The special house

This is how it’s been happening; by Sunday, I have a rough idea of what I want to write about. Stray sentences start to form in my head, they float about. By Wednesday early morning, all the words have already settled into the womb of my mind. The doctor declares I’m 10 centimeters dilated in words. I push as he pulls out the baby, he then cuts the umbilical cord and these sentences are freed into our tiny world of this blog. So I press publish. However, that’s not what happened this time round. By Monday morning, I still had no idea of what I wanted to write about, my mind was shooting blanks, nothing had been conceived and so I started to panic. I lay in bed helplessly for a while, my head rested on my bicep.

I then started scrolling through my phone lazily. I wanted to retrieve some information that I knew was in the text messages between Davie, my small brother and I so I started going through our exchanges.

 

On Saturday, Jan 14 19:55, one of the text messages from me to him read;

‘Please keep for me my chapos’

 

I smiled at this message. Sometimes, the text messages or even phone calls between housemates can be peculiar and they only make sense to those living in that house. Am I right guys? And they can sometimes be embarrassing if someone who doesn't have the context stumbles upon them. I was asking for my chapos to be spared on that Saturday because one, I’m a certified foodie and two, I was going to be late getting home. Sometimes the biggest mistake you can make in our residence is be late kwanza on a weekend, so people will assume that you’ll be sleeping out, then they'll just eat your chapatis. Gosh.

 

Speaking of conversations that only make sense between housemates, the chapo one is a very mild one in our house.

 ***

I always grew up knowing our household was different. There was no exact moment that it hit me, but I always knew it, just like how I always knew I was a girl. I knew it was different because of my big brother Steve, and more importantly, I knew he was different. He was different in the way he spoke, the way he acted when he was angry, sad or happy or anxious. He expressed himself differently. There were no other kids like him in the neighborhood, or in my school, or in Sunday school. Neither were there any family friends or cousins that were similar. And so with his difference, came a difference with the way things were run at home. As a young girl, I used to think that this was something to keep secret because all I wanted was to be like everybody else and have the same experiences.

I always measured the closeness of my friendships as to whether I’d told them about my brother and in turn how our house system runs. Then, as I grew older, I realized that many of these differences come with a lot of vituko. The more my friends enquired, the more I realized how interesting things really are.

  

Davie, works an 8-5. I can’t tell you how many times to date, I’ve called him  in panic mode, not caring if he’s in a meeting or not. He says he usually leaves the office to pick my calls, thinking it’s a matter of national urgency. "Msee, mi hufeel ka Jimnah Mbaru niki step out of the office, thinking you're about to ask me something serious like to dispose my shares (which ones? hehe) or something, only to be met with `we msee, tomato sauce iko?'" Haha.

Naturally, you guys keep your tomato sauce in your kitchen right? Either in a designated cabinet or on a designated tray sometimes placed on top of the microwave, or most times, in the fridge. I know this because when I go into people’s homes, those are a few of the things I take note of. A few of you, like my mum in her house keep them on the tray in the middle of your dining table, together with tea bags, jam and coffee sachets and other condiments.

All those placement positions make sense, not in our house though. I’ll tell you where we keep ours and why.

Where

In the corner of my room, sit four musketeers: the laundry basket, a humongousgous suitcase, a yoga mat and a beautifully colored kiondo. They keep each other company all year round. The yoga mat is supposed to be excusing herself at least three mornings in a week for 20-30 minutes but the owner (me) hasn’t done yoga in a while so she just chills there waiting for the day she’ll be commissioned. *Bombastic side eye*. The laundry basket usually leaves once every two weeks when the cleaning lady comes to get it and returns it almost 1 hour later. The suitcase is forever there, it's where duvets and bed sheets za wageni are kept. Then there’s the V.I.P: the kiondo. In there is where you'll find our tomato sauce, ketchup, jam, peanut butter and sugar. These condiments are then covered with my mum’s maroon shawl that smells like her throughout the seasons.

Why

We have a gentleman in our house called Mr. Stephen. This guy operates on an abundance mindset without ever reading any self-help book. Everything, especially sweet, is to be had in triple if not quadruple portions. If it’s tomato sauce, he puts it on everything. And by everything, I mean every. damn. thing, including ugali/managu, yes, even on chapati/beans or dengu as well. He kent be ciriaz. The real problem here is the quantity. Guys, half a bottle is just about enough for one meal. So if you want the sauce to last for all of one and a half days, just leave it in the open.

***  

You know what I wanted to be so badly when I grew up? A shop keeper. Why? So that I could eat sweets all day. Patco was my thing. Kumbe God was to answer my prayer haraka upesi, not so much to be eating sweets the whole day, but to keep certain items in my room and dispense them to Steve while monitoring his movements very closely haha. (Heh! Okay God, now I’d like to be a successful writer and baker).

So this is what happens if you need any of these items: you come to my room to get them on a need basis. My room is the most secure because I work from home and spend a lot of time there. If you live in our house, you get used to this system pretty quickly. Sometimes, someone, let’s call him Davie, will carry say tomato sauce to either the sitting room, the dining room or their bedroom, (if eating from there) where he has his own hiding place of said items. Because mambo ni mengi, it’s very easy for someone to forget to return the sauce to my room. So when I'm ready to use the sauce and it's not in the kiondo, instead of going through the hustle of trying to find out where it is, it’s easier to call him -even if he’s in the middle of a presentation- just to ask him where it is. If he says he left it in the open, uuwii, Mayday! Mayday! We just count our losses and take that L haha.

Let’s not even talk about sugar because that’s Mr.Stephen's favorite thing in the whole world. He can take three tablespoons of sugar in one cup of tea. Dead ass.

You may want to woiye us, but there’s no need to. You may also feel relieved that you don’t have such a dynamic in your household, fair enough. If you live with an autistic person or someone with a disability or disabilities, you know how you guys operate and how you're used to that system. Do you ever get used to the system though?Many times, Davie and I find ourselves laughing at ours. On the other hand, Steve will tell us live live "weka hii in your room (sugar), because someone can be tempted to finish it". Haha umm hello? Someone is you. 

I’ll be honest with you though, when I think about moving out, I always imagine of the freedom I’ll have, of leaving certain items in the open; abandoning my career in shop keeping. I’ve already decided where I’ll put my sauce, in the fridge :) I won’t have to hide my sugar for baking, wow, I’ll be such a free girl lol.

  

I was talking to my girlies the other day and I was telling them about how one time, a non-related housemate was finding it difficult to have to deal with the logistics of coming to the ‘shop’ every morning to use these items. So they aired their grievances to my folks. This is what my mum said to her and I’ll never forget: for as long as we’ll have a special-needs person in this house, this house will always remain special, even in the way we operate. I really liked that, it stuck with me. The acceptance of it. It is what it is and we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do.

 

I’m writing this from my bedroom. We just celebrated Dad’s birthday yesterday night and there’s some left-over cake that dad has purposed to carry and take to mum later today. Let me just go and confirm that the piece I hid for her nicely behind a sufuria in the fridge is still there and that man like Stevo didn’t find it last night. Otherwise, itabidi tu mum amekula story. Lol bye my guys…

 

Also, if you live with someone with autism, especially like in their teens or older, I'd really love to connect :)