Dianne Stadhams is an Australian, resident in the
UK, who works globally. She has spent many years in some of the world’s poorest
nations working on poverty alleviation projects and has a PhD in communications
for development. Her website www.stadhams.com gives
details about this and her other interests.
I hate birthdays.
In my family a birthday is a misnomer for a
‘dead-darling’ day. Whatever happens to other people on their birthdays doesn’t
work for us. We get a kind of upside down, inside out, back to front, reverse
celebration. In my family when it’s your time to have a birthday you lie down
with cloves of garlic nailed to the bed, a fetish around your ankle and fingers
crossed not to sleep … until it’s all over … one way or the other.
“Garlic on the bed head? What next - elephant dung under the
pillow?” my pa teased me on the eve of his 45th. He ordered my ma to remove the protection. My
pa didn’t wake up. “He’s dead darling,” said Ma.
And not just my pa. My uncle died on his birthday - bitten
by a snake. My first aunt got out of bed, ate her birthday breakfast with an
up-yours-darling smile … and fell sideways off the chair. They said she was
dead before she hit the floor. The celebrations were cancelled. My ma said we
could use my aunt’s birthday cake for the funeral. But it took 60 hours from
birthday party to burial pit. The cake got weevils. Nobody ate it. Ma fed the
remains, weevils and all, to the hens. Their chicks were born with extra length
feathers and super-wart wattles.
I could keep going as fifteen of my close family have
departed this world on those bad days, their dead-darling days. My theory is
that our family are mutants …with a genetic trigger
alarmed for birthdays!
But this story is not about my family history and its
genetic dysfunction. It’s about a bigger big question - luck. A girl or a boy -
who is the luckier? When a girl is born the old men in the village say to the
father “Better luck next time!” My ma
says to the fathers, “You are a lucky one. A daughter will be there to hold
your hand when you die.”
When it comes to dead-darlings it’s evens on luck. The count
changed with my sister’s sixth birthday. Her best present was a pet chicken
with long golden feathers that sparkled in the sun ... and a red wattle with so
many purple warts it was impossible to agree on the total. It was one supreme-ugly
bird but she loved it on sight. Personally I would have denied ownership of
something so hideous. But I digress – a birthday present is a gift after all.
She called it Pambo which is Swahili for glitter. We all called it Pambo Bwark
because it wouldn’t stop squawking ... very loudly. My sister carried it
everywhere despite our taunts.
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