It will be okay. It has to be.

I have three choices.

I could walk right up to the door and seal my fate right here and now. I could try once again to climb through the window as i did the last time although it didn't end well. I could also just sit out here and wait the two hours until my father wakes up. Whichever way, I am in big trouble. I am not drunk enough to deceive myself that this will end well. I am pretty certain I have pushed the final button. I am not sure though, just what my father is capable of when he totally loses it.

I decide to wait it out in the cold. Perhaps he will see that I was thoughtful enough to not wake him up from his sleep and the punishment will be lighter. I am chilled to the bone and my jacket is of no use now. I stagger to the back of the house and slowly lower my beat body onto an old rug that my  mother usually insists we wipe our shoes on.

My intention was not to drink.

I simply went because it did not make sense to go home at 6pm on a Friday evening. I would have to sit through a polite dinner where everyone tried hard to not talk about the thing, the polite dinner where my father would ask about work and I wouldn't know what to say. I hate my job. My father got it for me. A sort of last attempt at helping his wayward son. If you were me, you would hate it too. You might probably argue that in this economy, a job is a job and I should stop being churlish.

The intention was to sit with friends, dance a little and come home by midnight. I have curfew. Me, a grown man, 29years old, I have a curfew and my father enforces it as much as he can. He likes to remind me of my many shortcomings. And they are many.

I see his face and I know I am done for.

He as usual, was the first one up. 5am on the dot.
Normally I drink myself silly and I do not remember what he says when I show up.
Today is different.
My brain refuses to allow my body the luxury. Every thing I drank came right out as soon as I stepped out of the bar. I got the feeling of drunkenness but by the time I lowered my body onto the rug, all my faculties had sobered up.

I do not know which is worse.
The silence or the thoughts of the verbal lashing that is bound to come.
He says nothing and just opens the door wide enough for me to walk in. I walk right by him, fully aware of the stench of vomit mixed with alcohol. Within seconds, I am standing in my room wondering if I should shower first or just fall on the bed and sleep. I realise that sleep is the last thing on my mind so I opt for water and soap.

I was not always like this.

There was a time when I was a better man. I was my fathers pride and joy. I was my mothers son, the one she told everyone about. I was my sister's big brother, the one who made sure no one bullied her, the one who listened to all her stories and stole the food off her plate when they wouldn't let her off the table until the plate was clear. I was the one who should have been watching her that day. I swear, I was watching her, I really was.

She was turning 8 and I was turning 17. We were born on the same day and we liked that little detail. We never understood how it could have happened but it did. We always did something special on that day even when there was no money. That year, we went to lunch at a big fancy restaurant where we could see the greater part of the city from the rooftop.

When she asked my parents if she could go sit by the pool, she liked to do that, (sit and allow her feet to rest in the water) they said yes and asked me to watch her. I did watch her. I really did. I saw her fall in the water. She had given me her shoes to hold so she wouldn't get them wet. I run to the edge of the pool and I was just about to jump in when she came back to the top sputtering.

We didn't think much of it.

My father joked about it, I remember, he said she had gotten her birthday dunking all by herself. We weren't laughing a few hours after we got into the house and she wasn't breathing. On the way home, she had turned to me in the backseat and told me her chest hurt. I teased her about that, told her she was too young to have girls chest problem. When we got out of the car, she started to cough real bad. In between fits, she said she was very tired so mother took her to the room to lie down. She asked me to put the kettle on so she could warm her some milk.

She was gone by the time mother took her the milk.

Even now I catch myself shaking my head in my sleep. It still feels like I have the chance I had then to do something. Do what, you wonder, Not laugh. It hurts me that I laughed. I dream that I am laughing and she is turning a different colour and saying her chest hurts and I am still laughing. I was closer to her than anyone else and yet I never paid attention.

There should be a sign that the people close to you get when you are about to leave them.

If we had thought to take her to hospital when she said she had chest pain, when she started to cough, she would be 20years old today. We would be somewhere laughing about the incident at the pool. When they told us at the hospital that she had drowned, I stared at the doctor. I did not understand. My father explained to them that she had gotten out of the water okay. That we had driven home when she was okay. I told them that she had said her chest hurt. My mother quietly spoke of the cough. The doctor said that it was called secondary drowning.

That water got into her lungs and built up. There was an excess collection of water in her lungs that made it hard for her to breathe. How were we to know a thing like that? She was fine when she got out of the water.

I dropped out of school that year.

The last couple of years have been a blur. I was away from home a while trying to find myself. My mother often came to find me and then my father tried, more for my mother than me. He took me to a rehabilitation centre. I was there a while, came out and went back in. Two years ago, I went back home. I had no where else to go. On bad days, I drink myself silly and listen to my father tell me how my behaviour tortures my mother. I listen to him tell me how she cannot lose another child. I never hear him say what it does to him.

Yesterday was different.

She was right there in my head. She wouldn't leave. She was sad and she was crying. She said she missed me and she wanted me to be better. She said she wanted me to live and be okay. I felt that it was too much to ask. How could I live on when I didn't help her live?

He knocked on my door as I sat on my bed after the shower, letting the tears flow freely. I couldn't bring myself to have a shouting match. Not today, not now. I kept quiet and hoped he would leave. He didn't. He walked in and sat by me on the bed. We sat like that for a while. Me, wondering what it was I was going to have to do to be forgiven, him, staring at his hands. I felt him move and his hand touched my shoulder for a moment before it fell back on his lap to clasp the other. And then he looked at me and said.

"It will be okay."

The days are long, the years are hard, but now I feel that he sees me. He sees me as a person, not just the me who failed to protect her.

Scarred

Isabellah

It is both my favorite and worst time of the day. My worst because it is so painful...the way the comb digs into my hair and then comes up mercilessly! My mother is a kind woman but her hands and fingers are not.

It is my favorite time because it is our time for just the two of us. The time when she tells me the stories of her days. Sometimes she forgets and tells me things that i am sure i should not know. I have learned to be very still and quiet at those times so that she does not remember that i am just a twelve year old who perhaps should not know these things.

She says i look beautiful with my hair long. She says a woman's glory is her hair. I am never cutting it short, even if it means that the wooden comb will show no mercy. My hand quickly reaches out to touch the base of the hair strands she is combing. It helps to ease the pain and keep the hair from breaking. I know this because my mother says so. She just forgets to do it.

Her hands are hard and marked with calluses, Sometimes i watch her soak them and then scrub at them with a pumice stone. Usually, she will soak them in the water that she has placed my feet in and then after she has used the pumice stone on her hands, she will turn to my feet. No one understands why my mother takes great care to make sure that i look a certain way.

Every morning, she opens her tin of honey and rubs a bit on my face. She allows it to stay for a while before she makes me wash it off as i bathe. Every Saturday morning, she will use honey, lemons and sugar to scrub at my face. My mother wants me to be beautiful.

I have a smooth skin. She says puberty will not touch it.  It is as though in keeping my skin beautiful, she gives life to hers.

I never thought my mother was anything but my mother until i began to notice the looks and the whispers that followed us when we walked around the village. As i grew older, my mother started to walk around less and less with me. Now, i go wherever i go by myself. She does not want to be seen with me. She does not want to embarrass me.

We live in a little village. My mother was born and lived here for a while before she left for the city. I know she hates the place but it is our home now. We have a little house in my grandfathers compound.

She allows me to touch her scar every time i want to. It runs across one side of her face and eats a little onto her right side. She has a few scars on her right shoulder and her leg too. Just one side. I do not know the story but i know that people in the village say it was acid.

They say it was the acid that got her to leave the city. I went home one day and asked her what acid was. I was 6years old and i had heard the children at school say my mother was ugly because the acid burnt her face. She said it was a bad thing and yes, it had burned her face. And then she held my chin and bent down and looked a me and said i was going to be the most beautiful child. She did not tell me how the acid got to her face, how the acid affected only one side of her body.

My mother gets a far away look in her good eye when she speaks of her life. I can turn around quietly and stare at her in between knots and she is staring straight ahead, one hand resting in her lap and another gently resting on my head. When she remembers where she is, who she is talking to, she laughs a nervous laugh and digs the comb in.

I have never thought of her as ugly. I just thought she was different. She tells me that i used to turn from her screaming in the night, and that my grandmother would come and hold me to calm me down. I was terrified of her. Her face scared me for a while. Eventually i grew into it. I do not understand how a child could ever turn away from its mother. I am ashamed of myself when they tell me that story.

I am ashamed of myself sometimes now when i am glad that she does not go everywhere with me. That she will not come to my school or attend the same church service as i do. She does not want to make me uncomfortable. I am ashamed to say that i am glad for the gesture. I hate myself for being glad. But it is the truth.

Rebecca

Her right eye is of no use now. I wish we had had the money. They told us that if we had had money, something could have been done. We didn't have money. She came back to us one day looking as she does now. Isabella was two years old and she looked thin and shabby.

We never got the story. We never understood what really happened. My husband and i did what we could but she was just too delicate. All we knew was herbs but we didn't know which ones would work for her. We did what we could. That was ten years ago.

I watch her plait Isabella's hair, i listen to the stories she tells and i smile to myself. I watch from my little spot how Isabella turns and stares and then quickly looks away. I know she struggles. I know she does not know if she should be listening to these things. I worried about it too the first few times but now i know that Isabella is who she has, who she has chosen to share her stories with.

Every time i go back into the house, my husband asks me if she has said anything. The answer usually is no. She has not told her daughter what happened to her too, how she ended up like that. She was a beautiful little girl, and it broke my heart when i first saw her. I remember that she said it four times, walking toward me slowly as though she was a thing to be afraid of. " Mummy, it is me"
But what mother forgets her child? I knew it was her the minute i saw her. I am ashamed to say that a part of me wanted to run. I felt sick to my stomach. It was a horrible thing that they had done to her.

She is just 28years old. She has settled it in her heart that the only living she can do is through Isabella. I watch her dot on her, i fear that it is unhealthy. I fear to speak about it. She has never asked anything of us except to give her a place to live and raise her child. Every two months, she covers herself up and leaves for a day. We know now that she has gone to get money.

She said it one day. "Isabella's father wants to take care of her. He sends money every month if i do not tell who did this to my face." We do not know Isabella's father. She is happier knowing that her child is provided for, than seeing someone pay for what happened. She goes quiet when we push. She keeps still and hears us out and then she tells us that we cannot undo the damage, we can just allow her to give her child a good future.

I am her mother but i do not know that i would have done what she does. I do not know that i would not have spoken out. I do not know that i would have had the will to live, if i was as scarred as she is.

The day of the thing

I was with her the day of the thing. She was her usual self, bubbly and all over the place. She was wearing one of those bright colored dresses she liked because she said they made her more African. She was one of those people who liked to shout it on the mountain top that she was black and she was born in Africa. No she wasn't.

Sandra was not born in Africa. We were actually born in the same hospital. Our mothers went to school together and as luck would have it, were pregnant round about the same time. We are a few days apart in age. She is older than me. She is light skinned. She is not the black that is black. If she ever reads this, she will slap my forehead. She likes to do that when she thinks you have lost your senses. The slap is supposed to be an impartation of the sense that you have lost.

We grew up in the same house. It was hard times back then so our mothers shacked up together. Do not ask me where our fathers are. We do not know. Our mothers had too many stories and they told them all the while laughing out loud as though it was the funniest thing. The stories changed so frequently that we realised it was a thing they did not want to talk about.

Sandra likes to make sure people identify her as black because she wants to experience what i experience. She is the stronger and bolder of the two of us. When people shove me aside, she shoves them back. Sometimes, she screams out loud, "I am black too, so go ahead and shove me too". She stands up for me as though i am the girl and she is the boy.

On a bad day, Sandra will write a poem and then recite it to me. She will pin it in my room and then make a song out of it. Every time she catches my eye, she will break out in song. She is funny and wonderful like that.

We are both 15years old now. My mother passed on two years ago and so i live with Sandra and her mother. They are the reason i have not taken to the streets and become a junkie. I remember, in the first few days after the funeral, Sandra would follow me everywhere. I had never seen her so disturbed. It was as though she was haunted. If i stepped out of the house to go anywhere, she found a reason to come with me. It is as though i had finally found my shadow.

In one of her rare moments, the ones where she shows a bit of emotion, she told me she feared that i would turn rogue. I never could, i told her. My mother had been sickly for a while. It was just a matter of time before she passed. I saw it coming and made my peace with it long before it happened. We had talked about it, my mother and i, her talking, me listening, and so i was ready.

Sandra vetted my friends and made it a point to make them her friends. If she didn't like them, she made sure i saw little of them. She never really had many friends of her own. Few people could take in her energy. She was a busy body who sometimes, i think, was born to fight my battles. She was a fiery little selfless thing. She lived for me. I do not know why Sandra loved me so. She gave the best of herself to me. All i gave her was my time. It was all i had to give.

On the day of the thing, we were up early. She had heard that there was going to be a thing and she wanted to be part of it. We had never been that side of town. As much as we were not rich, our part of town was decent. Sandra had her mind made up. I couldn't stop her. This was a thing she had been preparing for for a very long time. I felt it was me showing her that i shared her dreams. I will never forgive myself.

It looked like a war zone when we got there. I didn't know it would be like this. I had no idea. When i looked at Sandra's face, i could tell that this is what she had hoped it would be. I motioned to her that we should leave. She signed back to me even as her mouth spelt the words. She was not going anywhere. I had never seen her like this. I knew something was going to go wrong.

I do not know where it came from but there was a moment when i could see her and then i couldn't. People were running, there was something in the air that made my eyes water and me choke. I know she was swept away in the crowd. She was so small. I couldn't shout for her, because i am mute. No recognisable sound comes out of my mouth when i open it. I was crying and looking around frantically trying to breathe. The air around me was white and i couldn't see. I remember feeling huge arms around me and then my feet were off the ground and my arms were flailing.

I didn't fight the man who now had me over his shoulder. He was black like me. I couldn't tell him that i couldn't hear him much too. Eventually he put me down in a place he thought was safe and told me to stay put. I sat on the wet ground and cried. The man never came back and eventually i risked it and run. I got home eventually and found my aunt staring at the TV. She shook me as she asked where Sandra was. I couldn't speak, she had forgotten that.

Sandra was arrested. They said she was throwing stones at the police. They said she was one of the people that had planned the whole thing online. We didn't have a computer. Sandra did not like to use computers. She couldn't have. She would never throw stones too. She just wanted to be seen to be black. She was just 15years old. She couldn't have.

She was taken to the youth court and when she came out, she was braver than before. She cut her hair very short and braided it. She started to get invitations to speak at all these seminars about being black and proud. She put up posters in her room with words like "I am Not off black, i am black" "The devil is not Black" "I was born to be somebody"

Her mother missed my mother most in those days. She did not really understand.
When i got over the fear, i understood. Sandra had found her cause. She wanted to fight for something and if even a drop of her blood was tied to a group she felt was being mistreated, she would fight as though the blood of that group was hers alone to defend.

The things you taught me

My father used to wear spectacles. He often sat on a wooden rocking chair at the front of the house and read the newspapers, top to bottom, front to back. If you spoke to him at any point as he read, he lowered his chin and looked at you over the spectacles. He never would say anything. That one hour was his and his alone. Whatever it was, it could wait. It had to wait.

It is a thing i learned to love and respect about him. That when he set his mind to make time for himself, whatever time of day it was, he respected that time and you had no choice but to do the same. He taught me that every moment in your life was a choice. That what you gave yourself was what the world gave you. That creatures had habits and those habits are what fed them. He taught me to measure my worth.

My father was a kind man. He never once said a harsh word to us. He however never spared us a beating if we deserved it. It often came with a sad look on his face. That look for me, was these words unspoken. "I love you. I love you so much that i want you to learn that what you did right there is beneath you. So i am going to beat the thought of ever doing it or anything similar again, out of you." I always took my beatings in stride. The canes were a hard plain bamboo stick. He had five of them under his bed wrapped in a plain cloth. One for each of us.

My mother never interfered in these moments. She often walked away right before the discipline session and came back right after with a cup of tea for him. It was as though beating us drained him. She always sat with us later asking about anything and everything but never mentioning the cane. She knew that he would never beat us for no reason.

My father never once tasted any alcohol. Not even the local brew. He did not like sodas and anything else that was artificial. There was no sugar in our house growing up because he didn't like sugar. We always had plenty of honey and at a point, even a bee hive.

Our home was like a shelter. People always came and stayed for days, months and some even years. At one point, i remember there were twenty of us. He just never turned away people. My mother taught us to quickly make up sleeping places in every available space each night and roll up the mats and mattresses before breakfast the next morning.

When i was 15, he brought a television to the house. It showed black and white pictures. He would crowd us all around him every evening to watch the news with him. My mother had to leave her cooking and come and watch with us too. He believed that if he was hearing something important, we all had to hear it. We had to keep our questions for the end of the news and then we could ask what it all meant. He was patient with us and explained as much as he understood.

I like to read. I know i got that from him. He would fold the paper after he read it and place it on the chair for whoever wanted it next. That was always me.

I watch him now as he drags the stick to bring the mouse trap closer. He is old and his back gives him a bit of trouble now. He speaks more now that he is older. When i asked him why, he said that at his age, he had more wisdom to share. He said he did not want to take the wealth of information he had to the grave.

He tells me to laugh more. He says he does not like the lines on my face. They tell a story that he does not want to read. He says there is so much sadness in the world that the face of a person should be a source of joy. He likes to say, "Joanne, when i see you, i want to smile, i want to feel my heart grow warm. But many times when i see you, i feel as though i should be crying with you and yet i do not know what it is that is breaking your heart."

He likes to hold my hand and speak a blessing over me as i leave. He says he has to be sure that the last thing he says to me every time i visit is a blessing because perhaps he might not make it to the next visit. When i tell him to not speak of death, he laughs at me and tells me it is a principle i should pick up, to speak well to others all the time. To wish them well and to pray with them.

I never really thought much of it until i grew up and started to compare. When i hear people talk of their fathers, i shake my head and excuse myself before i ask if that is really their father or a man who happened to share the same living space with them. I cannot understand how they can be so different from the father i had. How men with the same title and responsibilities can differ so greatly. I love my father even more now, I appreciate him even more.

He must know that he is one of a kind. When i tell him the stories of men my friends have for fathers, he smiles and says he had a good companion in my mother and that the children we were made it all the more easy for him. He is not a vain man this one.

I laugh but really, i cry

My back hurts. It is a sharp pain that keeps cutting across. I lean back and allow my back to touch the soft cushion of the chair and then i throw my head back. I know what the problem is but i shall not be reaching out to unclasp my bra. Not right now in the middle of the church service anyway.

My mother is giving me one of her side looks, the ones that say "You better get your act together or there shall be hell to pay" I do not want to be paying hell, i cannot afford the kind of price it asks. I sit up in my chair and focus my eyes on the shoes of the man in front of me. He has been pacing for a while and i get tired just looking at him. Everything tires me these days.

I feel guilty for being here. I think that the people who should be here are the ones who have serious things to ask of God. I wish i could just run out and release the bra for a few precious minutes of relief.

The first time i felt the pain was last week. It was so bad i couldn't keep still. I kept walking up and down at every opportunity. Eventually i figured that the pain was from the bra. When i told my sister, she laughed and said i was growing up and my breasts had grown bigger. She said i needed a new bra.

The preacher motions to me and i know it is my mothers favorite time of the service. The time when i get up and sing my heart out. I love the words that i sing. This wonderful God who saved us and paid the price. The one who loves us unconditionally, the one who is father to the fatherless. My father died last year and so it is just us kids and my mother. He was killed in a car accident. My mother is still grieving. She grieves different from me.

Our house is a little distance from the church so after the service, after my mother has waited her turn to greet the preacher and have him say how beautifully i sing, we walk quietly home. The twins are nine years old, i am the middle child at seventeen while my sister is 19. I do not know how it is that no one else in my family can sing but i will say proudly that i sing like it is what i was born to do.

My back still hurts and i am quick to take off the bra when i get to my room. I immediately feel dizzy and sit by the bed. I am not sure if i should tell my mother but i hate to worry her with everything that is on her plate.

It is three weeks later and i am laughing at myself. Off course i am pregnant. I did the did, did i not? What did i expect? I am laughing but i know that i am in big trouble. I am laughing but i know it is going to break my mother. I am laughing but i know that i shall not be able to stand in front of the church and sing again soon. I am laughing but i know that i have let my family down. I think the tears coming from my eyes are real, even as i laugh.

My mother has not lashed out as i expected she would. She just stared at me after i told her and a while later, whispered that it was her fault. We have been sitting outside the church for a while now, waiting in line to see the preacher. She wants to tell him before this coming Sunday service. She is holding my hand and telling me it is going to be okay. I honestly have never seen this side of my mother. I thought she was going to disown me.

She tells the preacher that she feels she neglected me after my dad died. That she climbed into a shell and forgot about us. It is the truth but i still do not see how it is her fault that i am pregnant. My boyfriend, well he is not really my boyfriend, (seeing as it was just one night) is somewhere that i do not know. It was one night. I was at a house party, and there was lots to drink. I like to drink. I was happy and lost in the moment. I didn't understand why everyone at home was grieving and walking around sad and yet it was months since the burial. I am certain the boy doesn't remember me. I start to laugh again and i can see the concern etched on my mothers face.

I remember the day my mother got the phone call. She didn't say a word to us, just rushed out to the hospital. We found out later that evening when she came home, face swollen, with our aunt and uncle supporting her. She looked at us and started to cry. She kept saying over and over that she did not know what to do with us. That she did not know why God had taken him and left her.

My aunt explained it all and for a few moments, we cried and held each other. The twins and i eventually stopped crying. My sister who was much closer to my father, the apple of his eye, we used to say, sat with my mother longer and they just wailed and held each other.

The preacher tells her now to allow me to let it all out. I do not know what you let out in laughter. I also do not yet know that i am crying as i laugh. He says that this is me letting out the pain that i held on to so that i would not accept that my daddy was gone. I notice that i am crying when my mother wraps her arms around me and i feel her dress press against my wet cheek.

We were young, You still are

We were young, that i can say with certainty now. We didn't see the whole picture. We thought that what we had would be all we needed. We were young and we didn't think.

Every time i find the strength to look at the pictures, the very first one sucks the life out of me. We were beautiful and carefree. You with the one single rose and key, and me with my hands covering my face because you could be just the right dose of naughty and sweet at the same time.

You had just bought me the car. The little yellow car that looked like a frog. I remember how you laughed so hard when i told you that those cars were ugly and cute at the same time and how i said i would want one just to look at and laugh at myself.

You bought the car because you said you wanted me to have a reason to laugh at myself every morning as i walked out of the house to work. It was old and beaten down but you said the paint was fresh and no one would know. I didn't care. I knew you could not afford to buy me a big fancy car. I loved you more for remembering the things that made me laugh.

There is a picture there that tells me of how good an actor you were then. It is that of me crying shaking your body and willing you to live. You thought it was funny. I didn't. I thought it selfish that you should want me to experience one of life's cruel adventures before its time, and all because you wanted to see how i would react. You were just playing but you looked pale and gone and i was broken and lost.

I remember your mothers eyes. She always looked at me like i was a thing to be pitied. I guess she knew the child she had raised. I guess she knew what i had set myself up for.  Your dad liked me though, he thought i would be good for you. He said to me that for the first time in your life, you had made a decision that was right. He was proud of you because you had chosen me.

When i see him now, he smiles at me and says i did better than he expected.

I was young and hopeful and i thought people got better with age. That life taught some lessons that helped the growing process. I believed that there would come a time when you would understand that some things were more important than others. I was wrong. You never did understand.

You are a good man. You just lose your way so easy. You do not know how to hold on to anything. You do not know how to sieve what you should keep and what you should lose. You want fame and money and everything that comes with it and you will get it. I know it will destroy you. I know you think that i shall be here waiting.

A month after you gave me the car, they came and took it away. The man said you had his money and this was the collateral. I remember your face when you came home. You held me and cried and said the times were so hard. I didn't know then that the hardness of the times was dictated by the gambling and the drugs. I am naive, that i will admit to.

I lived in a little bubble of peace and happiness. I liked to think, everything would be okay. When your father first mentioned to me that you were taking drugs, i laughed at him. Yes, it was your father that told me. I told him i knew you well. He told me i was foolish.

You had me fooled, yes you did. I was blind because i believed so much in us that i didn't see that there was no us. The day you told me that, you laughed. I cried. I didn't understand. Your friends laughed with you and one of them threw some money at me. They told me to find some happiness and buy a few short skirts.

I carried the children to your mother and she said she couldn't keep them. She told me that real women stayed on and paid the price for the story of the beautiful relationship they had to show later in life. I came back home and you were gone. She must have called you. How else had you known i would be out of the house long enough for you to pack it up and run?

My sister says she is glad i did not marry you. I do not understand how that helps since i have your children and i will always have that tie with you. I see you every so often when your music plays on the TV. I see you often, but when i look into your eyes, i see that you are lost and i feel sorry for you. You are not the man in the photos that i now hold.

You came to see the children the other day and you looked at me for a long time before i shut the door. You said you were sorry. You said you wish you had listened. You said you were in too deep now and you could not leave. I didn't understand what you meant but i realized that once again you were choosing all of those things and not me or your children. Not the life that we could have.

Dr. Arti

She allowed her hand to pat the spot beside her and closed her eyes. Nothing. It felt like a little victory. She hoped it would stay this way. The fewer the people that knew, the better. Four nights to go and she would be back home where no one would be any the wiser.

She rolled off the bed and made for the bathroom. She hoped the woman she was sharing the room with would not ask her why she was up and about for most of the night. She had learned that however high up you rose, the littlest thing could cripple you and keep you from enjoying your success. If people found out about it.

The early morning showers always helped release the stress in her body. Whenever she had access to a shower, she stood under the more-hot-than-warm water and allowed it to slap at her back. If she was in her bathroom at home, she would have done the unthinkable and allowed for release from her bladder. It annoyed her to have to take a break from the shower to use the toilet to pee.

This was her first time out of her country. For the first time in her life, she felt important. She felt like she had a contribution to make. This little handicap would not stand in her way. If she had to stay awake four more nights she would.

Some people are afraid of their own shadows. Some people have fears that are valid. Some people are like me, one little thing has such a hold on us that we fear to be who we should because we fear that someone will know that little thing that we are trying so hard to hide.

My name is Kenchuche and i do not like water.

I have a voiding diary. I have had one for the last three years. Before i got one, i thought this whole thing was my problem. That i was somehow abnormal.

I remember that my mother beat me up so much when i was a child because she thought i was a lazy child who couldn't get to the toilet fast enough. As i grew older, she figured i would get trained better in boarding school where the rude remarks and teasing from the other children would push me to work on this bad habit. It didn't. It got worse.

I learned how to deal with my problem when the matron said i would be thrown out of school if i didn't. I did not want to tolerate my mother more than i should so i found a way around it. I wore a sanitary every night and used tissue during the day. All the pocket money i ever got, i spent on sanitaries and toilet paper. When i got a severe infection from this option, i took myself to a doctor during the school holidays.

He wanted me to go and bring my mother. I refused. He explained to me that it was a problem that i needed an adult to support me with. I refused. I had taken some money from my fathers bedside drawer and i was going to use it to pay for the treatment for the infection.

I do not know why he felt sorry for me but he did. He treated me for the infection and asked me to see him three days later. He told the lady at the reception that he would cover my bill from his own pocket.

When i did go back, he sat me down and spoke about a thing they referred to as Urinary Incontinence. He asked me if i liked alcohol, i said i had never tasted it. No i did not like coffee and the other things he mentioned.

I was 17years old then. I was angry at the world, i was angry at my mother for making me think it was my fault, i was angry at myself for having this thing that i could not control.

I had made friends with the doctor who felt sorry for this pitiful girl that was me. When i went back to school, he came to see the matron and explained it all. I was given my own living space. It was small and inconvenient, it must have been a broom store at a point, but it allowed me to put a plastic sheet on my mattress with no one judging me.

I got through secondary school and made it through the University too. When i was twenty two, I finally stopped being stubborn and got the voiding diary. I have to write all this stuff down, like what i drink, when i go to the bathroom, how....it is just very tiresome but i have always been a straight A student. I figured if i could do this one thing, it would surely get me on the journey to being normal.

I use absorbent pads now but i hate to use them so much. In the night, when i am back home, i do not. I like for my body to breathe. I needed it to breathe yesterday and that is why i was not wearing one. Also because our luggage got misplaced at the airport and i only have one spare in my handbag. They have not yet found the luggage. Chances are high that the conference will end before they find it.

I do not have a boyfriend. I do not want one. Dr. Arti, the doctor who has now become a personal friend, says i should not shut myself out from the world. Did i mention that i am a medical student and i am here to present a paper on a very important thing on behalf of my faculty? Yes i became an overachiever and here i am now.

There was a war

I have always been afraid of fish. When i visit people and they say dinner is ready and it is fish they serve, i am never sure how to decline without being rude. It is not so much the fish, It is more what it represents for me.

I was seven years old when my parents packed us up and sent us across the border to live with my mother's cousin. A few months later, when the new year started, there were all these stories flooding our ears. I was the youngest and i really didn't understand most of them but i saw how the people around me reacted to them.

My aunt who was normally such a sweet natured person was suddenly always tense. She snapped at her children and treated my sister and i as though we were flowers she didn't want to see whither. She fed us and sat watching us long after she thought we were asleep.

The first time i sensed that her unease was about us, i started to wonder if something had happened to my parents. Her husband was hard to read. He patted my head like i was a cute puppy every time he met me in the corridor and went about his way. My sister who was the brave one, also the older one, dared to ask one day.

"Aunt Bridget, do you think Mum and Dad will be picking us soon?"

We saw her eyes tear and then she turned away, took a moment to compose herself and then she turned and smiled and said it would be a little while longer. Did we not like it here? Did we need something? Did we have an urgent thing to tell them? We could tell her, you know, she was here for us, and she would do anything to make us even more comfortable.

Judith, my wise 14year old sister, drew me to her later that night and just held me. She said we would be okay. She said she had heard at school that people were fighting back home. She said our parents were probably stuck there because of the fighting. She didn't say much else except to pray the prayers of a 14year old.

A few days later, i overheard my aunt talking on the phone. She was telling somebody about a house that had been hit and a man that had died. I told Judith about it and this time when she asked Aunt Martha, she wouldn't let it go when the answers felt wrong.

They told us that our house had been destroyed. That there was a war. That they had not heard from my parents but that the person who we had known as our gateman back home had died when they bombed the house. They told us that our country was at war. That some people did not like other people and so they were fighting each other. They told us that we were safe here with them and that they were doing the best they could to find where our parents went.

I remember that i did not sleep in the days that followed. Every time my aunt left our room in the night, Judith would climb into my bed and hold me as she prayed and cried. I found that i couldn't cry, but i saw that Judith cried enough for the both of us.

On TV one day, the man said that people's bodies all the way from our country were being picked up from the lake here. That they had been in the water for many days. That was when i stopped eating fish. I didn't know if fish wouldn't eat people and i did not want to eat a fish that ate a man.

I remember one day, my cousin Gerald said that he had been told at school that they were finding little pieces of people in the mouths of fish from the lake. My Uncle who i had never seen react to anything, grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him to the kitchen. My uncle was a giant of a man. I always felt safe around him because i thought nothing would touch the people who were under his cover. That day, i knew Gerald was in trouble.

About two weeks later, my aunt came shouting her thanks to God and screaming our names. She said my father had gotten in touch with her and he was safe. We, off course, were excited, but when i asked if our mother was okay, she went quiet. She told us after a while that he was not with her.

They had not left the country together fearing that if they were caught, they would both be killed and we would be orphaned. She had gone through one border and he had gone another side. I didn't understand.

It was another week before my mother got in touch.

Even then, i never understood it. How they could leave each other. How my father would leave my mother to find her way in a place that was very dangerous. I didn't ask the question but Judith, always my voice, did.

My mother said it was because they were thinking of us. That it was so terrible they were not sure that they would get out safe.

You see, my father was that group of people that many people did not like. My mother was from the privileged group and she was more assured of safety than he. I had never known that one of them was more privileged than the other. It had been his idea that they separate. It was so that if he was found, she would not be in trouble because of him. But she had never agreed to it. He had sneaked out at a certain point when they were none the wiser.

She said she knew what he had done the minute they started to look around for him in the building they were hiding in. She said at that time, you couldn't even cry, you only had to pray and focus on living. That to say goodbye to someone then was as though it was for forever. That people didn't say goodbye. They just turned and walked away.

When we asked about the neighbors, she said they didn't go to them. They hid from as many people as they could because the few who saw them looked at my father as though he were a curse. My mother, her sister and brother had travelled together. My father had been alone.

The first time i saw him, when he came to us at Aunt Martha's house, he was small and he had a large scar on his face. Judith told me later that she had seen his back and that there were cuts there. I do not know what happened to him. What he survived and what he saw.

We all live together now. We have never gone back to our country. My father says it turned its back on him and he will never go back but my mother has gone to visit twice. She wants us to go with her next week so that we can light a candle and visit the graves of her parents. I do not know if my father will go with us.

It is eighteen years later but i still cannot eat fish.

My name is William, I fix cars

Let me tell you something about myself.
I do not have a cent saved up in any bank account. I have a good job and every so often, i do these gigs that pay better than my job. I however, do not have savings. Yes, perhaps i am stupid, careless even. You can describe me as you wish.

My father was a very rich man. I got a good education at the schools that met the standards he and his peers set. My mother was a beautiful woman whose sole purpose had become to smile and nod when he spoke. At a certain point in my life, i remember her having a voice. I do not know what happened to it. She just went silent and stayed that way. She died a couple of years ago, i was 14years old then. It was a sad but quick affair. She was buried and gone.

My father never remarried but there was a woman that came to live with us a few months later. She was even more quiet than my mother but she possessed a quiet strength. I always felt that my father had his hands full once the door closed behind them. He always came out more human. A little less loud and more tolerant of the rest of us. She often smiled at us and went about her day. I never knew if she even liked us, but i know it was because of her that we were spared many beatings.

When i was 18, they packed up and left. My father was 50years old. I am the first born child of 4. The youngest was 8. I was away in boarding school with two of my other siblings. The youngest, Estelle, was left with my grandmother, my mother's mother. My father came to see me in school and said "they" were after him and he thought it best to leave us behind as he could not secure the necessary documents for us all at a go. He said it would be done in the next few months and we would find them all set up for us.

That was the last time i ever saw him. My father died. His body was found in that place where he went. I do not know what state they found him in, or how he looked. That was a year later. I do not know where she went. We just never heard from either of them after they left. I do not know the real story, even now at 30.

There was so much fighting for the property after he died, relatives and children i didn't know. A boy a few years older than me was named heir and we were told he was our older brother. I was 19 and i didn't care.

We were already all split up by then. I was at the University working part time at a garage where i played around with people's cars all day learning the trade. I lived in a hostel. Two of my siblings lived with an aunt and Estelle lived with my grandmother.

They took everything. Within a year, i was out of school as my tuition was too expensive and my father's money was not available for us anymore.

I joined two friends who had gotten into the car import business. I had already quit school and so i had enough time to learn and grow in the business. I made enough money from it to pay my siblings tuition through school. It went so well i feared it was illegal. I never did go back to school.

When the money comes in, i hand in my tithe, pay my bills, take care of my siblings and whoever else is in my way to take care of. I do not have any money on my account. I do have an account because that is where the shop sends my pay. We prefer to call it a shop although really it is a garage. It was my idea but i am no manager. I know only how to make money and give it.

I know that girls like a man who can fix their every car worry without leaving a nasty smell. Keep it clean and do not make her seem stupid. I know that there is a class of men who like to have their car tended to by a clean expert who can speak their language. I am good at what i do and the shop is doing real well.

I cannot bring myself to amass wealth. I find the idea of having something for people to fight over once i am gone repulsive.

There is a girl i like though. She has big plans. When we sit and talk, she asks me what i want for my future, where i want to live, if i plan to ever build my own house. She says i should stop playing God trying to save everyone, and prepare for the family i shall have. That means i should start putting aside money.

I do not want people fighting over a thing that they can lose. I do not want to lose myself in the things that money can buy. I do not want to be my father. I like that i can buy whatever i need when the money comes in, which is often. I do not know if i want to join the world where money speaks louder than people.

Perhaps i am silly. Actually, i know i am. I think i like silly though. But i also like this girl.

The things that i do

I see that i will carry this with me for a long time. I am not sure if that is supposed to make me have a more fulfilling life or to live in fear of the uncertainty of tomorrow. I know, how it makes me feel though. Angry. But i am not sure if angry is the word that gives justice to my feelings just now.

Five years. Five solid years of my life wasted. It is more annoying than it is painful

I got a letter this morning, at my work place. I walked in and the receptionist handed me the offending item, with a smile. Now that i have had time to think about it, i realise she probably didn't know the contents of it and that is why she was smiling. I didn't treat her like she didn't know at the time though, i lashed out and she was the nearest to me. I shall apologise one day.

They said in the letter that it was time to restructure and my position was being dissolved. Many big words really that meant i was out of a job. They said it was with immediate effect. I was to hand in my ID and all other company property. I had always seen on TV men walk out of the office with a large box after they had quit. I always thought my exit would be that way. I never dreamed that...

I walked to my desk and noticed immediately that nobody was looking me in the face. Everyone was pretending to be busy. There was no usual chatter. So they all knew, i thought. Something came over me. I do not know what it is. I guess it was pent up anger and that thing they say... that madness comes in a moment.

I remember two of them holding my hands behind my back and pushing me into the pantry asking me to calm down. When i looked at what i had done, i didn't understand it. My computer screen, well the office computer, was shattered and there was a bit of blood from my fist. I had hit somebody too. I do not know why i hit the computer. I wanted to make them lose something too i guess. The heavy wide glass that marked a part of the room was also in pieces. The room looked smaller. I understand now why they had put it there in the first place.

The guard holding his gun was looking at me calmly and asking me to leave peacefully. The gun wasn't pointed at me, he just had it slung over his shoulder to remind me that it was there. I had worked here for five years and now i was being shown the door with no apology.

I remember the drive home. I kept asking myself why i had done the things i did. It was the shock. It had to be. We had just moved into a new house, my wife and i, and our first born child was just months away. My mother had just come to live with us too and she was not helping matters going on and on about this and that. She raised me to be an achiever, she is disappointed that i do not live the lifestyle she gave up her life to give me.

I do not know who i will tell first. My wife who just recently convinced me to let her stay home and raise our child, or my mother who already thinks i am a-little-nothing. I am a small man in stature and i am not very tall either...well i am a bit on the short side. It does not help matters.

The company says they will take the damage costs off my severance pay. They will however, not write me a recommendation. They think i am a violent man who has cost them more than i have contributed.

I remember the first time i destroyed a thing. It was at a company party. A few of us got very drunk and we peed in cups and placed them in the boss' car. They saw the video off course, off the CCTV cameras. It was my reputation that i destroyed then...mostly it has been my reputation.

I remember an expensive bottle of bourbon that had been sitting in my boss' office. She kept it for the important CEO's who came by. In my defence, we had worked all weekend and gotten no recognition. It seemed like the sensible thing to do, reward ourselves. We drank it all and left the empty bottle at her desk. When you are drunk, everything makes sense.

Last week, i was arrested for drink driving. When the police stopped my car, i turned around and drove away fast. I knocked another car in the process and that is how they got me. I slept in a cell that night and spent the next day figuring out insurance and whatnot. The company off course found out.

I cannot tell my wife. She says my drinking makes me stupid. I think it just makes me bold. Perhaps i will stop drinking now since i will not have the money to buy the drinks. My wife says i need to learn to deal with my anger. It is not anger, it is expression. I think people who cannot express themselves are sad people.

Those things that i do, i do not understand myself sometimes. It is as though someone else takes over my body and causes harm and then they leave and the blame is all on me.

To the City

The bus moves so fast. It is as though things are flying past me.

I can hear the other passengers grumble among themselves and every so often, one of them finds the courage to shout at the bus driver to slow down. It is useless. He is a man on a mission. I assume he has a reason that is making him drive us like a garbage truck.

These chairs have long done their time, but i do not care. I watched the girl in front of me throw a heavy blanket over her chair before she sat. I assume she uses the bus often and she knows something i don't. She dresses like a city girl. I will soon be like her. I am going to the city, for a better life.

My brother has been asking everyone he knows about life in the city so that he can feel my head with good stories. Sadly, i know even the ones he is not telling me. He is young and hopeful. If i get to the city and make some money, i can send some home for him to go back to school.

Somebody is shouting at the driver to slow down.

It is pretty cold. My home town is in the hills. The bus is going down one of them and when you look down sometimes, you can see the houses of brave men and women who have dared to build in the valley. I am trying hard not to think of the stories i have heard of buses that miss a turn. My father said i should not look down. He said to keep my eyes in front of me and to not think of the dangers of the journey. My mother said i should talk to no one except the people at the bus park in the city.

If it were up to me, i would be back in the hills going about my chores and waiting for Saturday. On Saturdays, i do not have school and i can run into the hills and meet Innocent. He is a boy who likes me. I like him a lot. We sit and talk for hours. I was telling my mother about the dead bats in the cave and i forgot and mentioned him. She told my father and now, here i am on the bus.

I know i should not have mentioned him. It is not like we were doing anything wrong but i know my parents have been very edgy. Most of the girls my age in the village have been getting married and some just have babies. My mother insists that i finish school and make a better life for myself than she had. So they are sending me to the city where i am to find my way to my Aunties house. The directions are on a paper in my bag.

The bus has stopped and people are buying meat, soda and cassava from the men and women who are all but throwing them at us through the open windows. I do not have any money to spare so i shall keep my hands tucked neatly into my old blanket. I have had it since i was a child. I am 12years old now. I wanted a thing from home to remind me of where i come from so that i can keep a feel of the familiar things.

I miss my brother already. He cried a lot when i got on the bus. He has always been so brave. When i told him i was going away, he told me i was going to make us rich. He asked me to send for him.

The bus is moving again and the driver seems upset. He is driving very fast.

I remember my mothers prayers last night. I could hear her pacing all night muttering things under her breath. My father prayed the evening prayer before we went to bed but my mother didn't think it was enough. She woke me up in the wee hours to join her. She did not sleep much. She says the devil lives in the city and as much as she would rather i stay, she wants me to have a good life. She says i am a sensible girl who will do the right thing.

My back is beginning to hurt. I look out the window and realise it must be about 2pm. We have a few more hours on the road, if what they told me is right. I am sitted in the middle of the bus. My mother got in with me and made sure i had a seat with a seatbelt. She says you can never trust these buses.

I do not remember much. I do not know how it happened. One minute the people on the bus were shouting at the same time, the next minute, my hands were reaching out for something to keep me steady. I do not know how long it was but i remember feeling a heavy thing on me and sticky water running down my arm. Someone lifted me and i felt my feet drag along the ground. I opened my eyes and wished i had not.

Death comes with a feeling if you are the one that didn't get into its claws. I feel light and nauseous. I constantly turn my head as though i will see different on the other side. When i turned my head that day, all i saw was blood and metal and people running towards me. I do not know how i got out of the bus. I am in a hospital now.

No one has asked my name, if they have i do not remember, but i have a bed with a thin mattress and my leg is all bandaged up to the thigh. My head too is in a bandage and so is my stomach. I wonder what my mother is thinking. I wonder if she even knows. I wonder if now they will allow me to stay away from the city.

I wonder, as i lie in the hospital, what it would have been like in the city. What i would look like a few months from now, what i would have done with myself, what i would have had to do to become who they want me to be. I wonder if i would have sent for my brother. I feel light headed again. Like everything around me is going round in circles. I want to lift my head and see if the feeling of something flowing under my chest is what i think it is, but i cannot lift my head. When my fingers touch it, i know without a doubt that it is blood.

I think of my brother and i fear that i have crushed his hopes and dreams. Maybe i should ask God that i live and go on to the city. But we prayed with mother yesterday. My father prayed loud and clear too. If God did not hear them, why should he hear me now? I close my eyes and start to think of a happy place i can go to as i wait for what is to come.

September, they remember us then

My heart sings, it just cannot stop. I feel as though joy was a pellet that i swallowed and it burst in my stomach. When it burst, i felt the waves of its contents run through my body. That is how i feel this morning. Like a thing erupted in me and it is causing me to have this surge of energy and joy.

People often say to me that i look like i am one of those people whose lot in life is to carry the weight of other peoples burdens. I am usually quite solemn and reserved. I like people but i do not like hanging around them much. I find that interaction with many at a go causes me to withdraw into myself. That everyone is fighting to be heard and no one listens to anyone.

My father always said no one would bury me or come to my wedding. My answer always is that i plan to have a small intimate wedding and that can be just two people, that is, if i do get married. And as regards to the funeral, i will be dead, i will have no cares for the attendance or lack of. He often shakes his finger at me, this last born child who refuses to be like him.

I have never won an award or a thing. I am one of those people who when they walk into a place and they say one in two million people will walk into this room and come out with a cold, i will be that one in two million people. It is as though luck never smiles on me. Not that i believe in luck. I know only that the maddening things happen to me, rarely the good ones.

You must be wondering where the joy is from then.

My name is Chiselle Gertrude Kisimbe. I am 37 years old. No i do not have children and i am not married. You are wondering why i am not married and i am wondering why everyone wonders that. It is as though it is written somewhere in the rules of life that by the time someone gets to my age they should be married with children. But that didn't happen for me and i got over it.

It is as though it is my fault that i am not married. What can i say? People just do not find me attractive. I guess also because i am sick. Who wants to have a wife on watch? The one that you have to constantly worry about and watch for any signs that might mean you will be spending the night in the hospital. Also because people fear that the children i bring forth might be sick.

I have lived with sickle cell disease all my life. I still live at home. Mostly because when the series of crises come the pain is too much even after i leave the hospital. Also because it is quite expensive to be me so rather than rent a place and feed myself, i ride on my parents kindness.

It was so bad a few weeks ago, the doctors said they were going to start me on hydrxyrea. I didn't even try to understand it. Over the year i have read up on this disease but to be honest, it gets depressing after a while when the success stories around you get fewer. Two girls in the recovery group i am in died recently. One was 17 and the other was 28. I have never prayed as much as i did then.

At the start of September, i was back in the hospital on a ventilator for two days as they forced oxygen into my lungs. I was there for about 14days. My parents didn't know, I told them that i was at a friends house the first night i had to spend at the hospital. I feel that i am too old for them to be sitting by my bed and holding my hand. Besides, they get more pained than i do and that pains me even more. They found out later though when they called my friend and she didn't know where i was. My mother called the hospital and they told her. I woke up and there she was on her knees pleading with God. My father had his hand on her shoulder and he was just staring at me. They thought for sure that this time i wouldn't make it.

It is September and it is the month when people talk about people like me to let everyone know we exist and what happens in our bodies. I was born on the 15th of September. That is today. When i woke up, it hit me that I am 37 and still alive! I feel like i am winning. The feeling of victory is a beautiful thing, it is like an electric shock, a happy one, if there is such a thing, running through your body. My heart sings.

The year you left

I remember a time when we bathed in the same basin, wasting the water in senseless fights and taking all the scolding in stride when we came out with soap in our hair. Mother was never happy with us but she loved you almost the same as me.

You taught me how to braid my hair and do those knots they now say are bantu knots. I never understood why your mother constantly shaved your head. You always looked like a skinny little boy until your breasts began to grow and they forced us to wear dresses. It took me a while longer and i remember you always laughed at me. You called me retarded. I did not know what the word meant. You always had these many big words as though we never went to the same school.

I know what the word means now. I am not angry with you. I could never be. You said it in jest. You must have. You could never have known how close to home you hit.

I have always been a little slow in my growth. Everything grew about four years after yours did. I learned to read and write much later than you did. It always bothered me when people said i was a little slow as though the word little should make me feel like i was not too far off the mark.

I remember how when my mind wandered as it was wont to do, you would make excuses for me in class. It must have been so hard for you. Having to speak up for me as well as yourself. My mother cried every time she heard the stories of how brave you were on the play ground when the other kids pulled at my hair and shook my head to get a reaction out of me.

I remember when i stopped speaking. It was the year you left. Your family was moving to the city because your dad had got that job. I remember you saying you would come and visit and your mother asking my mother to send me to visit in the holidays. I remember clearly because i never could bring myself to speak after. No one understood the stutter anyway and no one had the patience to try.

I thought of you today because my seven year old asked me if i ever had any friends as a child since i could not speak. I have told her about you. The beautiful times we had. How close we were. She asks why she has not met you before and i tell her that i never saw you again after you moved to the city. She asks why i do not look for you now that we are in the city.

I really thought i would see you again. When the years kept going by and no one from your family was seen again, my mother tried hard to get my mind off you. She said it would do me no good to dwell on it. She told me that one day i would find people who loved me just as i was.

They told me at school that i drove you away. That your parents did not want you growing up around a disabled child, that they feared it was contagious, this slowness. They were mean children but i feared that maybe they were right. Because you never once looked for me and yet you knew where to find me.

I started to speak again a year later. My parents sent me to my aunt in the city who took me to see someone who could help children like me. It was many things that caused me to be the way i was back then but i am a grown woman now, and things are different. I have four children with my husband. I have a great job and i volunteer at a children's shelter every weekend.

I hope you are happy and well. I wish i knew how to find you. I tried all these social media platforms but you are not there. Not by the names i know at least. It amazes me that in this day and age, a person can just not be found. Perhaps it is i who does not know how to look. I just want to say, if you ever read this, that i never forgot you.

Nkoreki

Carol says i look just like my mother. That i have a pert little nose and a wide mouth.

That is all she ever says. When i ask her to tell me more about my mother, she turns away and says it is not her place. I am not sure though that is is not. Carol is my big sister. My father had her before he met my mother. She is ten years older than i am. I am 14years old now.

I remember nothing about my mother. I do not know what happened to her and no one ever tells me anything. Even now, no one talks about her. They talk about events of old as though she was never part of them. It is a wonder they look at me at all.

I was named Shantal Nkoreki. My father tried to change it to Sharon when i was about five but i wouldn't answer to anything else. I have no idea why it pains them so to talk about her. I have a picture of her though. They do not know i have it. My uncle, my mothers brother, gave it to me the last time he came by. My father says he will not be back. I feel as though anyone with any information about her is kept away.

My mother was very very pretty. She was very small too and short with a lot of hair combed afro on her head. I speak about her in the past tense because i imagine she is dead, otherwise, i am pretty sure she would have come to see me or she would be living here with us. That is what mothers do. They stay with their children. When i think that she died, i find that tears well up. I asked my father once if she had a grave, he slapped me. That was the first time he ever did. I have never asked again.

I avoid my father most of the time, when i can. He is a little wiry man with a nasty temper. He doesn't talk to me but i see him say a few sharp words to Carol when she comes around. I wonder why he allows me to stay here if he hates me so much. I will be going to secondary school soon and i think it will be a boarding school. I want to go so very much. I think i will be happy there.

I scratch my head and press my short thumb nail to my hair. I have lice. Once again i have lice. The minute that thought crosses my mind, i can feel the little things walking gladly through the dense forest that is my hair. I sit next to a girl at school who has lice every term. I am going to lose my hair again. Every time i say it out loud, the maid is instructed to cut it all off.

My uncle told me that my mother named me Shantal. I think it is a beautiful name. Mostly because it is one thing she gave me and also because i stand on tiptoe when they say it. I feel like it gives me a bit of height and prominence. I wonder if my other name was given by her too. Nkoreki means "what shall i do"

Some days, i like to sit and think up stories of what could have caused me to be called that. Was my mother stuck. Did she not know what to do with me? I like to write things down and most of those things are the stories in my head. I think my father is a miserable man because something happened to my mother. I think sometimes that he wants me to be miserable too but when i really think about it, i think that maybe thinking of my mother causes him so much pain that he transfers it to me.

Your little ones Ignatius, they look just like you!

Church services can be pretty intense around here. 

People running up and down the pews, screaming in my ear and wailing like they lost somebody. I do not understand it. Back home, at my church, we sat on the comfortable chairs, hands neatly folded, eyes focused on the man at the front and only spoke to say a polite amen and the grace. I look around at these people and i worry that my children will become deaf. But then, their children seem pretty okay. I see them run out of Sunday school and come join in the loud singing and dancing. I cannot do it. I just cannot. 

My story is quite short and simple really. I got pregnant 4years after i was married. Shortly after i gave birth, my husband run away. I had triplets. David, Solomon and Esther. I named them after my favorite characters in the bible. You wonder why my husband run? 

For a long time, we had no money. We were dirt poor and yet we were both learned. My husband actually, is quite a clever man. But he couldn't get work. I do not understand it and neither could he. Many times he did a few gigs ushering at events for a few thousand shillings a night. I was a primary school teacher but my school was so far and the pay did not make up for the daily transportation. We agreed it made no sense so i quit.

One day, my husband came home excited. He told me he had gotten into the forex trading business. He never said how he did it but all i know is that a few short months later, we were swimming in money. He took me to see countries i had only taught about and i learnt to do all the things women with money do. It was a good quick two years. 

One day, it was all gone. I was one of those women who never knew about my husbands business. When i asked he told me to never worry. As much as it ate at me, i stopped asking and instead concentrated on my project. I was writing a training guide for women and men who chose to home school their children. I was very excited about it and it kept me busy.

When I was just over seven months pregnant with the babies, I got home one day and I listened in as he spoke to these men and women who i had come to accept as his business partners. Everyone was upset and confused. No one said a word to me. Eventually i went to lie down and that was that. I never saw these men and women again until much much later. 

Two weeks later, he was gone. 

I had just returned home from the hospital, the babies had come early. He said he had to go away for a while to be able to take care of us. He had such pain in his eyes and his hands shook as he spoke. He wouldn't look at the children. He said some people would come looking for him but i was to say i did not know anything, which really was the truth. i knew nothing. He didn't say how long he would be away and i didn't understand how he could leave like that. Now i do.

You see, he lost so many peoples money in this forex trading business. It was billions of shillings. The week he left, people kept coming to the house. The police came a little later too. They searched the house. Shortly after, i was asked to leave as the house was to be sold along with everything else, to pay back as many people as the properties could. I lived with a friend for a while until i got a one roomed little place for me and my three babies. 

I got a job working in this big supermarket. While the neighbor watches the kids, i work. She has two daughters and she works the night shift at another supermarket. It works out well for us. We have become good friends. She is the one who brought me to this church. They give us mothers in need packets of milk, bread and other groceries every Sunday after service. 

I cannot say i am happy but i have learnt to be thankful. As much as i still cannot be crazy like the people in this church, i know that they have hearts of gold. I have nothing to offer them but they take care of me and my little ones asking nothing in return. One of the women here has offered to teach my children when they are old enough to start school. She is a teacher too and she believes in home schooling. 

I have not heard from Ignatius for two years. I do not know if he will ever look for us. No one comes to me for their money anymore. I figure by now they realise, i knew nothing and i have nothing left for them to take. It would be nice if Ignatius would see what the little ones look like now.

Abimbola

My fingers hurt from the endless grinding.

It was going to be a whole clan of them tomorrow and my instructions were to cook to impress. I sat back on my heels and wiped my sweaty forehead with the piece of cloth tucked into my shirt. Fifteen adults, six children. I had to remember that. I have never liked to be told at the last minute. I like to think that i am orderly. I hate surprises. Especially if they mean that i will have to change my plans to fit in someone else's.

The madam is a pretty little thing with airs. He is a kind man, the man of the house. He inquires about my family back home even though he never really remembers the things i tell him.

I like children. I was the first born of eight children and i practically raised my siblings. I went to school long enough to learn to read. I read just about everything i can find and now i know many things. People do not think i know things. They assume that because i spend hours scrubbing floors and taking orders, i am stupid. I do not mind the assumption. It just means i know something they don't.

There is a lady i like. I clean her house every weekend. She is quiet but kind. She gives me more money than i ask for and she allows me to eat whatever i find in her fridge. She lives alone but she does not seem lonely. I have always wondered about that. How a woman in her late 30's could be so happy being alone. My mother would never have approved of her.

They want ground-nuts sauce tomorrow and i do not know how to grind the nuts with the fancy machine they have. For the life of me, i do not know how to use all the technology jumping at me these days. I have one child. I had her when i was 17. I had made it my life's mission to watch over her and make sure she had everything i never had.

I named her Abimbola. I read in a book that it means "The Rich One"
You see, i wanted my one child to have the life that i never did. I am not sure though that it is what she got. At least she is not cleaning anyones floors. I am sure of that. I have kept a close eye on her.

Abimbola was my life. I worked hard and even begged when i had to. She was a bright child, my Abi. She got a good job shortly after her studies and sent money home to me in the village.

One day, the money stopped. I had grown accustomed to it. Sometimes she would drive to come see me in the beautiful house she had set me up in and i would travel back to the city with her. That stopped right before the visitors with envelopes stopped coming. I took a bus to town one day to the house she lived in, there were new people in the house.

My Abimbola is in Jail. They said she stole money but i did not believe them. Well i didn't believe them until i went to visit her. She looked thin and tired but there was no sadness in her eyes. She told me to trust that she would be okay. But she didn't say to trust in God. She looked me in the eye and said "Haven't i always taken care of you mama? Trust me again, you will be cared for." I knew then that she had taken the money. She wouldn't listen to me, she would not give it back. She got angry with me and said she would rather spend a few years in jail and come out to live a life that was nothing like my pitiful one.

Two years later, she was out. She came to see me but i was not in the house she built me anymore. I started cleaning houses again shortly after i visited her. I needed the money. I do not know who lives in that house she gave me. She keeps trying to throw her stolen money at me. I do not want it. I am 48 and even if it breaks my back, i shall make my living decent.