Wading the Tide

Kwashiorkor Graveyard

5 Wading the Tide Kwashiorkor Graveyard Thou graveyard of my pre-natal chair, thou preserver of my navel, gifted in all to make me happy: fertility, fruitfulness. Yet today thou art accused a kwashiorkor patient - lacking in vital vitamins: minerals, oil, agricultural products, foreign exchange. Treason! It is the tapper who squanders all the wine and says bad weather affected the raffia palms; he drinks the oil and says the kernels were barren. Grey heads beginning to lie? Parents lying to their children? I fear for tomorrow, for when awareness shall dawn, the bad weather shall be purged and the kernels' barrenness cleansed or else limbs shall fly. Njangi House Representatives my foot. From North to South from East to West they claim to have come - errand boys and girls. Yet before they sit, the fruits of our labour to squander, they care less our opinions to sample. They sit with bloated jowls suffocating in the coated heat with earphones at ridiculous angles, state colours from shoulder to hip like church-wardens. ...