Droughts (干旱)are common in Kenya. Before, they came every 10 years, but now they seem to be hitting us more often and for a longer time.
We gave the droughts names :“longoza”was the drought when many animals died ; there was the drought of the “planes” because food was dropped from the air by planes; and one particularly bad drought was called “ man who dies with his money in his fist (拳头)”，because, even if there was money, there was simply no food to buy.
I was born in 1951 in Machakos. From what my mother tells me, when I was 7, there was a serious drought. I clearly remember the terrible weather and the hunger. I can't tell you how many times I went to bed without eating. “ I slept like that, ” is how we described it. I can't count the number of days when “ I slept like that,” or describe the feeling of going to sleep hungry, knowing I'd wake up and there would still be no food for breakfast.
My father would leave early in the morning carrying a little basket to ask for food on credit (赊欠). Each night he would return home around 10:00p.m. My mother would try to encourage me by telling me to keep the water in our pot boiling so that when my father arrived we could quickly cook any food he brought in the already prepared water. I would keep the fire burning and the water boiling, along with the hopes that we would eat that night. But my father would arrive frustrated and empty -handed. And I would sleep like that.
