Gratitude List: The Awesomeness of Big Sisters

It’s Day 4 of my Gratitude Week and I have to admit I’m feeling quite pleased with myself, in an extremely non-smug manner.

Not that I didn't think I would make it this far.  One thing I've learnt writing these Gratitude posts is, once you start being grateful for the things in your life, it is so easy to find something to write about and be thankful for.

Today’s Gratitude List is specifically about my sisters.

I am the third of four children, the third of three girls.  (My brother is at the bottom of our sibling food chain and will get his own blog post another day.)

Kaine, Asiimwe and I have a very unique relationship in that for most of our childhood, we were moving around the world due to my father’s job.  Aside from all the usual sibling squabbles- ‘’She’s wearing my sweater!! She pulled my hair!! She’s looking at me!!’’- we HAD to be friends because when you move to a totally new country, new school, you need people who have your back until you eventually make friends and form your own squad.

Squad Goals? Perhaps.

When we would come to Uganda on home leave, usually our cousins would be in school.  So we had to entertain each other because who else are you going to play with?  The cows?  Your grandma?  I think not.

I was always lucky, being the youngest, because I had double protection.  When we were at primary school in Zimbabwe, BOTH my sisters were prefects.  At separate times.  So no one was going to bother me.  The playground, which can often be a place of dread, was a haven, a place I could skip around with no fear and without having to look over my shoulder.  (Things changed when we moved to Sierra Leone and my sisters went to boarding school in England.  But that's a post for another time).

And so it has been, now that we’re all grown up.  I’m still the baby sister, who can be sent to the kitchen, the shop, to do whatever errand our mother has sent us on that no one else wants to do.
That said, I have two defenders, supporters, and a guaranteed squad to look out for me and tell me when I’ve got some toilet paper stuck to my shoe or lipstick on my teeth.

So this is me being grateful for my big sisters, Kainembabazi and Asiimwe.

Big sisters rock.



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