Busy Saturdays

Busy Saturdays

In my home town, Saturdays are the busiest days of the week. Families do lots of cleaning both inside and within the house, children play around while teenagers visit each other to discuss recent happenings as it relates to them. Sports men and women go to the stadium for exercises and different recreational activities, transport companies attend to travellers, farmers bring their farm produce to sell in the market. Products for produce like rice, beans, maize, cassava, fruits and vegetables and lots more

My dad is a wholesaler, he owns a big stall at the market where he deals on provisions, beverages and electrical materials. Every Saturday my siblings and I go to help out in my dad's big stall. We can't go on week days because of school activities so dad's other employees do the work needed. They take a day off except those employees that unload and dispatch goods. They stay and work on Saturdays.

At home on Saturday morning, we have breakfast at 6:30 AM because at 7:00 AM, we are already set for dad's stall but mum stays at home with my baby brother who is crawling. Breakfast is usually five balls of bean cakes and pap with lots of milk that's what is always on our food menu .

I skip breakfast every Saturday morning because I don't like bean cakes and pap. It makes me feel dizzy and lazy. Sometimes I sneak to my baby brothers room to take some of his cereal and milk or I will have to starve till 9:30 AM when we have fast food at my dad's stall during the break period. I love fast foods but mum thinks fast food is unhealthy. I still don't understand how unhealthy it is but I trust she knows better.

At the stall my siblings and I have sections we attend, I took phone calls from customers ordering for goods , while my elder sister wrote out all the orders. Dad and my brother monitor the goods leaving the stall. Dad wants us to know how important it is to work for every penny that we get, he pays us salary at the end of the month.

I spend my savings on motivational books, cookies and candies, My elder sister who is sixteen spends her savings on clothes shoes, bags and other accessories, since my elder brother entered the university in June last year he stopped spending his money on video games. According to him, he said that he is saving to have a big stall just like dad's. At 12:30 PM every Saturday, dad stops us from working at his stall so we would go home and do other activities we have for the day .

My home is two miles away from the market and as we leave, dad is still busy at the stall. He cannot drive us home so we would always charter a tricycle that would take us home because he's busy. On our way home, my elder siblings would stop by their friends house to chat for every fifteen minutes. Dad allotted fifteen minutes of chatting with friends. I always stayed inside the tricycle reading my motivational books and when the fifteen minutes was over, we headed for home .

At home, my sister does the laundry, she loves to do it always with music because according to her; music helps her to work fast. My brother keeps the surroundings clean while I help my mum in the kitchen. My baby brother loves staying in the kitchen with mom and I always. I remember last Saturday when I was with him. I was carrying him on my side with my tiny hips pushing forward, he watched me while I was adding salt to a pot of soup still cooking on fire, as I looked away, he dipped his hand in the salt container and added salt to the pot. I noticed that when he made some noise pointing at the pot and smiled at me. I had to dish out a little of the soup in a plate and had a taste. I was like "oh my gosh! What have you done?" I looked angrily at him because he had no idea what he had done. Later on, I was scolded because the food contained too much salt. It tasted so salty but luckily, it was manageable.

Since the incident, I had to ban my baby brother from coming to the kitchen while I was cooking. As I went to scold him back, he had already crawled to his toy room. I met him sitting on the floor and fixing a doll. As I opened my mouth to scold him he smiled at me and raised his hands up in the air for me to carry him. I sighed and left him in the toy room.

At 2:30 PM, I do my assignment and at 3 o'clock, we all have our siesta until 4:40 PM when the general alarm at the sitting room would buzz into our heads then we would have our bath and get ready for recreational activities. I go downtown for dance classes in Skyhigh dance academy. My sister goes to join her team for a volleyball game while my brother joins his team for basketball. His height is much for a boy of nineteen he took after grandpa my dad's father. Precisely at 7:00 PM, Dad comes to take us home one by one in our various recreational places. First he goes to the stadium to pick my elder siblings before driving to the dance school to pick me up too.

When we get home we wash ourselves up and come downstairs to have dinner at the dinning. We had coconut rice and chicken with wine for dinner the previous Saturday. My baby brother doesn't eat rice or chicken, so my mum makes cereal for him. I have been seeking revenge on my little brother for adding so much salt in my food and I found his cereal as an opportunity. When my mom opened the cereal container, she discovered it had all finished and she wondered how it happened. I was so happy, my joy knew no bounds because there was no other way to have my baby brother pay for what he did to me last Saturday. So he would have to starve but my happiness was cut short when my dad said he had got new cereal and beverages with fruits for him. I just have to let things go after all he is just a baby. After dinner we say night prayers by 8:30 PM and go to bed at 9- 10 o'clock. Saturdays at home are always busy and routine because it's an opportunity to meet up with work and a free day for schooling too.

Thanks for reading my comprehension, I wrote this for my Little Leo. He loves reading and will always want me to write for him. Have a lovely weekend guys and bye for now.

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