Dear mothers
Dear mummies Dear aunts Dear aunties
Dear aunties Dear sisters Dear maternal grandmothers Dear paternal grandmothers
Dear grand-aunts
Dear grandmothers, mothers,
aunts, sisters of ours and so on...
Dear mothers of mankind, Near and far away
Dear mothers of mankind
Mothers of ours, Mothers begetting
Safe and sound
Mothers who in days of yore went up into the hills and mountains
Picking and gleaning fruit
Mothers who nowadays are hawking in the streets
Sweet mothers who are peddling
Sweet mothers who carry goods on their shoulders to markets
Mothers who trade in everything
Mothers who sell everything
Mothers who hang about street corners
Selling bananas and custard apples
Chased by policemen
Mothers who are peddling from alley to allay
Mothers who hold the market all night long
Mothers who slave, sweat and slave
To buy wine for their men
Mothers who trade in wine to support their men
Mothers who brew wine to bring up their children
Wine-flavoured , rosy-cheeked girls
Mothers who mend their men s’ clothes
Mothers who spin and weave
Mothers who work in the fields
Mothers who toil from daybreak to sunset
Mothers who are doomed to thei r fate as women
Despised by men
Ogled by men
While singing for them
And infatuating them
In days of yore, men were feudal-minded
Nowadays, our mothers are far happier
In days of yore, our mo thers were girls in blossom
Nowadays, our mo thers turn businesswomen
Our mo thers in bygone days were as beautiful as Venus
To day, our mo thers are still pretty
Our mo thers remain eternally as beautiful, as pretty as ever
Ever getting married, every begetting
Whether sweet or shrewd
They are always our mothers
And remain the same as in olden days
Dear mother
We are kneeling down
To extol you
To express our heartfelt gratitude
Our repentance
And beg for your forgiveness
And so on... so on and so on...
Hey mankind
W e all have mothers
Our mo thers all are women
Our mo thers are women
Who have given birth to us
Our mothers are everywhere
All around the earth
All around the globe
Wherever we go, we find our mothers
We can never be orphaned Women, whose names I do not know,
W hose circumstances I have not learned.
Women whose energy and creativity I have absorbed
Women I have met and now honour
To them I give my gratitude