She asked.

"I don't know," he replied.

"It's because we're foreigners stupid," Caleb said dripping water on the floor as he walked in cloaked in his towel and from the bathroom.

"Language! We don't use those words in this house, do you want to be beaten?" She threatened. "No—I'm sorry." Caleb apologised.

"Now, come sit down I want to talk to the both of you." Caleb walked over and sat next to Jordan as their mother began to talk to them about all of what they were experiencing and how they could deal with it the right way.

But some conversations aren't supposed to happen. Parents aren't supposed to have to tell their children that the world that they live in, the people they call 'friend', the school buses they get on, the streets they walk through, even the air they breathe everyday belongs to someone else when you aren't in your own country.

"Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd." - Bertrand Russell.

Every single person they think they know will turn on them if their country-men was doing it—even if they knew it would be wrong.

"What does that mean?" Caleb asked.

"I think it means that all we have is each other and that is all we need, right Ma?" Jordan inquired.

"That's right. Sometimes it's not enough that we look the same, as long as someone can spot a difference, that's all they'll want to see. I know this feels like home to you because it's all you've ever known, but sometimes home is not just a feeling—it's knowing in your heart you belong."

They then heard the sound of one of the doors in the house creak open. Their father was up. Shortly after, he walked into the children's bedroom.

"Good morning guys," he said and his children responded, "Good morning Dad." in unison.

"I want to talk to you about something." History would show that those words are usually accompanied by words of affliction, but perhaps not this time. "You don't have to go to school today or tomorrow, at least not at your current school."

There was a bit of a mixed feeling around the room when he had made the announcement, but they wanted to know why and that's what they were waiting to hear from him. So they said nothing and waited.

"We're moving," he explained. But what he didn't explain was that Jordan and Caleb's grandmother had fallen ill—again. She was well past eighty, and this time it seemed to be worse than the last time. And in her old age, when you have one of those worse times, you just know you want to be surrounded by your family and your friends—well mostly your family; because all your friends would either be just as ill as you are or in the ground already. Seeing as it might be the last time you get the chance to do that, be with your loved ones, you want your family close, —close so you can say goodbye.

"To where?" Caleb asked. And because he didn't want to upset his children who were having a hard time already being the foreigners in a foreign country. He picked his next words very carefully and replied, "Home, we're going home."

So as the remainder of the school year went by, with end of year examinations already behind them, the movers had already come in to collect their belongings and their plane tickets had already been purchased. Moira and the children were to take two flights to get to Zambia. One to South-Africa, and then connect to Zambia from there while Lenny drove there along side the moving truck.

Caleb was laying his head down on his mother's laps as they sat on one of the benches in the airport lounge. Caleb wasn't feeling too well, he had just been on a plane for the first time and got airsick. He was a little better now, despite having managed to throw up on two people who were on board other than himself, including an air hostess and the man in a nice suit that was situated on the left side of him. Jordan was running around the bench tirelessly. He just kept going and going and he looked like he was having the time of his life, and he most likely was. "Can you stop running up and down before you fall and get hurt," his mother begged. Jordan then came to a sudden stop and noticed there was a canteen a few metres away from where they were, that and his shoelaces had come undone. "I want to go look at what they have over at that shop," said Jordan. His mother helps him fasten his laces and agrees to let him wander off on condition that he walks there quietly, looks for five minutes, and then walks right back. He sets off walking hurriedly but the sound of his mother shouting under her breath slows him back down. At the canteen he sees a woman manning the counter. Blonde-haired, Caucasian and she looked about his mother's age give or take. She waves at him and he waves back, before he goes about feeding his eyes.

"Don't touch that!", "Put that down!" the woman shouts at every attempt he made to touch anything on the shelves. Coincidentally, another woman comes to the canteen with her son. She's blonde-haired and Caucasian too. The two women begin to speak a language Jordan can't understand. He watches as the boy who looks about his age attempts to grab something off the shelf. He doesn't say anything but then neither does the woman at the counter, she just stands there talking to the other woman. She's suddenly interrupted by Jordan who was holding a T-shirt up to her face as he asked how much it cost.

"Put the T-shirt back on the shelf and go to your mother." He can't make out the rest of what she says next because it wasn't in English. He does as he is told and then feeling confused, he runs back towards his mother and brother in the lounge.

"You should listen to me when I say things once, I thought I told you not..." she notices that Jordan isn't happy about something. "What's wrong? What happened?"
After he explains to her what just happened, not knowing what to say next, she again has to remind her sons about herd instinct and how sometimes, even though it seemed to be happening a lot more frequently, home is not a place it's knowing you belong...