Kaffir Boy Family Quotes

By some stroke of luck my father got his old job back. Now armed with a steady job, he set out to rebuild our former life. We now ate full meals, and dressed in clothes slightly better than rags. But things were never quite the same; there was now a definite change in our life. We could not regain the past; it seemed gone forever. A definite sense of insecurity and helplessness had entered our life, to stay for years to come. My father was now a completely changed man; so changed that he now began drinking and gambling excessively, and from time to time quarreling with my mother over money matters and over what he called my mother's streak of insubordination not befitting "the woman he bought." But he still tried, in his own way, to be a father and husband.

One evening he came staggering home, drunk as a sot. It was a Friday. He called Florah, George and me to the table, saying he had a big surprise for us. We kneeled in front of him, as we were not allowed to sit at the table, and watched him unpack a brown paper bag. There was muhodu and mala (chicken feet, intestines and heads), a delicacy the equivalent of a steak; a packet of candles; a small bag of mealie meal; packets of salt and sugar; and then the surprise – a packet of fish and chips wrapped in paper. We children were overjoyed; it had been ages since we last had fish and chips; we danced and sang with delight. George and Florah ran up to my father and embraced him. He blushed; I could see he was happy. My mother smiled. That was one of the few times I was to see our entire family happy. (7.94-95).

"But we have to eat, Mama," I protested. I thought that regardless of the size of my father's debt, he should still borrow more. I don't know why I thought that. Maybe hunger made me. "We are his children, aren't we?" I repeated, implying that it was a father's duty to provide for his children no matter what.

"Why do you keep on saying, 'We are his children, aren't we?'" my mother said angrily. "Who told you you're not his children?"

"I heard him say that," I said, alluding to statements my father had often made when quarrelling with my mother. (Whenever the two went head to head, my mother would threaten to leave my father and take us children with her; and my father would retort: "Take those bastards with you, I don't care! I sometimes wonder if they're my children the way they disobey my laws!")

Before I knew it, my mother had given me a stinging smack across the mouth with the back of her hand…(10.40-43)

They seemed lost in their own little world of mud, pebbles and tins, and oblivious to my suicide attempt.

"They'll miss you very much," my mother sighed deeply. The tone of her voice had changed, suddenly, to one full of sorrow. "They'll have no big brother to help them and to protect them. They'll have no big brother to look up to. They'll have no big brother to help them go to school when they grow up. They'll miss you very much."

I was very much touched by what she said. I remembered the many times my sisters had turned to me for help whenever anyone harassed them. I remembered the many times I had told my mother that when I was done with school, I would go out and work so that I could help my sisters go to school and become nurses and teachers. Remembering all that made me start crying. (28.13-15)