Mother's Day Series Part 3: Before Google, there was Mother

Before search engines, there were mothers. Before YouTube tutorials, there was somebody shouting instructions from the kitchen.

"How do you remove cooking oil from clothes?" Ask your mother.

"Which herb helps stomach pain?" Ask your mother.

"Which taxi should you not enter at night?" Ask your mother.

African mothers held so much information like libraries carrying books. The knowledge was frighteningly specific. They knew which road floods when it rains, which neighbour should never borrow money, which shop dilutes milk, which cough requires Mulago immediately, which teacher enjoys beating children too much, and which relatives only appear during food time at Christmas.

Directions from mothers were impossible but weirdly accurate. "Turn near the mango tree that used to belong to the man whose wife ran away. His dog ate the neighbour's chicken." And you arrived safely.

Before Google Maps, African mothers operated entirely on memory, landmarks, and community gossip. The internet gave us information, but mothers gave us survival wisdom. And unlike Google, mothers added emotional commentary. "You can go there, but be careful with those people." That sentence alone was years of intelligence gathering.

Even today, many people still call their mothers before making ordinary decisions. This is not only because mothers tend to know everything, but also because mothers often know people. And in Africa, understanding people is half of surviving life.

From where my feet are, Google may answer questions faster, but it still cannot replace the sentence, "Omwana wangye, my child, listen carefully…"