I believe it was in 1963, some 63 years ago, when I feigned fainting on our six-acre farm which we—my father, my mother and my two elder brothers—were cultivating during the farming season in Ubenaland, Njombe Region.
You see, my father, now long deceased—God bless his soul—was a no-nonsense, strict disciplinarian and a hard-driving man who did not hesitate to use his special hide whip whenever we fell short of his expectations and the goals he had set for us, whether in education, the family choir, or farming.
That particular day, he had woken us at about 4 a.m. to walk to our farm, six kilometres away. The weather was chilly, with a light drizzle falling from dark, threatening clouds. I was a young boy of nine at the time, in Class III, and we were on our school holidays.
I remember dragging my feet in that drizzly dawn, following my family along the narrow, muddy path to the farm. Naturally, I hated the experience.
At the farm, without any rest, we began hoeing the wet soil. That was around 5 a.m. We worked non-stop, driven relentlessly by our father, until around noon when, out of sheer exhaustion, I decided to do something about the ordeal.
Standing in the middle of our family line and under the now scorching sun, I stopped, leaned on my hoe, and collapsed to the ground like a sack. Everyone was shocked, and my mother began shouting at my father: “You see what you have done! Do you want to kill my children by overworking them like horses?”
I was rushed to the farmhouse, and as I recovered, everyone asked how I was feeling. In a weak voice, I requested some hot porridge, followed by boiled eggs and plenty of drinking water. Afterwards, I was left to rest while the rest of the family continued working for another hour or so.
From that day on, my father softened his approach and became more considerate regarding our farming hours. My mother and siblings would later tell me that they knew I had faked the fainting episode. Nevertheless, they thanked me for it.
Fast forward some four years ago: After my retirement, I decided to return home and revive some of my family businesses, including farming. And, as it turned out, one of the farms was the very same one on which I had staged that fainting stunt.
In due course, I have become a consummate farmer, although much has changed in farming methods. These now include the use of power tillers and tractors for land preparation, as well as maize hulling machines instead of manual labour.
However, something seems to have gone wrong along the way. Unlike in the past, when the land was naturally productive, today one must purchase special maize seeds. Without fertilisers—applied both at planting and during crop growth—the farming season is almost guaranteed to fail.
One must also beware of the many middlemen whose speciality is to exploit farmers during harvest time.
Nonetheless, I remain grateful to my late father for the land he left behind and for the basic farming foundation he instilled in me—sans my childhood stunt.
