Four Moms

Winter is on its way and the woman speed-walking out of Maerua Mall’s underground parking has a baby bundled tightly on her back. It’s early, around 08h00, and the woman hurries towards the taxi rank as her shopping bag full of 500ml Coca-Colas swings from her hand in a rhythm.

As I walk towards the mall, it’s the first sight I really see and I feel my face crack into a smile. I don’t know where the woman is going and I don’t know her story, but the image of a woman carrying a child on her back, holding the baby close and getting on with their day is an image that always warms my heart.

Mothers, after all, are everything.

Often they are our first providers, our first nurturers, our first teachers, our carriers and comforters, and too little is appreciated about how motherhood in all its beauty, sacrifice and struggle is also one of the hardest roles a person can ever fulfil.

On a sweltering day in 7de Laan, I can see that Deyonce Naris, a trans woman, takes to motherhood like a duck to water.

A group of human rights activists have descended on her home to deliver snacks, colouring books and toys as part of a community outreach programme during Namibia Pride Week and we can barely locate her for all the children.

Smiling amid a swarm of excited kids kicking up dust in her front yard, Naris seems the centre of the universe. She settles scuffles, encourages the children to share and bounces a boy on her hip as she watches over her biological child and the scores of kids who call her little house a second home.

The children show up when there is too little food in their own homes.

Naris helps them with their homework. She offers them refuge when their parents insist that they make themselves scarce and it’s clear to see that while many mothers are biological, they are also born from the care they extend to those who rely on, look up to and seek shelter with them.

Four days before Mother’s Day (8 May) at the National Art Gallery of Namibia, I watch a mom who reminds me of my own.

A woman indulgent of her young children’s curiosity and ever enthusiastic about an opportunity for her kids to experience a little more of the world.

She walks into the national art gallery uncertainly and tells the receptionist that her two boys want to come in. The boys – young and shy – creep in eagerly but pause a second when their mother hands them a pair of surgical masks and asks about an entrance fee.

There isn’t one and the boys are free to explore as their mother trails patiently behind them.

A guard kindly cautions the kids not to touch the art and the boys stop below the brightest pieces, initially entranced by artist Michelle Isaak’s flair for colour and cardboard construction.

We’re all masked so they don’t see me grinning at their hushed and adorably intense art criticism yet they dart a look or two my way, curious about my photo taking or perhaps sensing my eavesdropping.

I have a soft spot for mothers who gift their children the experience of art.

I’m not much of a visual artist but my mother used to paint. Years later in dusty drawers I can still find textiles adorned with the flowers she painted when I was a child and photo albums reveal the young woman I’d watch playing royals at Oranjemund’s Little Theatre.

Mothers, you see, are magic.

On stage, certainly.

But more so in the little ways they do the impossible every single day.

Stretching dollars far beyond the daily bread, existing on little to no sleep as a result of breastfeeding, worry or waiting up for the people they love…and somehow, steadfastly, raising the whole world.

– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter and Instagram; marthamukaiwa.com

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