Of childhood and memories

Many decades ago when we were children all summer holidays were spent staying at a relatives place in Kerala. Most of them were grandparents homes or homes of aunts and uncles. On my fathers side his elder sister was like a mother to all as the parents were dead by the time we learnt the meaning of grandparents so our summer holidays were spent in the homes of my aunt or uncle. My aunt has the distinction of having a son and a granddaughter with just a year between them. As children it shocked us that such a thing was possible so I had a niece who was some ten years older to me and she was more like a cousin than a niece. My aunt has a large brood of children and most of them were just years younger than my father. In face her eldest daughter was older than my mom. Now because she had some eight children,her house was overrun with children and grandchildren,nieces and nephews. It was one of those sprawling homes were children could loose themselves . Like most homes of that day it had large gardens at many levels. So if one wanted a bath one had to carry ones toilet bag down two or three levels to access a well,draw water and then have a bucket bath. Sometimes this was a ritual or rather a community activity. We would walk a kilometre or two to a bath house and while the mothers washed clothes the children took turns having a bath. The older girls always had baths together and I suspect this was their time to share confidences without being overheard by sharp eared m others. We younger ones had to wait our turn till one of the mothers decided to bath us. This was done in assembly line methods. We were lined up and soaped and washed in turns. The most miserable time was when the mother in a hurry to get the job done would soap us rapidly and move on. This meant soap got into our eyes but everyone was too busy to bother so we waited in agony till our turn came to be washed. Going to to the loo was another operation. Because those were the days when attached bathrooms were non existent it was assumed that children all had to go to the loo before they went to sleep. God forbid one wanted to wee during the night. We were so terrified that we learnt blader control the hard way.

Our meals were all mostly things grown on the land so we had to know how to dig up tapioca,yam and plantain. We were taught how to hull a coconut,milk cows(something I never learnt being terrified of cows) we hunted for wild mushrooms after the rains,plucked all manner of fruit and veg from the gardens and surrounding forests and not once did we go to a shop to buy food. It was all fresh and healthy. We had no TV or internet and the only books we read were the ones we tool from home to see us through the holidays though we never found time to read them. As the sun set we would all gather on the varenda to listen to the old people gossip and we picked up what ever news we thought was important (most times it was irrelevant) just before after dinner which was eaten in shifts(too many people for the dining table) my aunt would gather her own brood and the extended ones into a large room. She made it a point to make us read the bible in turns. Since we only spoke English and couldn't read in our native language we were allowed to listen. After bible reading we had to sing a few hymns and then my aunt who fancied herself a preacher (in the days were woman were not allowed anywhere near the pulpit) would give us a little sermon. Having filled our stomachs with food we would all start falling asleep y the time she finished but she wasn't done with us so it was prayer time. For some reason she loved to pray and would pray loud and long so much so that when she finished all her children,grandchildren and extended family would be fast asleep on the floor. She lived to a ripe old age of a hundred and three and did this prayer ritual long after her family had dwindled to two or three. Today as her granddaughter visited me after a gap of some forty years she brought back memories of childhood and summer. Today we live in hotels or guess houses even when we have relatives and I realised that an entire era of family and times together was just a memory in these times