Chapter One: Gods Of The ...... |
Reading time: 35 mins |
Chapter Two: Agony in a m ...... |
Reading time: 1 hr 5 mins |
Chapter Three: The Broken ...... |
Reading time: 23 mins |
By Jada Lo Naruwo
Language: English ISBN: N/A ISSN: N/A 2020 | DOI: N/A
Difficulty: easy Mood: all
Content: non-academic
- Content
- book
The story of war, suffering and redemption.
One day, in the evening, many families were broken apart in Melesen Republic in Africa. Families were broken apart by a war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Goats died, cows were not spared either and children were left as wailing orphans in an empty land of no men. This day marks the very beginning of a journey to an unknown place for a mother of a one-year-old suckling child. There was no husband. There were no relatives, only her and the gods of the forest. A forest covered with tall trees below the heavens. And that woman was me.
Chapter One: Gods Of The Forest
One day, in the evening, many families were broken apart in Melesen Republic in Africa. Families were broken apart by a war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Goats died, cows were not spared either and children were left as wailing orphans in an empty land of no men. This day marks the very beginning of a journey to an unknown place for a mother of a one-year-old suckling child. There was no husband. There were no relatives, only her and the gods of the forest. A forest covered with tall trees below the heavens. And that woman was me.
My father breathed his last and died when I was two years of age. My mother took hers when I was seven. I grew up with my aunt in the village in Rajaf. Rajaf was one of the many villages in Melesen Republic. Out of the four children of my mother, I was the fourth child and the last wasted semen of my father. I was told he was a poor farmer before he took his last breath with him to his grave.
My aunt, who was a sister to my mother, liked me so much not only because we share the same name but also for the fact that, I was a hardworking little child. I could do whatever she told me to do without any wrestling. This prompted her not only to love me more than her children, but also pampered me like the last born of a queen. With my cousins in Rajaf Tokiman village, I never missed my fallen mother, neither did I feel like my father has to come back to life. I experienced love of sisterhood and enjoyed the beauty found in childhood.
Then, in my country, it was very hard for any family to liberate itself from poverty. Most people in Melesen Republic died poor not because they were not willing to fight the war of living to better their lives, but because to engage in a war with poverty was suicidal: It was like fighting a lion in his own house. There were many deadly diseases but poverty was the most dangerous of all. To be called a pauper was the ugliest surname. But who was strong enough to protest or bring a proceeding against this scourge? No one, there was nobody. I accepted to be called like this because all of us were poor and it was a fact that no one can deny.
I never got enough formal education. The little I had was three years going to school and it ended there and then. A privilege gotten once and for all in my lifetime. But despite my lack of education, I was born brilliant. Nature did me well and in the few years I shared with my parents, they molded me to become respectful, disciplined and God-fearing child. People would always like to be near me because I loved being near them.
My elder sister Angelina took care of me and my other sisters after the demise of my parents. Unfortunately, Angelina had to terminate her education to nurse us. We were very young so she came in to care for us because we needed it. She had to put her life on hold in order to create a better life for her younger sisters. It was a tough struggle for a woman of her age in a country whose flag was poverty. She was only 23 years old but now forced to mother four children of her mother. ‘ A two-month old child may admire the child who is on his feet walking and running without hurdles, he may try hard to walk like him only for his mother to find him creeping on his stomach.’ ‘A sun has never shone at night neither did the moon came out to urinate in the daytime.’ Everyone in this world has a war of their own to fight.
My sister Angelina got entangled in a war which was bigger than her age and moreover, a war that had destroyed many people before her. She tried to save us but she got caught in the circle of poverty. No opportunities came her way. Her motives as an elder sister was to make us participate in the consumption of the nice atmosphere that every conducive environment could offer on this earth. She wanted her little sisters to experience the beautiful panorama of this planet. The struggle against poverty was fierce. Poverty maintained a tight grip on her neck. To fight it off, she became a sales woman in the market. She would buy mangoes in basins and sometimes she bought green vegetables. When these local produce were sold she would use the money to buy some food items for us. We eat one meal in a day and go to sleep with the other side of the stomach empty. Sometimes we could just sit down and have stories told, laugh together and find ourselves waking up in the morning. In seasons where mango trees would have lost their menstruation period, she shifted to selling the traditional alcohol, Kwete. Kwete was the blood of farmers. A farmer cannot go to his farm without drinking one full jar of Kwete and then taking some with him in a small container. Kwete is brown in color and heavy in weight like red sorghum’s porridge. When a milking mother takes it, her breasts rain both in winter and in summer so that her baby cry not of hunger. My elder sister, Angelina was a very kind liquor seller. The patrons liked her because in some instances they were given Kwete on easy terms. And for those creditors who were in the arms, they would pay their debts with bags of Sorghum and sometimes maize. Like this, life was going on well. Orphans do not expect much from nothing, Stomach full, it was okay. If a day was a bad luck day, it was okay too. Barred from attending school? there was no choice than to stay home. Poverty had built its hut at our doorstep and my sister did so much to evict it but in vain. To help my sister lessen the burden, I had to run away to my Aunt in the village. In Rajaf village was an Island, large and surrounded by the running waters of the river Nile. The place looked fully alive in such seasons of the year. One sees children climbing up and down the mango trees. Along the edges of the river, you can see women fishing or sometimes washing. Other times you find men while women are at the farm. Agriculture and fishing was in the blood of the inhabitants. They were great farmers and they were great masters in fishing.
It was as if they were born with a seed and a hook in their hands. No one knows the first man who inhabited this Island. The man who was the custodian of the relevant knowledge went with it to his grave without passing on the knowledge to anyone. Before he died, he said ‘The dangerous thing that a dying old man could do in this century, was to give a young man a key to knowledge that he would use to confuse the whole village to his own privilege.’ So he died with his knowledge. The land was peaceful and grateful with all that nature had provided to it. One evening, gunshots were heard everywhere in the country. But this was not the first time for such sounds to play in this country. It sounded some years ago, in the nineteen eighties. It was also fired in the late nineteen fifties. So nothing was new to the ears of a man in this land of wars. Who can even blame a gun from doing what it was made to perform? Was it not the same man who created the gun? Why then should he prevent the gun from firing? The wind continued to blow. Things were now becoming clear to the ears. Those who arrived from town attested to the fact that things were not at ease. Men were slaughtered and houses burnt. Many were shot dead as they tried to block bullets from passing. The villagers on the Island were in great panic and they were stranded.
Gunshots were now heard from near. The Island was no longer safe for hiding. People wanted to cross the river and run away but there was only one boat. I was among the stranded. Crying and consumed with fear, my little fatherless daughter, Keji, in my shivering arms is weeping bitterly. Regretting what brought her to such a world of sorrow at this wrong time. I was only a poor 16 years old child and very confused. When all of us crossed the Island, we marched towards Kuruki. Kuruki was another village located southward of Rajaf. Here, we spent the first night. That night was a tragedy, there were attack helicopters and bomber aircraft hovering in the air while armored fighting vehicles hunted in the forest. Bombs were thrown and many people were left with their flesh stagnant without life. We navigated through the uncharted terrain in the forest, drinking the dirty water of the mashes and the stagnant water on the roads. There was neither food nor shelter. There was nothing. Only the sorrows of mothers with no husbands, of fathers without wives and of children without parents. We suffered for three months in the bush until we found our way to Gandala.
In Gandala, we were encamped in Oliju Refugee Camp. Oliju was a Madi village found in Adjuta district in the Northern part of Gandala. In the camps, life became very demanding and very difficult. Jobs were given to those with 7certificates to help in food distribution to the refugees. I was uneducated, poor and alone, broken by war. I was in the corridors of great confusion. There was nowhere to begin from. I cannot arrange my broken and hopeless life into its chronological order. One morning, I came out and sat on a long log cut from a tree. It was just lying near my small pitched tent. As I perched there silently, unknowingly I exploded into a heavy cry. Weeping loudly as the memories of my beloved family came to mind. My voice was loud enough to be heard by everyone around. People gathered and surrounded me. I was unaware and crying incessantly until I arose my head up to notice their presence. A certain woman came and stood before me. She looked concerned and touched by my falling tears. ‘Young lady, what is trembling you? she asked. First I was very quiet as if the log has become me and I the log. ‘Nothing is wrong, I am okay.’ I replied ‘Please tell me, I am your mother,’ she said. She touched me by the shoulders and tears begin to descend from her eyes. Her face looked innocent and troubled. She gently stroked my head and said: ‘Do not cry my child, all will be alright.’ I nodded my head. She took her soft right hand and mopped my tears. ‘Stop crying, I know what is hurting you. A child like you is a new comer to this world, you deserve to see beautiful days than this one.’ She went silent and a drop of water fell down her cheeks. ‘Life is darkness to all of us, me or you or the other, there are silent tears in our eyes. Suffering is human and so long as one’s heart keeps beating, suffering creeps in but suffering should not be for little children like you. A child like you had seen nothing, so better life is best for her. But war does not discriminate, it destroys everyone, the inanimate and those who breathe, young or old, war is bad,’ she continued. Slowly the congregation had deserted the place.
It was only me and this woman who were left at the scene. I did not know who between us was the stronger because both of us were crying. ‘Where is your mother?’ she asked. ‘I do not have a mother.’ I replied. ‘I mean, who did you came with to this camp?’ ‘I came alone, I and my baby.’ ‘You mean, you are married and have a baby too?’ ‘Yes ma, she is sleeping inside.’ There and then, my daughter Keji coughed and cried out. So I ran inside to attend to her. I came and sat down with my daughter in my arms on the same log. This woman was aghast. In disbelief she asked me again if I was indeed the mother of the child I was carrying. She could not believe it until I started suckling my 8daughter. ‘Where is the father, your husband?’ she asked. This question broke my heart. I could not answer her and I did it deliberately because I do not want to talk about it. When she realized I was uncomfortable with the question, she kept it for herself and remained quiet. She took the baby from me and started throwing her in the air while singing:
Oh little one! Oh sinless child! Heaven calls you a little Angel You’re indeed a wingless Angel There is suffering in the world But on your lips is a living bright smile You are not of this world, you’re of heavens Your home is far above the waters of the seas The birds are flying below that which is yours Tremble not, worry not. For man has poured his evils over you but drink of it not For you are pure and that which is pure is of God not of man Smile and let the world suffer its own
To my sight was a world, empty and shaking. I ran for my life. But have I done any good to it? Am I not suffering the absence of my sisters? Where are they? Are they dead or alive, who knows? Their whereabouts was known to the creator alone, who has the ability to see even the tears of the unborn in the womb. At the other side of the world, it is love, peace and harmony. But in my country, you are brought into your wakefulness before the first cockcrow by the random sounds of gunshots. When dawn comes, people are already in the bushes. The sun would rise to only find the standing trees. Silent trees with no life, and houses burnt to ashes. This is a country where birds can no longer sing for their nestlings, many already ran away. If you see any perching on the tree, he must be a new sojourner, a foreign bird. Such country would surely host no life. ‘You said, you came here alone? Do you know anyone here, a relative or any?’ she asked. ‘I do not know any.’ I replied. ‘I have no relatives here.’ I lost my way and found myself and this little baby of mine here.’ ‘This is very sad to learn.’ She rubbed her eyes, and went back to what she was doing. She sang almost five more songs to my daughter. And now Keji fell asleep again. I took her inside and came back. ‘I did not tell you my name. I am Achan, an Acholi from Parajok.’ ‘Oh, okay. I am Juan.’ I told her my name ‘I see, from Loreng State I guess?’ ‘Yes from Rajaf village. The name Juan was only found in the central Loreng region, so she guessed it right.
Achan was considerate. She was a loving woman, short in size and brown in color. I was down but she resuscitated the deteriorating health of my soul. She mothered me and became a grandmother to my little daughter Keji. In this house, there was me, my daughter and Achan. She was forty-five then and works as a cook to the refugees. I wanted to know something about her. If at all she had children or a husband but I could not. For I was afraid to interrogate those who were born before me. When we finished eating, Keji fell asleep and I went inside to lay her down. Mother Achan called to me and I came back to her. She then said, my hair was untidy. She told me to go and sit at the backyard as she brought a comb to plait my hair. The sun has already turned its back to the house and there was shade behind it. I took my stool and sat there waiting for Achan. Not long after she appeared. In her eyes I could see hope. My whole chemistry was filled with joy and I was beginning to experience the exuberance of life in a desperate time. I needed her company because there was no one that I can lean on. She started on my hair. Caressing it gently as her hands play in the middle of my head. I felt the protection, love and care of a mother around me. She was to me a home and a refuge. I was consumed by blissfulness when I received a compliment from her that I was beautiful; that I was built well. Though it was not true but at least someone has called me that, so I had to smile; just a little bit of smile. But I could not help thinking “what is beauty to a woman in war times?” Up was heaven.
Evening dawned and darkness swallowed the daylight. Then night came to us barefooted. My daughter snored, Achan snored and I soon went into dreamland. Then again, another morning came crawling, and then died away. For three months now Mother Achan had been sick. Her health was deteriorating and all was not well with her. She had lost her intimate friendship with food. There was no appetite. I was worried. I never attended to a sick person before. There was no prior experience. I know of malaria and cholera because they were the common diseases here. Many people died of it. So I was only aware of those two and know their symptoms. But her disease was not close to any of the two and she did not bother to tell me either. One morning, I woke up very early. I set up my fire to cook some porridge for my sick mother. When I finished cooking the porridge I poured small water in the basin and put the porridge pan onto it to reduce the hotness. There then, I heard a voice calling: ‘Juan my daughter, come I am dying.’ Frantically I ran and in the process, I kicked the porridge pan and it poured down but I never minded. I slipped inside and saw my mother Achan laying on her mat. Her eyes had turned white like cloud. My eyes got torn and tears dripped. I fell on my knees and touched her. She lifted my hands, puts it against her chest and began stroking them. 10‘All will be all right soon mother, you will get well,’ I said to her. She slowly touched my face and wiped away my tears. ‘All will never be all right as it used to be my daughter.’ Should the creator of humankind allow me to live longer than today, I would choose to spend every single second of my life with you for I love you so much.’ ‘For I love you more mother.’ I am hopeful things will be alright with you, please have your rest let me get you something to eat.’ ‘Don’t bother yourself my child, I am okay.’ ‘No. mother, you haven’t tasted anything since yesterday. Why can’t you eat just little, it will be good for your health.’ ‘When the roots of a tree meet a rock under the soil and that tree begins to dry up, it loses its beauty and no amount of water can make it yield fruits again,’ she said with a low voice. I was confused for I didn’t understand what she meant but I kept it to myself. ‘Let me go and get you some food.’ ‘If you really do love me don’t leave me before I say what I want to say to you my daughter.’ Please don’t go.’ ‘I love you mother but I can’t stand here to see you die of hunger and moreover, you are sick.’ ‘Understand me little child, there will come a time when food will not be longer necessary for one to survive.’ ‘I am thankful for you have given me hope to live but there will come a time in life when hope will lose its meaning. For there is little time left for me to keep hoping for the things of this world.’ ‘Do not speak like this mother. We shall always be together. Please promise that you shall not leave me alone’ I cried. For the way she speaks was hurting me so much. Her words were not mere words, they bring pain into my heart. ‘I shall not leave you my daughter, even in spirit I will be with you.’ I have seen the sunlight more than you saw. My days are old, and my nights are many. If you see tears falling from my eyes, it is not because my end days has come but because I cry for you. Your days are bad, so were mine. I have seen the cries of widows. I have seen wars. I have not seen a good day, so my worry is you my daughter. You’re a little child but suffering has gripped you. You need care. You need my love if I could be granted more days.’ ‘You shall have more days on this earth mother, no evil will happen to you.’ ‘I wish it was so my daughter but all evils have happened to me, none has not happened to me.’ War has taken all from me. I only have you, so it is you that I cry for.’ ‘I will always be yours. I will be by you all the time for without you I am not fit 11to live mother.’ ‘Come to me. Kneel your head down to me.’ I did as she said and she spat on my head and spread it there. ‘Your days will be many on this earth.’ You shall secure a victory in the face of overwhelming odds.’ War will lose one day and peace and love will light up the world. You have to be hopeful for it was hope that brought me to this day.’ ‘I will, so long as you are there for me.’ ‘So listen to what I want you to know about me.’ You’re a child, it was not my will to let you know of this but you’re the only one that I have close to me.’ ‘Here I am, speak to me mother.’
‘I was a mother to seven children.’ She said. ‘Three boys and four girls. My husband was an army commander in the Melesen government. One night during the war, we were sleeping when I heard a heavy knock at our door. I woke up. And my husband took his machine gun. He moved to the door and peeped through the opening. He saw men in uniform carrying guns. I was still sitting in the bed. And before my husband could ask who they were, the men commanded him to open the door. They called him by name. They said they were his fellow comrades and there was an emergency that needed to be attended to. Oduho my husband was so worried because if there was such a thing, he would have received a call from the Chief of Staff. There then, I sensed there was a problem. My children and one son of my sister who was staying with me were in another room. That room was attached to ours but with a different entrance. I heard my elder boy crying out. ‘Open the door dad, mum they are killing us.’ My body became lifeless then life came back again. I cried to my husband to open the door. And before he opened it, they broke the door and entered the house. I was now standing and my whole body shivering. They commanded my husband to surrender his gun which he did without delay.
They spoke in Arabic that my husband has finally met his fate. ‘Do you think we are not aware of the evil plans you are plotting against the country? they asked. ‘General Justin, why would you think I could do such a thing?’ All of us are working to see a better Melesen Republic. This must be a conspiracy against me’, answered my husband. ‘Shut up comrade Oduho.’ Do you mean this Melesen is no good? So you want to see a better Melesen right? Okay continue working hard for it.’ The General shouted. I was in silence. I could not understand the military language. I did not know what they were talking about. General Justin then summoned my children to come forward. He ordered the soldiers in the room to undress my elder daughter. I heard my husband pleading with him: ‘No my brother, no General Justin. Do not do this to my daughter. Please don’t brother Justin don’t do it.’ The General pointed his gun towards my husband and said, ‘if he could not keep his mouth 12shut, it was the right time for him to die.’ I cried and implored General Justin not to do that to my daughter. General Justin pushed me down. He dared me to open my throat again. I could see my daughter standing naked. She was weeping helplessly. My husband closed his eyes. Without fear of God, Justin pushed my daughter down. He commanded his soldiers to keep her down. He then commanded my husband to lie on top of his daughter. But my husband refused. How could he even lay with his own blood? A thing that even Lucifer can never do.
My husband could not do anything to rescue her, his gun had been seized. I then saw a tragic scene. The General unzipped his pants and raped my daughter in front of me and of her father. When he was done, two of his soldiers raped her again in front of me. My daughter stayed still on the floor, broken and paralyzed. The soldiers then undressed my boys and forced them to sleep with my other daughters. Later my husband was pushed down and seven soldiers raped him. All these were done in my sight. My husband, raped? I could not believe my eyes. I did not know such a thing exists in this world. I did not know a man can also be raped like a woman. But it happened here. I saw it with my two eyes being done to my husband. I was the last victim. All the soldiers who were in the room raped me. In this process, my husband got an opportunity to grab his gun. But one of the soldiers saw him. He was shot. Five bullets on him and I saw heaven opening its doors to my lovely husband. I screamed but my voice was too low to reach heaven. I thought God might come to our rescue but all around was darkness. They whispered to each other and I saw bullets raining on my children. And I got three.
I woke up in the hospital. The nurses told me that I was admitted there when I was unconscious. I asked them if they knew anything about my husband and my children but they decided to tell me not. They said the doctor had the information about my family. So he would be the one to tell me when he comes. But then I sensed something was not okay. I was so scared. Soon, the doctor slipped in. I was so eager to learn about my family. I wanted to hear that they are all well. The doctor greeted me and asked if I feel well. I nodded my head and said, ‘How are my children and my husband doctor? He told me I was the only person breathing. My husband, my children were all gone. I was left alone wandering. I was deprived of all the precious treasures I had. I opted to commit suicide but something spoke to me that, ‘there is a story you need to tell. If I die who will tell it tomorrow. I must live. Yes, I have to live to tell this story’, I said to myself. Today, I am the happiest being in this world. The reason that I have lived for has being realized. ‘This story is being told my daughter Juan.’ ‘I am leaving it with you.’ ‘Keep it and let the whole world know the suffering of humanity.’ I listened to this story. I was broken into pieces. No amount of solacing could stop my tears. Like her, I could not believe a man can do such a thing to a fellow man. And for what reasons even? Achan touched my face and said in a low voice, ‘Don’t cry. Yes, it’s painful but know that you are not just a woman my daughter Juan, you are a washing machine. It is only a woman who has the ability to wash all the evils of the world. If she cannot do it herself, she gives birth to a savior who will save the entire humanity. You are a strong woman. I see you giving birth to a savior who will save this country in my absence.’ She smiled, then she took her last picture of the world and her eye closed in peace and her breathing stopped. I lost her like that, just like that. I screamed. Cried and perambulated about. As a culture, people gathered to see what was not happening. But today, to their dismay, all was happening. ‘My mother is dead, I cried out. She is no more.’ Some cried and others stood still, shaking their heads in disbelief but she couldn’t come back, leaving me in a dark world to wander and to ponder of things that go beyond my age.
Chapter Two: Agony in a man’s house
Days went by, home became lonely. Whom shall I call mother now? The hero I know has gone. Gone, far, far away, to heaven. The refugee camp was now full. Full of people. There was not enough food to feed all the people. There was suffering from hunger. There was increased death rate. War has caused many crimes in my country. Even nature, the trees, the birds of heavens and the animals below can attest to this existential fact. My elder sister used to tell us about the history of Melesen. Though I was young, I could recall it very well, up to this day. She said, ‘the civil wars in Melesen started as early as in the nineteen fifties. Millions died, thousands ran to refugee camps. I was very young and could not understand what war could do to human beings. I took her tales as mere fiction. But today, history has repeated itself in my presence. It was no longer fiction to me. I saw dead bodies with my own two eyes. I saw heaven calling me to give in. I was alone in the company of the unseen Angels of God in the forest. There was a little child in my arms. She was forced to endure the suffering she knows nothing about. I was desperate and sick. Years have passed by but the war was still in motion in my country. I neither heard from my family back home nor did they hear from their lost daughter. I was the only one who knows the truth that I was alive. But my family back home might think I was dead. And they would be right to think that way. If I were alive, won’t I be home? When I first arrived here in Oliju refugee settlement, I had no one to take care of my child and me and I was very young to stay alone. Then God sent someone to take me to her house. And there in that white carpet tent, I found the Love and care of a true mother. But when Achan Oduho died, I was imprisoned in suffering again. Dark days came back running amock. Whenever difficulties want to turn me down, I would just remember what she told me in her last days: ‘That I was a strong woman and no matter how life sits on me, I must retaliate.’ I live to remember her fortifying words. They obliged me to struggle on every day in the middle of hardship. Some years later, a certain young man came to me, he pleaded to marry me into his family. His name was Sule. Sule was a refugee like me and his family was also cantoned in Oliju refugee camp. But I was so worried and afraid to 16 Chapter Two Agony in a man’s houseaccept such a gift of a new family. I have had terrible experience pertaining to marriage. So I need no one to advise me on how to make wise decisions when it comes to such matters. But then life was treating me badly. I had a little child in my arms who needed to be cared for. I alone at that age was not enough to bring her up. After taking my time, I accepted to marry into his family without any reservation. He promised to treat my little daughter as his own. She was the only treasure the world had left me with in the middle of desperation. ‘What a blessing to me, homeless with no family and traumatized.’ God has sent his unseen Angels to rescue me again. Life begins to flourish blissfully. United Nations High Commission for refugees allotted the venerable refugees land so that they can farm and feed themselves; so that they build themselves small thatched-houses and become selfreliant so as to reduce the burden on the host country. My family got one. And my husband, the other family members and I settled on it. Apart from my husband, there was my mother in-law, her last born and one daughter and two grandchildren. I was his first wife and it was because of me that he got the title of being called a man. My husband loves me. He loves my daughter Keji so much. And so was my mother in-law and everyone in the family. All around me was ecstasy and love. We now had a farmland. A big one. I never complained of holding a hoe in my hands. It was a subject I never failed doing when I was in the village with aunt at my younger age before the tragic incidence put us apart. Here with my family, we could go gardening in the morning and in the afternoon I had to rush home to cook. They would come back when the food was ready. My husband, like many men, was a very good man when I first met him. As time went on, my body alerted me, for my womb had yielded. My husband was so overwhelmed with joy. He longed to be called a father, and so was my mother in-law. She was happy and threw thanks to her ancestors. My baby started paining me so much. He was peeping through the open window, eager to come out. But I was not afraid. This was my second time to face this perpetual trouble arrayed against women. I was resolved to waiting for the day he would declare the Second World War. Keji had a very fertile body. She was growing very fast. Children of her age were already in school learning. But my Keji was pegged at home together with our goats. There was no money to pay for her school fees. We left Oliju refugee camp five months ago when my husband built another house in another village called Munga. Munga belongs to the Lugbara tribe of Gandala. It was a very nice place. The soil there was very fertile and there was constant rainfall. When I gave birth to my boy in Oliju refugee camp, he was very thin. Many people thought he would not survive. But I was optimistic and prayerful that the lord who guarded me in 17the bush until I took refuge in Oliju refugee camp, will be the same lord to save my child. I was hopeful that he would live to call me mother. We now have little money milked from the farmland in Munga but my husband was not bothered to send my daughter to school. Also, things were now beginning to turn the other way round. One night my husband came home very late. He knocked at the door and I woke up to open it, only to find that he was drunk. It was my first time to see him in such a shape, but it did not bother me much. I carried him gently and placed him in the bed. He talked the whole night till he went silent, lost into dreams. I woke up early in the morning and cooked some porridge for him then I went to the garden. The garden was overgrown with weeds, it took me some time to clean it. When I came back home from the garden I did not find my husband. He had already woken up and left. The porridge I prepared for him was untouched. I found Keji carrying her baby brother Tombe and filling him with porridge. He seems to have cried so much that his eyes were red. I grabbed him from Keji as I sat down to breastfeed him. He fell asleep. Keji looks worried and disturbed. I asked her what the matter was but she took her silence and declined to tell me anything. Rather, she chose to slip into the room and sit there. I took it lightly as I concluded that her baby brother might have disturbed her in my absence. I set my three-stone cooking stove and built fire in it. Darkness has begun to show signs of coming to swallow daylight, so I cooked my food hastily. We ate and I apportioned my husband his. The man of the house who would always get things ready made for him. I last saw him when I was going to the garden. Now, it was late in the night. I waited for him and at last there his voice was. A woman escorted him home. I heard her saying farewell to my husband and the voice vanished like that, just like that. He slipped inside and found me seated on the edge of the bed. I did not bother myself to inquire who that woman was. As an African housewife, I got up and helped him sit down on the bed. I served him food on the small wooden table and turned my back to fetch him some water. I heard the tray clattering behind me. I turned to find that he had kicked the food down. ‘You Woman for nothing’, he calls me. ‘Did you see my appetite that I want to eat your rotten food?’ I was struck, silent and wondering how my food has become rotten that soon. He sprang up to his feet and gave me a hot slap on my left cheek. ‘You disrespectful woman, am I talking to a human being or to a lifeless tree? ‘Have I asked you to bring me this food, have I? He asked. ‘Has it become a sin for a woman to serve her husband food in this world? I answered. ‘Don’t dare ask me this stupid question again, you daughter of nobody.’ I was stung but it was a bitter truth. He was right to call me nobody’s daughter. ‘Do I have any brother around? Was there a father or any relative? No, 18there was none. He was very right to call me that. He got near me and I found myself in deep pain as his kicks visited me all over my body. In this part of the world called Africa, someone is considered a man if he could beat up his wife every day that all the neighbors about could hear her screaming. And a typical African woman was the one who can unwaveringly endure all the beatings inside the room and would not run to seek refuge in the neighborhood. Even if she runs to her family, the following evening she is brought back to her husband’s house by her father for she belongs there. Marriage is suffering by definition to an African woman. Marriage is destruction. As it was the culture here, I could not run out from the beatings of my husband. I stood my ground firmly to prove the strength of an African woman. My daughter Keji was weeping bitterly. Glancing at her hero mother being tortured in front of her. Pleading with a man she calls her father but my husband was such an uncompromising type of a man. When he starts something even heaven cannot scare him away. When he saw that Keji was looking at him and crying, he lifted her high up and threw her down. ‘He calls her an illegitimate daughter.’ He was unaware that I survived bullets sowed against me in the bush because God’s eyes were on this Angel, the daughter of illegitimate as he named it.’ He had the guts to tell me that I was a very wicked woman. That if I wasn’t, the father of my daughter wouldn’t have left me. ‘Did he even know what transpired between me and that man? No, he didn’t. He didn’t know anything pertaining to it. When he beat me enough, he chased me out of the room. That night, I and my children did not sleep inside. I bore the cold weather in the open compound with them. When I woke up in the morning, my face could not receive a repeated glance. It had swollen so badly. My eyes were red, bloodshot. The whole body was paining me that I could not walk. I dragged myself slowly into the room and sat there on the bed. Unknowingly, nature took over and I slept. My mother in-law’s house was a small distance away from my home. I normally go there in the afternoon and in the evening hours to take her food. I never missed going there. She loves me so much that she could not go a day without setting her eyes on me. She had to come when she learned that the sound of my footsteps were not heard in that compound that day. She came in the evening. I was in deep sleep. She knocked at the door just as I became conscious. When she entered the room, her eyes fell on me and my tears dropped. She was shocked and confused. She could not believe I was shedding tears. ‘Juan is everything alright? She asked. ‘Tell me what troubles have befallen you my daughter.’ She then sat down on the edge of the bed and touched 19my shoulders. I narrated to her the story. I told her how it came into motion and she was angry at her son’s deed. She waited for him in the house to question his misbehavior. But it was very unfortunate that her son never came home that night. My husband did not sleep at home. So mother in-law left my house late at night. I became worried, talking alone inside. Life seems to have buried a misfortune in me. I was throwing blames on God, the only one who was not blind to see what has not yet transpired. He should have shown me the colors of the man I married before he dirtied me. Perhaps I would have got a loving one. But was there a loving man really? Why should I blame God for what I chose myself without his intervention? Is it not true that all men are different in physicality but internally they have the same desires? To sleep on top of a woman and make her his own house slave? ‘No, a loving man has not yet been born, I mean that one who would liberate a woman from being a man’s slave.’ See my unseen suffering now. A woman who had not seen any good in the world. I was born disadvantaged among all humans. I was born when my parents were caged in poverty and my first husband jilted me on the grounds that I was unbeautiful. I am just here alone with no relatives. Confined in a man’s house. The man I loved so much from my within, without any reservation. I thought marrying him would restore my devastated hopes. I thought. It was only a thought. Little did I know that I was marrying a monster. When I was fifteen years of age, there was a very handsome young man in our village. His home was some feet away from my aunt’s house. I had to pass by his house because that was the only path that would take me to town. The Town of those days; there was no electricity. There was no public transport. Even if those things were there, would the poor have the privilege to have them? For the poor was only the moonlight in the night and the sunshine during day time. I used to carry our farm produce on my head. Like this, I have to foot from the village to market in town to sell them. One evening, I was coming home from the market place. I met this handsome human being on my way. He stopped me. ‘Hello beautiful’! ‘Hello! Like this, I replied him while moving. I thought he went his way. But when I looked back, he was stalking me. So I hasten my steps until I reached home. This man was extremely handsome. But I had no saliva of falling in love with anyone. I had no saliva. I was an orphan, I must respect myself. My aunt should not get me in any relationship, that was my resolution. I fear I would be taken back to my sisters and die of starvation. I had always refused this man’s approach. His doings towards me whenever I passed by their home were now scaring. Sometimes I had to navigate through the bush just to avoid the path passing by their home. 20 One day, I saw him by the riverside walking the same road I was treading. I tried to dodge him but he saw me. There was no way out but to stand my ground since he refused to leave the way. So I moved boldly towards him and he grabbed my hand as I approached him. My blood went down and my tongue became heavy to utter any word. I came prepared to confront him but here I am, very quiet. There was silence all over the place. I stayed silent. Then he said to me, ‘Juan, why do you always run away from me? ‘Are you really aware that your ways are hurting me? See how beautiful you are.’ ‘Please Wani, I do not want this thing of yours.’ I want you to leave me alone before you put me in trouble with my mother.’ ‘Don’t say this, how can I leave you alone Juan?’ ‘I have enough troubles already. I don’t want more, just leave.’ ‘As long as I am in this village no trouble can get you, not when I am still alive.’ ‘Please let me go now.’ ‘You know, you’re the beauty of this village. No man can stop chasing after you Juan.’ ‘What beauty Wani? There are many girls around, go to them. I want you to leave me alone. You do not know what my aunt will do to me if she sees me with you.’ ‘Your aunt is a very kind person, she won’t do anything to harm you.’ ‘You don’t know what you are talking about, you don’t know my aunt.’ I tried again but he couldn’t let me go. ‘What do you want from me? Let me go.’ ‘Just give me a small opportunity Juan. I want to love you and make you my wife.’ ‘Wife? ‘Yes, I love you so much.’ ‘But I don’t love you, leave please.’ I changed my face to scare him, but it did not work ‘Do not say this Juan, it is hurting.’ ‘Please I …’ ‘Please say nothing Juan, I love you. Can’t you feel it?’ I went silent. There was no voice talking. I was feeling another world. His words going down, cool and nice like they were cut out of ice cube. I was there standing. Warmness entered my body and my knees almost betrayed me. I was told of that magic in man’s words. But I could not believe until I was put under a spell by them. If you don’t like a man, don’t allow him to touch your shoulders. If he touched you, your principles will definitely betray you.’ Heaven was almost coming down but somehow I got a chance and pulled my body from his touch. I made sure there was reasonable distance between us and I 21told him not to disturb me again or else I would tell my aunt about his deeds. He left me. I ran home. Wani Kolye was so much revered and feared in my village. Wani Kolye was my aunt’s husband. You cannot just go around and play with his daughters including me, anyhow. He would make you regret your manhood. So when I threatened this man that I was going to inform my parents about his deeds, he coiled his tail for a while and ran away. Now I could use this route without fear. He could just stare at me and swallow his saliva. Did I care? Not at all, just walking my way silently. I thought he gave up but he was only playing it cool. ‘A wild cat can stop visiting a place in the bush just to make the chicken forget that he exists.’ I went to the market that day, but my produce did not sell in time like in other days. My friends left but I decided not to go home until my produce are sold. Deliberately, the sun rolled to its grave. I found myself walking alone in the street, the one in the direction to my village. Footing seriously and perspiring. There was no transport. Bicycle was only for the rich villagers who own big farmlands. I was poor. Darkness was falling before me but I was not afraid to walk the village street alone in darkness. I was only half-afraid because I grew up crossing this route every day. There was only one corner I feared the most of all the corners on the road. And I had a valid reason to fear it. This man realized that I was not among my friends when they got back. He might have inquired from them and knew that I was left behind at the market. He used this corner to hunt me, and he hooked me at this very corner. I saw him availing himself to me from behind the tree when I drew closer. He stopped me but I ignored his moves. I skipped him and ran forward but he was very fast, just like a wild cat who had spotted a fat chicken. I saw some of his friends coming out of the bush. I thought they were going to save me, instead I found myself in his room. They locked us inside and disappeared. Back in those days, when a man climbs onto the top of a tree and took a bite of its sweet fruit without the permission of the planter, the owner of that tree will uproot the tree and take it to the house of the trespasser so that he finishes the fruits. I open my eyes but I feel paralyzed. He detached his body from mine and told me. ‘You may now go.’ But where on earth in Africa was that possible? Just to wake up and go? Oh man! Be fair sometimes. I spoke to myself. ‘How do you expect me to go?’ I replied him. ‘The same way you came in, you may also leave.’ He said. ‘After spoiling me, now you want me gone, why do this to me Wani? Why?’ ‘I got what I wanted, just go and don’t tell anyone or else I will make your life 22miserable in this village.’ ‘So my body is a playground to satisfy your desires.’ You have extracted precious gold, you mined all the silvers found in it and now I should go right? ‘Not one man would have come to you, so thank me for having satisfied your desires not mine, stand up and move.’ With this words I felt pierced in my heart and my eyes soaked with tears. How could this heartless man do this to an orphan who had nothing precious than her body and expect her to leave? ‘I am not going anywhere from here, you have to first finish what you started.’ I cried. ‘You don’t know what I am capable of doing Juan, just stand up and go before I hurt you.’ ‘What kind of hurting are you talking about Wani when you have hurt me already? Were you not the same Wani who said I was the beauty of this land and that you want to marry me for a wife? Now the beauty is here, right in your room. Come eat me all since you have started. Don’t tell me to go because I will not move from here with this impurity. You now want me to carry my dirty body home? Never, never, it will never happen. I will rather be your breakfast, supper and leftovers than to move from this room. Devour me all’, I said to him. He tried to drag me but I did not allow myself to be thrown out of the room. Even if I go, my aunt will bring the tree back to his house because other people knew this man had lain with me. He has eaten from the fruits of this tree. So I remain there to be his wife. He disappeared from home. The last time I saw him was when he had me in his bed. Ever since, he did not sleep at home. His father tried to sit him down and talk to him, but he swore with his private part that he will never marry me, that I was ugly to be his wife. Two months later, my aunt took me back home. I was now carrying a two months old baby in my womb. It was the first hit which made me pregnant. The man deserted the village and exiled himself, to where, I do not know. This was how I got my first daughter Keji. Now my husband sleeps out often, two and sometimes three days a week. A friend told me she saw him in kolididi with another woman. But I was not shocked to hear this gossip about the father to my boy. It was not a surprise to me for another woman escorted him home the other night. I knew he must have been in another love affair. ‘For a he goat does not sleep away from his home unless his nose has sniffed a new she goat’s urine.’ In Africa, the right of a woman does not exist. Your husband beats you up, you continue cooking for him. He gains more strength and sleeps on you. You bear him children and he kicks you all the time. All because you’re his wife. They claim she got only one right, that was to report a husband who refused to lay with her to his fathers. 23 So it was suicidal for me to question his misbehavior. I could serve him food, sometimes he eats other times he forces me to eat the food I serve him myself. Life was miserable for me. He could no longer do farm work. I became the family donkey. I worked in the garden, transported the produce to the market and bought food for the family. He sleeps like a king, and I his slave. Hardship had followed me even to the toilet. I came from a country where the life cycle of a fly is longer than that of a human being. It was rare to see people celebrating their successes. Everywhere was tears. Crying the flooding blood of man. Months later, my husband married another wife. He declared it officially. He informed me about it. But who am I to denounce this piece of information? I was told a long time ago never to interfere with his life. That ‘he was a bull and can supply his urine as he likes.’ These were the months when the rain was heavy. When such rains come, it brings with it a lot of fortune. Here was nature, unfolding its hands to man -- the nice weather and the wet soil. These were also the months when the white ants would come out of the anthills to experience a different life. But wherever man exists, the white ant’s life was in jeopardy, they end up being burnt for food. At first I was so naïve, I did not know much about the white ants. They say white ants were delicious but I did not like them. I did not know that ‘a man can even eat his feces when he was born and found other men eating theirs.’ Now I am a master eater of white ants. The mildly roasted one tasted better and can sustain an America tourist in Africa. I did not know this woman until now, the one my husband got married to. But a friend told me she was a refugee who came from Oliju Camp. I carried no sins against her. Instead I wanted to tell my husband to be proud of the choice he made, to bring her home so that we raise the family together. I knew no words would dissuade my husband's mind from marrying this woman. I wanted his love for the family to remain intact. But all this attempts went in vain. In Munga, we drink from a stream. I usually go there in the morning and drew my water. One morning, I went to draw some water from the stream. There, I found a handful of women washing their bodies and some fetching water. At the lower side of the stream, men were taking their baths too. I waded into the stream to draw my water. There, a certain woman who was bathing threw her eyes by mistake to the other side of the men and shouted aloud. All of us struggled to jump out of the stream. We thought it was a snake. It turned out she shouted because of a man who was hiding behind the huge stone in the water and peeping at the naked women! When his wide-opened eyes were caught, he dived into the water and disappeared. ‘What pleasure can he get with just a mere look at our naked bodies? asked one of the women. ‘They are just like he-goats nowadays, unsatisfied, though they have wives at home’, said another. 24 I fetched my water silently and lifted it to my head. I introduced my journey home. As my steps continued forward, at a distance, I saw a woman coming. She drew closer and stood in front of me and said. ‘Finally we have met right?’. I could not remember seeing her anywhere so I forged a smile at her and sent my hand for greeting, but she refused. She went ahead and began warning me, warning me seriously that I should leave her husband alone or else she will kill me. I do not remember taking anybody’s husband so I was confused. ‘Woman, are you okay? I asked her. ‘No I am mad, how do you expect me to be okay when you took my husband away from me? She said. ‘But which husband are you referring to.’ ‘You, don’t mock me, don’t try.’ I am something else, not what you think I am. I will destroy you.’ ‘I do not know you, you have mistaken me for someone else, please get off my way.’ ‘You have the guts to tell me to get out of your way ah, you must not be knowing the kind of woman I am, I will crush this your head woman. See me well’, she said. I went silent for I was beginning to fear her widened eyes. I came to realize she was referring to my husband, that I took my husband from her. I cannot remember what I told her. She grabbed me and I found myself eating the ground. She sat over me. She punched my face so hard that I felt my nose urinating blood. By the time people came to my rescue she had already taken advantage of me. I was beaten properly. I pulled myself up while screaming. Stream of people poured in, some were pregnant, some were not. Even the unborn tried to peep from the womb but could not see clearly. This woman was still hungry to fight me. But I collected myself and went down the stream again. I drew another water and made for home. I found my husband at home seated on his chair. It was known to me that the news reached him already. I bypassed him quietly as if nothing had happened to me. Before I could lower the water from my head he roared at me, ‘Who told you that you should go about beating people's wives? I know Jokudu had taught you these behaviors but I will show you today.’ I did not answer him. How could I answer this question for God’s sake? A question from the mouth of a lion moreover. Three days ago, Jokudu came to me. Jokudu was my neighbor. She was a tall woman, black and fat. Her husband fears her because when he beats her she would always wait until he was drunk and then beat him up also. She related to me a story about Maring. Maring used to be with us in the camp. He was lucky, he found his way to Australia. But he has a brother here with us. 25 Jokudu said ‘Maring wrote a letter to his brother from Australia that his wife Nabuju took him to court and divorced him.’ That Nabuju will soon marry a white boyfriend. She said ‘they told her that Australia was not like here.’ There, a man cannot beat his wife. You cannot beat your children. A wife can go to disco and come back home as late as she wants and her husband will not quarrel with her. I was listening in disbelief. She continued, ‘Now that Maring was divorced, the big house that they bought two years ago was handed to Nabuju by the police. Maring was chased out of the house. Now every month, Maring will pay many dollars to Nabuju for the upkeep of the children. He was not allowed to step into that house. When he wants to see his children, Nabuju drives them to a restaurant and Maring will play with them there for one hour only. They say, it was not Maring alone suffering this. Many women who went together with their husbands from here to Australia had chased their husbands from home. They got married to the dollars of Australia. In Australia, she narrates, ‘there is nothing like a wife or a husband. Everyone has to do the house work and he…..’ At that point in time my husband delivered himself from inside the room and cleared his throat. Jokudu cut the story short. I thought he was sleeping inside, not knowing he had been listening to the story. ‘Should you try it here, we shall cut off your heads from the neck’ he roared like an old lion and went away. Jokudu shivered. I shivered too and the story ended there. I replied to him that, ‘it was that woman who confronted and fought me, I did not do anything to her.’ I was still standing with my water on my head. ‘Better shut that mouth before I knock your teeth out.’ How could you lie to me? You think what they told me about the fight was not accurate? Were you not the one who insulted her to force her to slap that stinking tongue of yours? he shouted at me from afar. My shadow was in dread to tell the truth because it is only my shadow who knows my innocence. ‘Who told you that I insulted her and for what reasons should I have done this to her? I grew angry also. Until now, I can’t tell how I got that strength to utter those words. ‘So you can now exchange words with me. You have the nerve to cut me short.’ Where I stood, I could feel the heat of his rage. I saw him coming and thought he was going to help me put the water down. On the contrary, he jumped on my neck and threw me down. He sat on me as if he were sitting on a stool, banging heavy fists on my body. I screamed aloud but it was very unfortunate, it was only a man beating his wife. Who would dare come and separate him from me? He left me crumbled and vomiting blood. My everywhere was in great pain. 26I was powerless. I was not in Australia where the voice of a crying woman like mine could be heard and seen on the news headline and in the whole world. I am a refugee in this foreign land. Happiness had always diverged from my life. I was here dining with sorrow and pain. To me there exists two different worlds. Somewhere a mother may give birth to a child and whatever that child dreams of, those dreams pays her a visit every morning till it becomes real. In such worlds, people wake up every morning, they want longer life. Because when life is beautiful death does not exist to a man, he keeps it far away from his mind. Not to think of it, even for a second. But here in my world, many die before a single dream could visit them. Their dreams may promise them in the night, but when they wake up in the morning they do not see it, even when they die. They live in a dark, endless circle of no hope. I wanted to become something else and work in the hospital. I wanted to work for the wellbeing of humanity. ‘Did poverty give me a single chance to learn chemistry and biology? I thought maybe when I grow up and got married to a good husband, he may help me and I will achieve this dream. To my dismay, when I met one he destroyed everything about me. And now the second one I married was busy digging my grave. He wanted to bury me alive. My parents died long ago. I grew up moving from one house to the other. Just in search of a good life but I never found one. Had my parents lived to this time, perhaps I would have experienced a better life. A little better than this and not that much. From a dream of becoming a nurse I found myself in the bush with a little child of no man and later, in a refugee camp. I never dreamt or wished to be a refugee. But I found myself a refugee at the age of sixteen. Poverty killed my dreams. War buried my hopes alive without mercy. What I saw as a little child on this side of the world many people in this world had never seen them, not when they were still children or at their present age. They never saw it and they will never see it till they depart this world. ‘Have you seen a two--month old child being smashed against a tree? Or an old woman being slaughtered like a he goat? I had seen a world that many men had not and will not. Here, men get pleasure in sucking the blood of other men. I had never seen hell, I only heard of it in the Bible. I heard that men of evil deeds are thrown into fire and burned there forever. Yet I do not know if that punishment would be enough for the evils I that have witnessed. These evils where an old woman of eighty is raped. They rape your mother and kill her in your presence. And they kill you after, if you refuse to sleep with them. There are unseen tears behind the door coming down our eyes. No one has seen it and nobody asked of it. They thought such things do not exist. I pulled myself up and limped painfully into my room. I went there and 27poured my tears out. Where else can I go to than inside? Keji saw all that was happening but she could not do anything, so she ended up crying too. My whole body was paining me. There was no one to help me. And my children have not eaten anything. Who was there to cook for them than me their mother who was suffering at the hands of their father, her slave master? Here a husband beats you and leaves you in great pain. With all this pain, he expects you to be in the kitchen or he will come back again to make you suffer more. So I dragged myself out slowly and sat on a stool. I built up my fire and after eating, I bathed my children and dived into a deep sleep. At night, I heard someone banging at my door, calling my name aloud, ‘Juan, Juan wake up please.’ Everyone has run, we are the only people left around. Come out please’, the voice cried. I thought it was a dream but when I awoke and captured the voice, it was Jokudu calling. I sprang up and let the door fly open. I asked her what the problem was. But she stopped me from asking questions, ‘can't you hear gunshots? My ears opened wide and I gained a second consciousness. Indeed, there were gunshots. Until those days, the northern part of Gandala was not at ease. There was a civil war. Even many Gandalans, especially the Acholi tribe of Gulu, were internally displaced. The government warned refugees to stay in the camps under the protection of the United Nations, to not risk their lives outside. But life in the refugee camps was unfavorable, there was acute hunger so we decided to come out of the camps and settle with the local people in Munga village. We became farmers. Another gunshot sounded from a near distance, as if it was meant for us, we went down on our stomachs. There, I did not ask questions again. I went inside and woke my husband. He was snoring seriously and was unconscious of whatever was happening. I tapped him and his eyes opened. I told him ‘gunshots’ and he sprang to his feet. He moved towards the door and peeped, he saw Jokudu standing outside. Jokudu shouted, ‘what are you still doing, hurry up, things are getting worse now.’ I tied my son on my back and Keji by my hand. It was very cold so I take a cover. And the running started. The cocks had just started crowing. ‘Do I know what time it was, did I intend to know? Were we not following those in front of us to a hiding place we do not know? People were many on the road, all running for their dear lives. With women carrying personal effects on their heads and little children tied on their backs, crying. We joined the queue. Gunshots were now playing all over. We knelt down, we slept on our stomachs but it was no solution. The crawling has to continue. We went down the stream side. The stream where I was beaten by a woman. Across the stream was an expansive banana plantation, there, we entered but 28found it was full of people, playing hide and seek with bullets. The place was quiet. Everyone was silent. Only bullets were flying from one side to the other. Inside the plantation, there was a woman who had a ten-day old baby. They almost chased her away because the baby was crying loudly and she could not do anything about it. Her breasts stopped bringing out milk. . She feels disturbed. If another breastfeeding mother did not offer her breasts to the baby to suck, this woman would have thrown the crying baby into the running stream, just to spare her life. Everyone was annoyed with her. People were all angry at her, as if she was a sister to Joseph Konyi whose soldiers were firing the guns? Human beings are selfish. They want you to die but they do not want to die. I pitied that woman, together with her baby. As guns continued blazing men were shivering, as if the temperature was below zero. They wanted to enter underground but the soil surface was as hard as rock. I was astonished. I was not aware that men can also tremble like their mothers in hard times. My husband was now hiding behind me. Creeping like a snake. I could hear the throbbing of his heart. Pumping like a little child who suffers from pneumonia. I would not forget that day. For the first time he calls me mammy when he was trying to check on me to see if at all I was safe under the banana leaves. I laughed, but an internal laughter. In his happy days he considers me a slave but now the world was coming to an end, he starts calling me mammy. Mammy for what? How safe am I even here under these banana leaves? Can the banana leaves stop a bullet? Silly question. But I made sure I speak this to myself without opening my lips. For I knew morning will come and we shall be home again, then he would make me regret my words. Gandala was my hiding heaven, my refuge under this sun. But here, things were no good either. There was war, there were people dying, both of war and hunger. It turned out to be another source of misery. I was very desperate. My past was sad and painful. It brings tears and suffering to one’s body. There was darkness to it. The present days show me that life was not worth living. It holds nothing precious. I cannot bend to it and await the future. For the future was not meant for me, it was for those who would live to see it. Why should I stand here, to wait hopefully, for something that would never be mine? From the very beginning of my life I stood on a weak foundation. So the likelihood of it to subside was now calling. What do I do? Should I run away, but to where? Nowhere was green. I saw a dry desert, it had never received any rainfall in its entire existence. Only hard crusted soil sleeps on it. No grass, no trees, not even birds, it has no life in fact. Just the hot temperature flying over it and baking it to a devilish crust. 29 In this environment my aspirations, the ones I had when I was a child were burnt. They were burnt into ashes and the winds blew them into the grave. I wanted to die but death was not closer to my shadow. All I see was me standing, head to the sky and legs fastened to the earth. Behind me was nothing. In front of me was disaster. How would I know there was something when my behind has no eyes? Was it not true, that wherever your eyes are facing is your front? When your eyes would see the tail of the sky touching the earth at the extreme end, far in front of you? But these eyes can deceive sometimes. Just close it and everything has disappeared from you. Its powerful vision, the beautiful world, all that was around you, vanished. Just like that. The hypocrisy of the eyes. A girl of my age somewhere in the world had already realized her dreams. Some are astronauts, others surgeons. Their death comes from heaven. It takes long to come due to the distance between heaven and earth but my death was lying closer to me, for it was caused by man. This was the difference between me and girls of my age who inhabit a nurturing environment. A peaceful world. What I eat is death itself. Where I sleep is the grave. The route I walk upon, takes me to a refugee camp. The difference between me and girls my age who live in a peaceful, nurturing environment is that they stay in mansions, hey drink from the fridge and they enjoy the love of their parents. But look here, I share rooms with monkeys, up on the tree in the forest. I drink from stagnant waters on the roads and sometimes marshes. I need a mother. I need a father to care for me. To hold me tight like earth holds the roots of a tree. I need a country that I would call mine. The one that I would mention its name without my tears falling. I need a pen to write a letter to the whole world. To tell them that I do not want to be a refugee anymore. I want to be a citizen of my country because here I am a refugee. When I arrived home that morning from the terrible night spent in the banana plantation, I went inside my room. I laid my son down, for he was asleep. I made straight to the kitchen. My husband had built a new thatched roof kitchen, I went in to cook some porridge. My husband sat there stretched under a tree, just near to the kitchen. Soon after, Gore came and joined him. Gore was Jokudu’s husband. Gore started the conversation. ‘My wife told me you were asleep when she came here last night’, he said to my husband. ‘She told you or it was the naked truth that she said? I came home drunk to the extreme yesterday. I could not recall how I slipped inside. My wife woke me up when your wife banged at the door and when I came out, I saw red bullets flying in the air, my liquor left my head.’ Said my husband and they laughed altogether. I was inside the kitchen but was able to hear everything they said. 30‘I almost left Jokudu behind.’ In fact, I left her with the kids and ran to the plantation’, Gore said. ‘Be serious Gore, how could you leave your wife behind? ‘She was very slow and people were leaving us behind.’ You know how they do their things so I left her behind.’ ‘Gore, you’re not a good friend at all.’ ‘How is my brother Sule? ‘You ran for your life and even did not bother to wake me up. Aren’t you a bad friend? ‘Not like that Sule.’ I can’t do that to you, maybe to someone but not you.’ ‘Then how come you couldn’t wake me and my wife? ‘I knew my wife was going to wake you.’ When Gore mentioned this I almost laugh aloud in the kitchen for the fact was he was a coward kind of a man. ‘Your wife? Asked my husband. ‘Yes, I informed her to alert you.’ Said Gore. ‘Man you are no good.’ Anyway it is a gone case now. It has been overtaken by events but don’t repeat that again, next time wake me instead of sending your wife.’ ‘I am sorry brother Sule, I won’t do it again.’ ‘It’s okay Gore, we thank God nothing bad happened.’ And there was silence for a minute or two then my husband said. ‘If things continue like this, I swear Gore, be my witness from now I will not drink.’ Then he scooped a grain of soil in his hand and touched his tongue on it to take a grain into the mouth as a solemn vow. ‘Hahaha, better for you brother and remember if you do that I will follow suit.’ Gore doubted and laughed because he saw my husband speaking impossibilities for he was taken to drinking so much. ‘You can laugh but I am quite serious.’ Just see, if my wife decides to run away yesterday and did not care to wake me up, what do you think would have happened to me? Were you not going to find me dead inside? ‘No, no. Nothing of that kind will happen to you.’ ‘I want to cease drinking.’ This is my solemn vow before you Gore and I mean it.’ When I heard this resolution, I laughed. I know this vow wouldn’t hold, even if I was to give it time to prove itself. I was pessimistic because I knew the kind of a man I sleep with. ‘I like the decision you have taken but let me hope you will keep it.’ If you do, as I said, I will follow suit.’ Gore said. ‘I will, don’t worry, for I am a man of my words. They sat there as the conversation goes on between the two of them but now the color of the subject seems to have changed from drinking to something else. ‘I have an opinion brother Sule’, said Gore. ‘Please tell me, what is it? ‘Now this is the fifth time that we are being confronted with gunshots in this village, 31would it not be wise for us to desert this village and go back to Oliju Refugee camp? ‘You have a point and I can’t dispute it’, but the fact is, if we allow ourselves to go back to the camp, we shall die of hunger.’ At least here we are okay, there is food to feed on.’ ‘You are very right, hunger is there but it is not better to die of hunger than to die of a gun.’ ‘I better die of a gun than to die of hunger Gore.’ For a gun kills you without your notice but hunger? No brother. I better die of a gun, just one and for all.’ ‘Get serious sometimes brother Sule, how can you say such a thing? ‘I am being honest with you Gore, aren’t I? Hunger kills you in installments. You die every day and every hour but gun, just one and you die, can’t you see? ‘Just reason with me and let’s get a solution to this. Jokes aside please. What is your stand now? ‘Well, for me, I am not taking my family to the camp.’ I am telling you, life is difficult there.’ ‘My fear is these rebels, they may harm us one day.’ ‘If that is your only fear, you should not worry.’ Those rebels only harm those who have no food to offer when they come but we have plenty here so worry not brother Gore and…’ The conversation was interrupted when I brought them porridge. Minutes later, Santurlino joined them. The porridge was in a green jug. It was hot. My husband could take four mouthfuls and pass the Jug to Gore. And from Gore to Santurlino. The jug rotated from one hand to the other until it was betrayed. They sipped all the porridge. Flies now jump in and out. I came and lifted it up from the ground and washed the shame out of it. Santurlino was a soldier, he was considered the custodian of knowledge. Any news about Melesen and its fate, it was him who knows better. He seems to follow the peace process in Addis Ababa or Kenya but the news from him had become a cliché in our ears. They initiated another conversation and as usual Saturlino dominated it. He took the free riders for a long drive. His voice was high that everyone around heard him, that peace was soon coming to Melesen. That it was going be signed and our suffering as refugees in Gandala will come to an end. I was inside the kitchen hearing his words, I felt relieved. Pain vacated me. Suffering jumped out but again worry comes in. Saturlino had come here several times, he spoke of it many times. ‘This peace is coming soon’ has become a boring mantra. This fact makes me feel sick. Then pain dawned back. Hope flew away and I remained paralyzed on my stool. I was worried. The worry of standing behind and looking into the future. I saw disaster hanging loose there, that of my children growing up in a foreign land as refugees, to marry refugees and give birth to refugees. Wasn’t it a great disaster to me? 32 For I longed to see peace. I want to be home. I want to be chanting words of freedom. But my voice was too low. My voice was too sick to sing those songs. Those songs of freedom. For I was in a foreign land, caged in a refugee camp. If Addis Ababa was a farmland it would have become infertile. For they have overcultivated the same crop again and again, for so many years. Our peace has aged in Addis Ababa, let her come home before we die. I heard of it coming soon. Please let her come. I don’t want to hear about it. I want to see her home.
Chapter Three: The Broken Vow
Many days passed, and my husband had not quarreled with me. Perhaps his attention was being taken away by the incident of the gunshots. He could go out and come back early. Night would always find him home. I begin forgetting my sorrows, for I saw a changed man. He seems to have kept his promise, the vow to never drink again. I was beginning to feel his company, that of a loving and caring husband. I felt like a daughter of a king, a princess. Odd feelings entered and infested my entire inner body. I looked at myself, there, I saw a woman. The one I longed to see and I smiled to myself. Then I smiled again until one day. He came home very drunk and staggered into the room, it was late in the night when he slipped inside. He found me snoring. Then I heard the cry of my daughter. I jumped to my feet only to find that he stepped on her head, she was sleeping on the floor near the door. He almost fell on her, but I was quick, I stretched my hands and pushed him away. He fell down and hit his back on the table that is near the door. As he fell, his hand got hold of a walking stick. He rose and hit me on the head. There was blood. It pained to my heart and it bled profusely. Again, he came to me, and a kick reached my stomach. I fell down on the floor and another kick came flying to my back. Then I rolled on my stomach. There, I felt his foot stamping on my neck and my breath went off. It came back when I was not me. I resurrected on the mercy of God.
Then I was dragged and thrown outside the room. He said women like me don’t merit to sleep under his roof. I saw my kids following me, he chased them out to join their wicked mother. Rain fell heavily. The weather turned cold. My blood chilled, I was shivering. It rained relentlessly and I was soaked all over. There was nowhere to go to. Below the overhang of this roof, I bent low to protect myself. My sight disappeared. It was dark. The dictates of the dark clouds, the water from heaven, the blowing wind all led my knees to betray me. I fell down. Up I stood again, leaning against the wall of the room, I covered my children. The same way a mother chicken does when she protects her little ones from the dangers of the eagles, eagles who want to reap where they never sowed. The rain stood its ground. My body couldn’t veto the penetration of the cold anymore. It entered me with all strength. I realized it won’t stop soon so I heaved my body up and walked towards Jokudu’s home. 35 Chapter Three The broken vow On the way, my vision blurred. I strayed into a wrong path. But I fought vigorously and found my way to her house. When I reached there. I knocked at the door but no one heard me. I banged at the door repeatedly and finally, someone opened the door. They found it was me and great fear entered them. Had I mentioned gunshots, it would have been a marathon, but it was clear to them my husband troubled me. I never for once ran from his beatings to a neighbor’s house, and I did it purposely.
I never wanted to put my host in any confrontation with my husband. I chose to suffer my sins alone. But this time, I could not afford it. I can’t see my children dying of cold outside. So I am at Gore’s home. He was the only man my husband fears to offend of all men. The fear in him vanished and he allowed me inside. When I darted into the room with my kids, my teeth clattered, then my mouth danced out of cold. His wife gave me a dry cloth to change into. After I put them on she spread a mat for me and I laid my body down. My children entered my stomach and I wrapped them till morning caught me snoring. When I opened my two eyes, it was already morning. I struggled to close them but they said to me, they can’t go back, that they are very tired to close again. Therefore, I left them wide-open and saw what I feared the most – the catalogue of my troubles unfolded. Then I said God, troubled people like me should be given a choice. A choice to sleep when they want. If I had that choice, I would have slept forever. When you’re disturbed, opening an eye in the morning is a tragedy. You see what you can’t withstand for a second. You see a world of powerful problems standing before you, problems you can’t send away until they get satisfied. They can choose to live forever if they perched comfortably on you. No amount of coercion can vacate them, for they are your permanent visitors.
So it was for this reason that I resented the dictates of my eyes every morning. But my eyes were still open, I stared at the ceiling of the room. Everything seems to run away from me. Even the room itself wanted to disown me. Fear gripped my heart. I did not want to go anywhere. I saw a grain of peace under this roof than in my own house. My only fear was to go back home. I was like a she goat who had escaped from a hyena’s embrace, but when she reached her pen, she was told to go back to where she had escaped. This request to go back to where I came from may kill me from within before I die physically. Marriage not only destroyed my life but it also buried me when I was still breathing. It was not my desire, it was not my free will to marry. My first marriage was forced to happen, I would not have allowed it to happen. The second one was out of frustration for I had no relatives to look after me in the refugee camp. I thought it was wise to have someone who would take good care of my fatherless daughter and me. Little did I know I was tying a rope round my neck and had invited a man to tie it up on the branch of a tree.
I married him because I wanted a father to father me. To make me his own and bring a smile to my dark face. I wanted a country mate in a foreign land. I thought one day he may take me back to Melesen when things get better. Since my infant days never experienced the sweetness of this world, I hoped to marry a man who would unfold to me the beauty of this world. So I chose the second man to be the messiah I long expected to come and light my world. But see my life today, see where illusion and high hopes had brought me. Just see. If poverty and war didn’t devastate me, if I was allowed a chance to harness my life the way I want it, I would have followed Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, and choose to marry when I want, and who I want, freely, without coercion from anyone. But who shall I blame now? Was it not my fault to bend low for sweets? Sweets of which I knew nothing about its ingredients? Aren’t I desperate to marry anyone to call him father? I felt guilty and full of remorse and cried in silence. I felt betrayed by my poor decision to marry a man I knew not a little about. Demons entered my soul and I thought of suicide. To die and liberate myself from suffering. But if I did that who will take care of my children? Who will protect them from the greed of the eagles of hell? If I must live, it was only for this reason, to live for my little ones.
There was a story: One day a boy went into the forest. It was a big forest. He took his catapult and went there. He went there to hunt for wild birds. Of all his friends, he was regarded as the best in this field. Friends disliked him because of that. They resented him so much, mainly because he was a master bird shooter. Whenever they went together for bird hunting he would come home with plenty of birds so they called his mother a witch. Now he walks alone. When he got to the hunting ground he saw a good looking bird. A fat one to a shooter’s eyes. She was just perched on the tree. She looked tired and was taking her rest. The boy took out the slingshot he was wearing around his neck and put a mud ball into it. He took position, set one eye close and readjusted himself very well that he sees clearly the exposed chest of the poor bird. The boy pulled the catapult, but before he flunged the mud ball away, the poor bird saw him. Her tears began to fall. The bird’s tears landed on his head. The boy felt it. And the bird spoke to him, ‘young boy, before you shoot me, I have one request only that I want you to grant me.’ The boy looked at the bird, he was aghast. The bird continued, ‘I am a new mother. I perched here to inhale some air. Just a little air to continue my journey. I came from far. I have been flying since morning. See my wings. Flying in search of food for my nestlings is not easy. Hunger is eating them up now. I am listless. Hear me please, I urge you to give me fourteen days. Let me go and feed them. When I see that they can fly and get themselves food alone, I will come to this same place. I will come at this time and then you 37can do whatever you want.’ The boy stared at the bird again, but he seems not convinced by what the bird told him. And she said again, ‘I grew up by the grace of God. One day, my mother went out to look for food, she left us in the nest and we waited in vain. She never returned. We grew up with a lot of difficulties. Out of ten nestlings, two survived hunger. Others died long ago.’ Please do me no harm. Let not my kids suffer the way I did. Please let me go and feed them. They need me right now more than you need me. When I am done feeding them, I will come as I promised you.’
The boy's tears dropped. His catapult left his hand and fell down. ‘Many birds suffered my brutality’, he said, ‘but I did not feel I was hurting them. People call me a great shooter and I was proud of it. I feel guilty now when I heard of your story, it is painful.’ ‘From today, I will never set my foot to this forest. Never will I shoot any bird on this earth. Please go well my friend and take good care of your nestlings’ said him. And the bird flew away. Jokudu called me and I joined her outside. The morning chill was terrible. The cold enveloped my body and I sat on a stool near the burning fire. I felt the heat. Hot black tea was poured for me to liberate myself, to chase away the piercing cold. I sipped and the small mug went down, emptied. There was warmth in my stomach. Then the warmness spreads to the whole body. I perspired. I looked up towards the sky. I shook my head in disbelief and pitied her. For the sky had run bankrupt. It was now clear and somehow blue.
There was no water coming down. Oh! Poor sky, the rich sky I knew yesterday night. Where is the grace you held? Where is the water, the wind and the cold? Just vanished like that? Oh poor sky! Seated on a stool, feeling warm and comfortable, my worries came rushing back. I fought the coldness but I was not free yet because misery awaits me somewhere. That was the only somewhere I had no alternative to. The knowledge of it tormented me so bad. Gore was seated there, he and two other friends, just near to the goats hut. They were sipping coffee while addressing other issues of interest. He called me and said, ‘let him know when I am done with his wife so that he takes me back home’, just to let my husband know that I took shelter in his house not anywhere else. And above all, to solve the grievances which transpired between me and him. Upon hearing this, I wanted to cry but tears poured enough yesterday. They refused to come out today. How can I say I do not want to go back home, though within me I never wanted to? I told him I was ready, very determined to go back to the lion’s den. Why should a lioness fear to go back to the den? Is she not the queen of the jungle? She is the queen, yes the queen mother of all the jungles on this earth. No matter how hot the saucepan may feel the fire’s heat, it never jumps 38off. It withstands the temptations of time. Why not me? Gore in front, I followed and his other two friends behind me. A walk to the place I feared the most to step my feet on.
At the lion’s den, I saw my husband seated, stretched out on his chair. Fear entered me. The men made straight to him. They shook hands as friends normally do. I stood at a reasonable distance with Keji tugging at my dress and my boy tied on my back. They say, ‘when men are talking, women should be in the kitchen.’ Minutes later a familiar voice reached my ears, ‘Why standing there, is this not your house anymore? Please go inside and prepare for us something to eat, let the bygone be what it is.’ The voice reverberated in me and sweat ran down my tighs. It was as if I stepped on a land mine that a movement of my feet would have let it explode. So majestically like a queen, I entered the kitchen to check for the leftovers. Here we do not throw food into the garbage bin merely because it was from yesterday. So long as poverty insists not to leave my house, I shall have no courage to throw food out. At night I will put the remaining food up on the roof of the house, outside, so that it receives natural air for the whole night to sustain its freshness. This was our fridge here. A woman is an angel, she forgives so easily. This is her only weakness.
Now I am serving a man who nearly killed me yesterday. The one who stomped on my head and made me suffocate. A woman may suffer the brutality of a man for many years but a single moment of pleasure from him can liberate her from all the evil thoughts she carries in her mind against him. When I finished warming the one day-old food, I served them and returned to the kitchen. We do not eat with men at the same table. We eat in the kitchen. Sometimes when the visitors are plenty, we serve them all the food and we eat the residues in the cooking pan. But still we find pleasure in it. If the food gets finished, a woman does not fight, she instead goes back to the kitchen and cooks more. Though she receives no thanks for her sacrifices, she continues laboring. Sometimes she goes to sleep on an empty stomach but it is not a sin to her. She concerns herself with the wellbeing of the Universe. She gives birth, she cooks. She suffers man’s brutality and he sleeps on top of her every day. Isn’t she an Angel in your sight for heaven sake?
A woman is an Angel. I scratched my pan. I ate from it and got out of the kitchen. The sun sank down. Darkness surfaced and prevailed. What an eye sees at night was clear. What it sees during daytime disappears. But light a torch, it resurfaces to sight. Nature dictated and I carried my body to bed. Then my husband followed. I was weak, I forgot all that transpired. The kicks, the punches and the painful insults. I was a forgiver, a saintly woman. There was my bed, I lied down. I waited for him to come, to come and sleep closer to my stomach. I want to hear his magical stories. Just a whisper of those stories to my ears. 39 I want to feel a utopia world, that one that carries hearty laughter and is warfree. That which holds silence all over, with no echoes to wake up the neighbor’s walls. For once woken, they would disturb this beautiful ambient world. This ambience was the only place to find my peace. And this peace was that which I long to have in the entirety of my life. It was in this bed that I waited for it to come. To come and give me a drive to the Garden of Eden. There lies my destiny. And it was only him who holds the key to the gate of that garden. When he came into the room, he sat on the edge of the bed. I was down in the bed. My eyes darted at the ceiling and I expected more.
I was eager to be blessed. But all was a psychological drama. Every word descending down his mouth, takes me far from my fantasies. I thought of a peaceful ambient, that which was full of pleasure at the climax. To my surprise, tears greeted me. He said, ‘he was tired of feeding a daughter who was not his.’ That I should go and search for her father. That he wasted his energy for having married a woman like me. My husband said I was impure and no man would have married me, if not him who came to my rescue. It was terrible for me. There was no guts to open my mouth. I took it down and sat on it. So that it shouldn’t cause any sound. I wanted my soul to leave and go. I have endured enough suffering on this earth. But nature ruled that I must suffer the fate granted to me. I was told to choose between one of two options, ‘to either send my daughter whom he never fathered back to where I collected her from and this may qualify me to stay with him, or vacate his house and look for another man who may find pleasure in raising up somebody’s daughter. I saw a Pandora's Box there, slung and swaying unfolded. I was treading towards it and no one stops me from touching it, even my poor shadow sold me out to my enemies. This was serious but what did I do than to cry. Where can I take her from here? So I chose to be buried in his compound as a refugee with no home.
By Jada Lo Naruwo
Language: English ISBN: N/A ISSN: N/A 2020 | DOI: N/A
Difficulty: easy Mood: all
Content: non-academic
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