IN MY MOTHER’S HOUSE

Okot P’ Bitek

In my mother’s house

We eat sitting on the earth

And not on tress

Like monkeys;

The young men

Sit cross legged

And a girl sits carefully

On one leg.

Father alone sits on the stool.

We all sit on skins

 Or papyrus mats

On the earth.

The knives in my mother’s house

Are for harvesting

Or for cutting up the meat

Before it is  cooked:

But not for cutting millet bread.

We wash our hands clean

And attack the loaf

From all sides.

You mould a spoon

And dip it in the gravy

And eat it up.

And you use your right hand

Even if you are left-handed:

This is good manners

Only rude fellows

Use their left hands

For breaking millet bread.

I do not knoe

How to cook

Like white women;

I do not enjoy

White men’s foods;

And how they eat –

How could I know?

And why should I know it?

White men’s stoves

Are for cooking

White men’s foods;

And how they eat –

How could I know?

And why should I know it?

White men’s foods.

They are not suitable

For cooking

Acoli foods

And I am afraid of them.

Ocol says

Black people’s foods are primitive,

But what is backward about them?

He says,

Black peoples food are dirty ;

He means,

Some clumsy and dirty black women

 Prepare food clumsily

And put them

In dirty containers.

He insisted

I must, eat raw eggs

Smelly, slimy yellow stuff.

He says

It is good for me!

He says

There is something in eggs

Which is good for the bones

But my bones are strong

I can dance all night long

Listen to the song

They sang about me.

The beautiful one

Dances all night long

Alyeker prevents me sleeping

I wait on the pathway

She refuses to come to me

The beautiful one

Dances all night long.

What is the good thing in eggs?

Can it not be found

In other foods?

My husband,

I do not complain

That you eat

White men’s foods.

If you enjoy them

Go ahead!

Shall we just agree

To have freedom

To eat what one likes?