I would come flying from Church on Sunday afternoons to catch an episode of “Charmed” (that witches show, was it on UTV or WBS?) I would struggle with the antenna just in time for the opening credits. So lost in my engineering mother would startle me with “ova ku church okomyewo kulaba sitaani?” (Have you come back from Church to watch the devil?)
My dad would defend me and divert my mother’s attention to food. The Sundays he wasn’t around I would be forced to tune in to Lighthouse television for Joyce Meyer or Benny Hinn or Creflo Dollar. “But we are from Church, why watch church again?!” I grumbled, but stayed close to the TV and switched to my show whenever her back was turned.
All that gymnastics with the TV would turn into watching every favorite show until Wrestling at 10:00 pm. I was a big fan of The Rock, so I was the grass caught in between his rivalry with Stone Cold Steve Austin. Every time The Rock got beat, I would cry my heart out. Or the times of the World Cup when my favorite team lost a game.
This would go on until midnight or so when I passed out and the next thing I know the sun is way up high in the sky for me to beat that 7:15 am school arrival deadline.
I remember a tune on the waves of Radio Simba from the neighbouring family that always told me I was a dead man, “binsangawano tulululu lulu kyenda mu musanvu katonyeze sattu, Radio Simba empologoma yedembe.” Something like that.
Then a morning news presenter would come on as I ran out the door and in the fading sound I would hear “esaawa ziweze bbiri nedakiika….” And my little limbs became engines.