Mama Mboga: A Journey, A Relationship

Neera Kapur-Dromson

“Mama Mboga is here!” I shouted out aloud. The other women living in the compound came out and surrounded her as she bent to remove the three big baskets hanging from her head by a sisal strap down to her back.

A whole week had gone and ‘our’ Mama Mboga had not passed by. So we called on her mobile and found her quite ill and very sad. She had just returned from burying her young niece in Nyeri. As was the tradition, we gave her our share of tithe in contribution when we saw her later in the week.

In Kiswahili mama mboga means a woman selling vegetables. Our Mama Mboga is called Mary. But we don’t call her that. To us she is and has always been Mama Mboga. Even in my mobile her number is listed as Mama Mboga. And we call her ‘ours’ because for over thirty years she is the only one who has been bringing fresh vegetables and fruit to our house in Lavington.

Mama Mboga recalls, “When I first came to this house in the early 1970s there was a French woman living here. The gates to the house were always open and my friend and I just used to walk in. There was no askari guarding the house, nor were there any dogs barking at us – for sure, there was no sign saying Mbwa Kali! But even in houses where there were dogs, the owners ensured that the dogs were made known to us, and we had no trouble.” She looks at me. “Why even you had a small dog when I first met you many years ago.” True! Our dog Chocolate never gave her (or anyone else) any trouble, and we have never displayed a signboard Mbwa Kali! (Our neighbour, though, had a sign outside reading: Mama Kali sana!  and that she was!

“Mama Fransa was a very small lady, living all by herself,” Mama Mboga says. “Sometimes she bought a few vegetables from me, very small quantities – never in large numbers – as do the Wahindi.” Mama Mboga’s eyes light up, “Communication was not easy. Mama Fransa spoke very little English and hardly any Kiswahili. My English in those days was limited to just a few words. But we managed to get the business of buying and selling done!”

Mama Mboga doesn’t know why Lavington became ‘their’ area. It was just the territory her mother and mother-in-law allocated for their own. By the time we moved to our present house in Lavington, Mama Mboga had become a regular to this area. Her communication skills and proficiency in English had improved, as had her confidence, and she had her chain of faithful clients in tow  waiting for fresh vegetables from the market each day.

‘Our’ Mama Mboga, started her business of bringing vegetables to homes at the age of 34, when she had already been married for 20 years and had borne her six children. Once the children started school, her husband encouraged her to work. One day she accompanied her mother-in-law to the market. “In fact, my mother-in-law Emily Njeri and my mother Jane Wamboi had already been selling vegetables in the early 1950s. Their first customers were the Wazungu. They sold them potatoes, carrots, peas, French beans and cabbage. They carried small ciondo to weigh them, no scales. (Ciondo is the Kikuyu word for traditional woven baskets. One basket is called a kiondo, though non-Kikuyu often use kiondos for the plural). They usually walked all the way from Kabete to Lavington. There were no matatus then. Sometimes, a private lorry gave them a lift for a small fee of fifty cents.”

Mama Mboga recalls her early selling days. “My first Muhindi client was Mama Dogra. She lived near Strathmore College. It was a very large family and she would buy almost all I could carry. Then she would ask me to bring Indian vegetables. Now all my clients are Wahindi. Most of them speak Kiswahili. I like them. They help me. I don’t have any African clients…”

Our Mama Mboga is very down to earth and practical minded. She has no pretensions about life, but she does not undervalue herself either. She is also very politically aware.

Between 10 and 11 am, her hard knock on the gate is a sure sign she has arrived. Of medium height and a well- built frame, the 68-year-old grandmother enters, her head lowered, looking to the ground, her back weighed down by the three or four kikapus (coastal palm frond baskets), one on top of the other. But she has no backache, she assures me. “In my younger days, I could carry up to 100 kilos of vegetables,” she nods with pride.

“Every morning, at 5 am, I get up and go to the Wakulima or Farmer’s Market. It’s still too early to eat, so I have my breakfast of mandazi and chai, sometimes ngwaci (sweet potatoes) or nduma (arrowroot), or githeri (a mixture of beans and corn) with my friends, after which I start looking and buying.” This takes three or four hours.

The Wakulima Market was built in 1966 as a wholesale market. Situated on Haile Selassie Avenue, close to the Machakos Country Bus Station, Wakulima is one of the largest wholesale markets in Eastern Africa. One has to push and squeeze one’s way through the chaotic rush of pushcarts, mkokoteni carts and people carrying gunias of potatoes or onions on their backs or shoulders. For a small fee, kanda ya moko, porters, will carry heavy sacks of potatoes, bags of onions, tomato crates and other goods for traders and producers from the market doors right through all this pushing, swearing and pulling to the stalls. Mama Mboga tells me that even though it was cleaned of all the human waste, rats and rubbish some eight years ago, the stench has still not gone away.

The variety of vegetables Mama Mboga brings to us has increased over the years. Her Asian clients have introduced her to many vegetables that we eat. And she knows them by their Indian names only – karela (bitter gourd), bindi (okra), palak (spinach), methi (fenugrek), mooli (radish), khira (cucumber), ananas (pineapple). These are now all available at the market. We in turn have started using Swahili and Kikuyu names of some fruits and vegetables – machungwa (oranges), ndizi (bananas), terere (amaranth), nduma (arrowroot), ngwaci (sweet potatoes), malenge (butternut), nyanya (tomatoes), vitunguu (onions), viazi (potatoes)…

My mother tells me that when she was a child in the 1940s, it was the men rather than the women who came with gunias of vegetable produce – mostly potatoes, peas or bunches of bananas to my grandfather’s shop in the busy River Road area right across from Supreme Hotel – once very famous for Indian food. And my grandfather would buy the whole lot. My grandfather’s shop where he sold Indian herbal medicines is no more. In its place now stands a matatu outlet.

The mama mbogas did not frequent the town areas, rather they went to residential houses, door to door – as they still do – and their clients are mostly women. Most mama mbogas have been Kikuyu women carrying multiple kiondos on their backs. Our Mama Mboga says she remembers her grandmother as an old and wise lady carrying a kiondo on her back, her head always looking toward the ground. As a little girl of six she watched as her cucu (grandmother) worked in the shamba, the kiondo on her back, held by a leather strap on her head.

The mama mbogas of today have replaced their earlier laboriously twisted sisal kiondo, indigenous to the Kikuyu and Kamba tribes, with the coastal kikapu made of palm leaf – being bigger and able to hold more – even if it is less solid than the kiondo.

The kiondo used to be a quintessential part of the Kikuyu tradition, a spiral woven together with radiating strings from a navel base. And it was always carried by a strap on the head leading to the back.

Today, Kikuyu mothers may not weave the kiondo for their daughter’s wedding, but the offering is still mandatory in a traditional ceremony. “And, the daughter has to literally demonstrate the walk to the market to shop for her husband,” Mama Mboga tells me with pride.

The urban woman of now – Kikuyu or not – carries it on the right shoulder. I have several kiondos myself and when I fill the kiondo with all kinds of stuff, it is far less damaging to carry it the traditional Kikuyu way – on the head to the back. I have had my share of pains and aches by carrying it on my shoulder!

The kiondo has gone way beyond the Kikuyu and Kamba lands and peoples. Internationally it isan important accessory. I remember the hue and cry raised some eight years ago when a Japanese wanted to patent the kiondo!

The palm leaf kikapu in comparisontothekiondoisvery fragile and easily broken. To solidify her kikapu, our Mama
Mboga paid 250 shillings to have a gunia stitched over it. She has attached several pieces of cloth to strengthen the sides and woven a sisal strap to bring comfort to the head. She does not have the groove on her head that her ancestors did due to the leather straps. When I asked her to remove her headscarf to check for the groove, she recoiled in shyness. After much persisting, she quickly removed the headscarf and immediately put it on again. I was surprised to see her hair (dyed black, if you please!) never having seen it before. In an instant she lost years. She looked so different, younger, less formal. I couldn’t see a groove.

Married Kikuyu women of the past always wore their heads shaven and these grooves were visible. I have a very vivid memory from my childhood of Kikuyu women in leather garments attached to one shoulder. Their short and long beaded earrings, the ndeve and the hangi, fell to the shoulders, as they walked with kiondos on their heads carrying vegetables. The 30-string hangi loops enhanced the beauty of their shaven heads. They also wore lots of migathi (necklaces). We heard more Kikuyu than Kiswahili being spoken then and picked up some words over time. “Uka haha, Come here,” is still fresh in my mind.

Our Mama Mboga was named after her father’s sister, Wamaitha Mary. She is Catholic and a very committed Christian, as was her mother, her grandmother and her mother-in-law, the very important women in her life. Our Mama Mboga is always dressed in a long dress that covers her below the knees and a shuka (lesso) covering on top of that. And she wears a sweater most days (even when it is hot), like most women of her age group – covered as much as possible.

Her grandmother may have had her head shaven – and proudly so – but Wamaitha Mary does not shave her head. But she is never seen without a head scarf either. My mother’s gift of her sarees have become head scarves for Mary.The trend of covering the head probably came in with Christian ideas of prudery and covering. The word athomi was used for those who became ‘readers’ and converted to Christianity.

In her book Unbowed, Nobel Peace Laureate, Wangari Maathai, says, “… the athomi culture was presented by those who embraced it as progressive, its members moving forward into a modern world while the others were presented as primitive and backward, living in the past. The athomi culture brought with it European ways and led to profound changes in the way Kikuyus dressed and adorned themselves, the kinds of food they ate, the songs they sang, and the dances they performed. Everything that represented the local culture was enthusiastically replaced: Millet gave way to maize, and millet porridge, then the most common Kikuyu drink, was displaced in favour of tea. As the crops changed, so did the tools used for agriculture and cooking: Corrugated iron pots replaced earthen ones, plates and cups replaced calabashes, spoons replaced fingers and sticks. Clothes of animal skin were put aside in favour of cotton dresses for women and shirts and trousers for men.

“In traditional Kikuyu society, young men and women braided their hair; once they married, they shaved their heads completely. When you became a muthomi (“a person who reads”), you no longer braided your hair or shaved your head. Men cut their hair short while women let theirs grow long to resemble that of Europeans. Women also tied scarves around their heads to approximate veils. Dancing and non-Christian festivities and initiation rites were discouraged or even demonized and banned by missionaries and converts. A nearly complete transformation of the local culture into one akin to that of Europe had taken place in the generation before I was born.

“Among the critical mass of Kikuyus in the central highlands who had converted to Christianity by the time of my birth were my parents. Because my parents were athomi, they dressed like Europeans, as did I, because I was a child of “those who read.” I remember seeing some “Kikuyus” in and around Ihithe, including my paternal grandfather, Njugi Muchiri, wearing either a goat skin or a blanket that hung over his shoulders and fell long to the ground. I have almost no memory of his face, just his blanket dragging behind him as he walked. ”

Agriculture had been their strong economic base, and as they come from the fertile lands around the Rift Valley, the Kikuyus produced far in excess of their own consumption needs, so they started supplying to other tribes, receiving bartered goods in exchange. Women were the transporters also, carrying heavy loads on their backs. By the 19th Century, they started supplying to the Swahili. Even before the birth of Nairobi, Kikuyu women had been involved in this economic activity. Throughout history, they endured all kinds of hardships – weather, wild animals, thieves, heavy loads; often travelling in large groups, they walked up to 200 kilometres.

Today, the mama mbogas still walk long distances carrying loads of carrots, potatoes, cabbage, sweet potatoes, arrow root and peas towards our homes, even when it rains – yet I rarely hear complaints of back aches.

Our Mama Mboga never returns home until she has emptied her kikapus. She can even push my mother to buy all, or she gives away small vegetables for free, “because I can’t carry it home,” she insists! Sometimes, when her business is done, her kikapus empty, I give her a lift toward Westlands from where she walks to her home in Kabete. Thankful for the lift, she speaks freely. We have always had a cordial relationship over a cup of chai (she refuses my heavenly coffee). “Kikuyus only drink chai,” she tells me. It’s probably not true, but I smile and let her be. “I like trading with the Wahindi,” she says. “We have built up long term relationships over the years and strong loyalties.”

Our Mama Mboga says she is blessed as she has five daughters. “Getting a daughter is a very big respect, each of my daughters has come as a blessing, and when they grow up and marry, we build up relationship with the in-laws; the muthoni is a strong sisterly bond.”

Daughters also bring in bride price…how different from the Indian dowry system, I tell her, when the bride’s family must give dowry. Mama Mboga is shocked! Traditionally, the Kikuyu culture was matriarchal; power lay in the hands of the woman. She produced food from her farm activities and fed the family.

Our Mama Mboga’s daughters don’t wear head scarves, nor do they move around with a kiondo strapped onto the head – they probably carry it on the right shoulder as they move to work in different establishments, in offices, in flower shops and hair dressing salons. They don’t intend to follow the footsteps of their mother, their grandmother and great-grandmother; they choose not to be mama mbogas.

In some areas mama mbogas cluster together and sit at a certain spot instead of walking door-to-door – especially in Parklands, Westlands, Langata and South C. Knowing their location, the client (almost always women) goes to them. Our Mama Mboga’s daughters may not want to carry on with the tradition of selling vegetables door-to-door, but, the business of mamas selling vegetables is not about to go away any time soon, even if our Mama Mboga sometimes fears supermarkets will eventually kick them out of their businesses.

For me, supermarkets lack human warmth as frustrated and tired cashiers work long hours sitting at the cash counters. Supermarkets will never surpass or replace the human contact with the mama mbogas, with whom we negotiate prices, bargain, laugh and share our lives.

The mama mbogas may not be growing surplus vegetables in their small gardens to sell, but they are still one with the soil. Mama Mboga tells me, “I am over 68 years old now but I will carry on as long as my legs support me. Mamie nyasira was selling vegetables until she was in her late 70s, my mother continued to walk and sell until she was past 80 so I have time! My husband passed on some months ago. For a time, I was very depressed. But, I said to myself, I must get up and walk! This job gives me a purpose. Earlier, it helped support my children through school, it added to the family income. Now, I meet my clients, who have become my friends…”

When she lost her husband, we felt very sad for her. We called her with our condolences and sympathies and shared in her grief.

Our Mama Mboga has become for us more than a seller of fruits and vegetables. Our relationship is more than that of a client and trader. She knows us by our first names, even though out of respect she will never call my mother by her name. There is sympathy and understanding; there is warmth amongst us as women. Why, when I am out of the country, , we have even spoken via SKYPE!

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