I learnt to make Chapatis before I was 10 years old. I had no choice because my older sister was away in college, my younger sister was a toddler, leaving me the only girl in the family amongst a band of boys. My mother was too busy organizing everything and everybody, she could not afford to sit in the kitchen for 2 to 3 hours at a time, the time it took to make over 30 chapatis to feed a huge hungry family like ours. Therefore, I was thrust into the kitchen early, learning how to cook for a huge family, clean, wash and make chapos.
Everybody loved my chapatis. They said I was an expert, and even after I went away to high school, the moment I came home for holidays, the first thing I was asked to make was chapatis since they had not eaten any for the 3 months I was away. That is how I started thinking, almost believing I must have been good at it. But what did they have to compare my chapatis with anyway; Githeri, Mukimo, Ugali? No contest there. Of course my chapos were “perfect” hands down. Until I met my husband and made him chapos bragging I was the chapo expert in OlKalou. He tasted one and said REALLY???
