DREAMS I NEVER DREAMED

Today is the first day of the end of my life. I am sitting here looking at the doctor and my mind is miles away. How can it be? Why me? What have I done wrong to deserve so much ill luck? Why me? Who will hear my story? How do I tell the world my story? Why me?

In a few days I will be 23 years old, it has been 23 years of pain and hardship and just when I thought it could not get worse, it has got worse, how did I get here?

I was born into a poor family, we lived in a very poor community and I have known hardship all my life, we were so poor that I assumed poverty was a normal way of life, I did not even know till I was about nine years old that they were people who lived a different kind of life. My community was same, we barely sold anything, we lived on barter most times, my mum would locally process and mill palm oil and while we sold a little, we exchanged the oil for foodstuff with other people who had other things we needed. For instance, Mama Mileke farmed yams and papa Odogene had a small pond with fish in it, we would just go get fish and pay in oil or get half tuber of yam for some oil, we barely had any money.

Papa and Mama loved each other very much. It was very evident in the number of siblings I have, all twelve of them. I don't remember not seeing my mother pregnant in my early years, if you asked me then, I would have thought her not being pregnant at any time was a problem, in my young mind, every adult had to be pregnant as soon as one child left the stomach. Having so many kids was a competition no one in my community would lose. 

One day Papa came from Iya Eko's shop where he normally went to drink palm wine with his friends and sing some gyration songs, we were debtors there, Papa would drink and pay her with gallons of oil which she gave to some men who came every Friday morning with a truck to get food items to go sell at the big city. So Papa came home and told us about our move to the big City, he told us he had been to the big City a couple of times in the past and all our dreams will come to pass there. His eyes shone as he talked about the City, Mama seemed to have caught the happy bug too as she almost dropped Kinaka my baby brother whom she was breastfeeding. 

I looked on in confusion, I had no dreams, I had no plans, I was 9 years old and had not started school, Mama always said I would go to school but it never really bothered me, there was hardly anyone I knew in my community that went to school, Mama had once said that Mr Kumale the town chancellor had children and they stayed in the city with his late wife's mother and went to school there but no one could corroborate the story as Mr Kumale had two kids with his new wife and non-went to any school.

Days had gone by and my excitement over moving to the big city started to mount, Fridays seemed so slow to come suddenly. Mama got some polythene bags and we were packed up in minutes, Papa said we should leave our mats behind, I asked him where we would sleep and he said there was something called "foam" in the city, this further thrilled me though I had always slept on the mat and sometimes the bare floor, I had never complained as I had never seen anyone sleep on "foam"

Friday is here, We are packed up, we await the traders’ truck at the market square, people keep walking up to give mama things, someone gave us a dozen chewing sticks, someone gave us a torchlight and Iya Eko came and gave Papa a gallon of palm wine. Mama did not like Iya Eko much, she always talked about her with a frown and a few times I had heard papa call mama jealous. I don't think mama could have been jealous of Iya Eko, mama was beautiful, she was a fine shade of brown, she was very slender and had a dark mole close to her mouth, she had dark eyes and very red lips, her brows were always well carved out yet she did not own a single make up object. Iya Eko on the other hand always looked like she was learning how to paint a building and tried it on her face first, she did not tie wrapper like my mum instead she wore men's trousers, she did not even go to church on Sundays and had only seven children compared to mama's nine as at that year. No way could Mama be jealous of her. 

Truck is pulling over, the traders are here, the driver gets down and says a very cheerful hello to Papa, Papa introduces Mama to him and makes a hand towards us as he said "and those are my children" the driver looks at all of us and sights the twins, he squeals in delight "ejima" Papa is grinning from ear to ear. Yes, they are twins, Feyin and Foma. The driver is delighted he tells papa that he also has twins though he has got twin boys unlike our twin girls. I like the driver already, the traders have already began to bargain with the market women and paid no mind to us. 

We are on our way to the City, all of us sitting uncomfortably on different food stuff, Mama has Kinaka in her arms and Sewema who is only 10months older strapped on her back. I have my arms securely around Feyin and Foma who are a little over 2years old, they are excited, I am scared, It is our first motor ride. My little community vanishes as soon as we make the first bend, bye to Ogarugbo, My sojourn to the big City, the land of dreams, I still don't dream but maybe when I get there, I will have my first dream.

TO BE CONTINUED...

what change shouldn't become ...

I had been asleep for a fraction of fifteen minutes when I heard a bang. My blood curled as I clutched hard at my 15-month old baby. I said a silent prayer hoping it was a distance away but then I heard footsteps and a deafening silence ensued. After what seemed like eternity, which could actually have been seven seconds, I heard what sounded like the cover of my pot move and the mumblings started. I made my way to the door, still clutching at my baby, peeped through a crack and saw them. Oh my! I ran back towards the wardrobe, placed my sleeping baby in it and locked her in, praying every second that she doesn't cry. Then I waited....



After eating what was left of the stew and bread in the house, they walked into the very first room and brought out my husband and three sons, I clasped my right palm over my mouth as I saw them land blows on my husband. They kept asking for more food as he tried to tell them that they had eaten all we had left. I now counted the men to be five. "Where is your wife? Where is your wife?" they asked but my husband wouldn't say. I recoiled but had nowhere to hide in the largely unfurnished room. It had barely been a few seconds when the youngest man walked into the room and grabbed me. As I knelt beside my sons Ak 14, Baron 12 and Meshack 9, I saw the terror in their eyes, they had been crying long before they had been brought out. I started to plead for mercy. I glanced at my husband who hadn't as much as said a word, I read his thoughts....



How did we plunge this far into the pits of hell? Our nation, Once the envy of many, how did we give birth to such poverty and wickedness? The fight had started so good, we all wanted the revolution. A few politicians had gathered and decided to impoverish our people. After many years of watching the rich get richer, the rebels stood up. We cheered their courage and urged them on. Slowly, the revolution had turned into a full-fledged war. The rebels had killed, and killed, so much that they didn't know how to stop. People say they have become animals, deciding to kill their kind just to force the Government's hand. We left our home in the City to our Village, people are hiding in bushes, there is chaos everywhere. If we are killed tonight, nobody would know until they begin to smell our rotten bodies. The media houses lie in ruins, The international media has been blocked out. Our politicians insist that things are under control. Like many others, we hear that our house in the city has been taken over by hoodlums. When the fight started, we supported the ousting of this Government. Now the rebels cannot remember why the fight started, they keep chanting "There will be no peace". Has this war taken a toll on their mental health? A baby cries out....



I am brought back to reality.



We pretend not to hear the cry. They make for the room, I attempt to block the entrance screaming "Please leave my baby!!!". I am thrown hard across the room and as I make to stand up, paying no attention to the excruciating pain in my right shoulder, my baby is brought out. She is wailing and shouting "No! No! No!" one of the few words she knows. My husband grabs at her and a bullet goes through his head.



There is blood everywhere, my boys are covered in their father's blood, shock in their eyes and yet crying quietly in fear. I hear my voice in my ears differently, screaming and throwing myself to the ground to the amusement of the rebels. They pull a gun to my daughter "shut up or we shoot" and like the beginning of an opera, there is dead silence. "We are fighting for you people, our families are getting killed because we are fighting for you people. Do you appreciate it? No! You people have turned on us after we have lost everything, we neither have homes nor families anymore. The military has taken over our camps, razed our homes, killed our people... His voice trails away as yet another wail rises within me.



Ak is being led into a room by one of the rebels as I struggle to find my voice. "Where are you taking him? Where are you taking him?" A gun is pointed to his head and the man says, "He is a big boy, leave him alone". I start to beg, tears streaming down my face as the door is shut. One man says to me "Madam arrange food" and I tell him that I have soup but do not have garri - Just then, I hear a loud scream from the room AK had been forced into. My heart stops. I hear the sound of slaps and Ak crying out calling "Mummy help!!!". I make for the door and a kitchen knife is held to Baron's neck. There is a familiar grunting from the soldier as my son cries out in pain. "Madam I say arrange food make we chop go" I reply in a whisper with a bit of relief at his mention of the word "go". "No garri, only soup". He bellows at me in disgust, pulls out my mortar and pestle, hands me the pestle, throws my baby into the mortar, and with a gun to my head says in the calmest of voices



"Pound or Die"



"War is never the answer, Nobody gains from it, let us not tire of dialogue, Our knowledge is our weapon. Get Education today.

thanksgiving...

Have you said thank you today? Have you been truly thankful in a while? Many atimes, we fail to see the very mighty things in front of us mainly because we focus too hard on the little things, our eyes and by extension our mind becomes blocked to things that are overwhelmingly too large to be ignored. its a very simple logic:

To see little things, you have to squint while you will need to keep your eyes real open to see larger things. The message here is this, while we might be out here pondering over minute issues, we dwell so much on them that we lose sight on all the very marvellous things going on. I will share a short story, a woman had a child that failed to move up a class in the new term, she was so ashamed that she decided to change his school but none of the five schools she approached would have him for that class so in the end he went to repeat that class. sometime into that new session, kids of the class her son would have been in had a state excursion that included the other schools she had previously been to. There was accident and lives where lost, it was the first time in months she thanked God for her son. She had stopped school meetings out of shame.

I am not advocating that we live a complacent life, i am encouraging us to look beyond setbacks with convincing determination that there is a better tommorrow. Today, we should learn to look up to the heavens and say thank you, look at spouses and say thank you, look at the kids and say thank you because no matter where you are standing today,there are people that pray daily to stand right there. Thank you for taking out time to read.