By Opiyo Oloya

Dedicated by The African magazine to all the beautiful women of Africa or African descent. 

A fleeting smile breaks the aged face as

Mama sits on the old wooden mushroom stool

Wrapped in a loose faded cotton dress

A blackened utensil in one hand

The other hand tends the small wood fire in the hearth

The antelope skin rug is worn smooth

The fat waterpot still sits proudly in the same corner

Cobwebs hand freely from the soot darkened bamboo rafters

Allow me to bake the traditional bread I say

No you won’t do that she says

You’ve been in Canada too long

It has gone to your head, it has made you soft

You are a man, here men don’t cook

That’s not true Mama

You taught me to cook

To cook the thick brown millet bread

Now is your turn to eat my bread

Oh no she argues

Yours is the White man’s bread

It’s soft, squishy and white inside

Filling but empty, nothing

Thin like paper

You eat now and

Ten minutes later your stomach grumbles

If I want your White man’s bread

I go to the store

But Mama, do I look white to you

Is my skin any different from yours

Am I not the same son you knew before

I went to Canada

Don’t you recognize me

Your very own flesh and blood

No so fast she says

Your skin is brown as ever

Like this brown gong gong insect

But your thoughts are

White like papaya sap

Your eyes don’t see my world anymore

This antelope skin

That waterpot

The lek lizard on that cracked wall

They are all different in your eyes

You are a stranger

A black stranger with

White thoughts

Go back where you came from

Stranger

Mama I cry

Mama it is a terrible mistake

A bad dream

Go she says firmly

Go now

________

Opiyo Oloya is a Ugandan-born educator and author, living in Canada, currently Western University‘s Associate Vice President of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Oloya was the host of  “Karibuni,” a radio broadcast in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada.