I Thought I Was a Witch…
Children Accused of WitchcraftImage: SAFE CHILD AFRICA. I remember when I thought I was a witch. It was sometime in the year 2000 or 2001. My parents were strict and required us to stay at home always; unless absolutely necessary. They also didn’t encourage us to have friends or people over at the house. Maybe it was because of their strictness or the fact that we were always indoors but, my house became the hub for our friends and neighbors when they weren’t around. And yes, we had so many of them; especially me. When my parents were out, our friends would come over and we would have all sorts of craziness in the name of fun. If my parents knew just how many people came to our house and caused havoc when they were out, we would have been flayed. This is not to say that we weren’t caught once in a while. But they didn’t know just how bad it was. It was during one of these visits that a friend came to beat me in the house. Funny story. Omoh (fake name alert) and I were closer than most of our other friends. The group used to call us ‘husband and wife’. For some reason which I cannot remember now, we had a fight and stopped being friends. Then I heard that he was trying to tarnish my reputation and spreading lies about me. I got so mad and began to write a letter. By this point, I had just learned words like ‘scalliwag’, ‘nincompoop’ and the all-purpose French word, fuck. I peppered my letter with those words – and others like them – in what I thought was a take down of his entire existence. When I was done, I gave the letter to the same friends who brought the tale to me. Turns out my words struck a million nerves. He was so mad! What I didn’t know was that the letter had been read aloud in front of the rest of the group and with each ‘big word’ they saw, the guys would fall all over themselves, regaling in laughter. And then they would check the dictionary for the meaning and upon discovering what it meant, would break out in even bigger laughter. By the time they were done reading that letter, Omoh was in a rage. I had barely been told he was coming to beat me when he burst into my house brandishing a belt. He asked me to repeat myself if I dared. I was scared out of my skin but I was never one to show it. So I went, ‘I have said all I wanted to say to you. If you didn’t understand it, that is your concern.’ Wrong move. I felt the sharpness of the belt eating into my flesh just as the rest of the group decided to intervene. Maybe most people didn’t think it wouldn’t get to that or they wanted to see me get beat, which I think is what really happened, but the delay in their response sent me into a rage. I reached for him, hoping to throw a blow; even though I was not a fighter. I remember that the biggest guy in the group held me back as the others held Omoh. As I was kicking and throwing blows, I kept saying, ‘You don’t know me! I will show just who I am. This is the biggest mistake you have made in your life and you will so regret it. Get ready to face who I am.’ There was nothing I was going to do. I knew I was bluffing but I kept going. Heck, I couldn’t even tell my parents. They would have continued the beating from where he left off. But I was livid and kept going. In a way, I was thankful that I was held back. If they had let me attack, I most definitely would have run away. The fight was eventually broken and everyone went their way. I heard that Omoh planned to still beat me up in the streets whenever he saw me. I was scared of what would happen to me when I didn’t have other people protecting me. I know that I talk a big game but honestly, I don’t know how to fight; then or now. So when my mother sent me the market two days later, and I had to pass through his house, I was scared out of my wits. When I passed by on my way to the market and nothing happened, I was relieved; for a little while. I think the fear doubled when I was returning because I kept imagining him jumping out of nowhere to descend on me. When that didn’t happen, I finally breathed a sigh of relief when I got home. I was free! I had barely let out that sigh when another friend came in. ‘Oh girl! I dey fear you oh! Wetin you do Omoh?’ Even though he said it in a joking tone, I could tell that he was a bit wary; of me. I looked at him and wondered what he was about. ‘Omoh is sick. He has been lying in bed since that day that he beat you. What did you do?’ I looked at him and hissed. ‘He must be joking.’ I thought to myself. But he wasn’t. The rumor had spread that I had cast a spell on Omoh, which was why he was sick. It was then that it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen any of my friends since the fight. They were actively avoiding me! I felt so bad. So I included every one of them in the anger I was still smarting from. It wasn’t until the next day that a delegation of friends came to plead with me to forgive Omoh. I was shocked. What were these people saying? What could I possibly have done? ‘Remember as you were
Here Comes the Bride 2
Sad Muslim Girl.Image: Deposit Photos This series starts here. Catch up on it and enjoy the sequel. The number of people in front of her compound was daunting. Salamatu Yakubu smiled as she thought of that word; daunting. She had seen it in the newspaper at the principal’s office when she had gone to get chalk. She memorized the spelling and got her teacher to explain the meaning. As usual, her teacher had told her to find it out herself; urging her to search the dictionary starting at ‘D’ and then, the next letter. She couldn’t help but smile at how much she was learning, which was far better than her classmates and especially, than ALL the boys in her class. Her smile dropped when she got closer to her compound. There seemed to be an air of sadness hanging heavily around the entire compound. Her feet dragged, wanting to be spared the impending destruction to her little cocoon. Abubakar ran to her. He was her immediate younger brother and a real pest in her life. She was about to warn him to stay away from her when she saw his tear-streaked face. She squinted to see if he was trying to play a fast one but saw that for the first time in his entire 12 years of existence, he was genuinely sad. ‘What happened?’ she asked in English before remembering to switch off school mode for home. She asked again, but this time, in Hausa. ‘What happened? Why are you crying?’ Abubakar did something that shocked the shoes off her feet; he crumbled into a heap at her feet, put his arms around her and wailed. She dropped her school bag and bent to him. She was surprised by the flood of emotions that came over her. She held him until the teary fits wracking his body subsided. At that point, it didn’t matter that they had been taught not to hold members of the opposite sex or that their mothers were different. What mattered was that they had finally bonded over something she was still to find out about. ‘Ba…ba… Baba has died.’ he said. Salamatu flinched. She was not close to her father; had never been. That fact didn’t stop the temporary moment her heart clenched and the overwhelming that sadness came upon her. She gently pushed her brother away, picked her bag and started walking…walking away from her house…from the reality of her shattered life…from the end of what she knew. She didn’t know when she started running; running till her heart almost exploded in her chest. Her brain led her feet to the school library; her safe place. She paused long enough to check if there was anyone about before diving in. She went straight to the third row of books, the place farthest from the door. Unlike a true library, there were no sections with major headlines and easy access. The community was too poor to afford that. A corps member who had come in to serve was the one who built the library and got her church to donate books. Since she passed out, no new book had been added to the library and many were dog-eared from overuse. Salamatu sunk between the shelves and took the fetal position. She began to cry in earnest now. Her life was over. She was in deep trouble. And yes, she wasn’t crying that her father was dead. In fact, he had been her biggest problem since she started to understand what her life was about. She hated him and quite frankly, was glad he was dead! *** Mallam Suleiman Yakubu was an average farmer. He did what everyone else did; planted crops in season, worked his farm, harvested and waited for the next season to begin planting again. That was his life; simple and straightforward. He had four wives and so many kids popping out every 10 months, that at the last census, the number of his kids present at the count was 40. Thankfully, he had more boys than girls who could help in the farms and ensure that food was never a problem in his house. He was very religious; studying the Holy Qur’an at least twice a day. He said his five daily prayers on time and lived according to the tenets of Islam. He was also against everything Western. He hated Americans and Israelis – even though he had never met any of them – and he was against everything they stood for, one of which was formal education. He had sworn never to send any of his kids to the so called ‘school’. The school had sent many entreaties to him and even the local community leaders had asked him to send at least one child. They had all received the same answer; NO! His boys had to be on the farm most of the time and his daughters had to be prepared for marriage. He was not going to let anyone corrupt any child of his with Western ideas. His kids had a healthy fear of him. They cowered in his presence…well, almost all of them did. His daughter, Salamatu, was defiant. She was the only child of her mother and was very stubborn. She refused to be afraid of him. In one incident, she shocked him by questioning why they needed to pray five times daily. When he told her she must do so because he said so, she told him that if he had said because Allah said so, she would have accepted it. She went further to say that his word was not absolute, as he was but a man. He remembered how he beat her to unconsciousness. That was not the last time either. She found ways to rile him up with her constant questions and opinions. If Salamatu had not been a spitting image of him, he could have sworn that she was not his child. She questioned his audacity to marry off his
Children Should Not Hustle!
Young girl hawking sachet water.Image: The Guardian The little girl ran up to me, somehow balancing the crate of boiled eggs on her head and trying to keep her falling wrapper in place. Her feet were clad with slippers that were well worn and designed with holes. She couldn’t have been more than eight years old and as she reached me, the smell of her unwashed body repulsed me more than she could have imagined. As she raised her head to ask if I wanted the eggs, I had a full view of her face. She was made up, with a haphazard line taking center stage on her brows. Her eye pencil was dripping, making her lower lid look heavy. Her powder was in patches, with more shades of grey on her dark skin than there was on a wiped chalkboard. Her pouty lips were made more so with the red lipstick she wore and the very black liner she used to line her lips. She was wearing a torn Hijab made of a print material. The Hijab was bunched at her shoulders as she held the tray that held the crate. Her skirt was a different print from her top though they were similar in one way; they were both threadbare, dirty and reflected just how poor she was. I took all these in as she advertised her eggs. The makeup, dirty clothes, torn slippers and the over coat of unwashed funk all reflected one thing: poverty. In one glance, I could tell that this young girl was forced into child labor. It didn’t take Einstein to figure out that this little girl was doing this to make money for her family. She was probably going to walk up and down the town in her quest to sell the eggs. The more eggs she sold, the more likely her chances of eating something that night. If she returned the eggs home, she was most likely going to sleep hungry. As I continued to look at her, imaginations of how hungry she might be kept flicking through my mind. Though her smell repulsed me, I was drawn to her in a way that was against my personal principle. I was torn. A common sight in many African communities if the presence of child hawkers who are working to sustain their families.Image: Signal You see, when I was in primary school, I had a teacher called Mrs. Williams. She died. But before she did, she had imparted so much in me that I owe some of my life’s principles to her. She urged us always to be the best and always had little quips that stayed with us; with me. On one of such occasions, after a field trip to the airport, she said something that stayed with me till this very moment. As the school bus slowed at a traffic jam, some children ran up to it to display their wares. From candy popularly called ‘alewa’ to groundnuts and what not, these kids had enough to attract our attention. Many kids started pulling out their lunch money to get things and only refrained when Mrs. Williams bellowed. Thankfully, the traffic jam lessened and we got going. That was not before we saw the disappointed looks on the faces of the children as they saw us go. We had been their hope for some money but Mrs. Williams crushed that hope. I was, for the first time in my young life, furious at her. When we got to school, I was still furious. As we settled into our seats in class, Mrs. Williams demanded our attention. When she got it, she started teaching us about child labor and abuse. She told us it was wrong to send kids to the streets to hawk. She asked how we felt knowing our mates were hawking on the streets and highways when we were in class, learning and getting an education. In truth, we didn’t understand what she was saying – we were just in primary three – but the passion with which she spoke hit me. The message I got that day was that children shouldn’t work when they should be in school. As little as I was, I felt bad that I could afford to be in school while others were out there fending for themselves and their families. I really cannot remember if that was when I made the choice to never buy something from a kid but I know that as I grew up, my resolve strengthened. My ideology was that, as long as we buy things from kids, we were also promoting child labor. I felt that if children went home every night without selling anything, then their parents would be wise about sending them to the streets. At that time, all of these made great sense to me. As I grew older, I realized that the ideology I had was hard to keep, especially as child labor came closer to home. A close friend of mine, whom I will call Williams, had to work to make ends meet. Williams came from a comfortable family. He had two brothers and one sister. They had most of what they wanted. They ate right, dressed well and even went to good private schools. The fairy bubble burst when his father lost his job after the Kaduna textiles closed down. They were tiding over until they just couldn’t keep up the pretext anymore. They had to move to a much smaller house and even sell most of their stuff. After a while, his father travelled to find work and was not heard from for months. They had absolutely no idea where he was or even if he was alive. His mum had to pick up the mantle of leadership to keep the family going. She got a job working as a cleaner in a school where the pay was barely enough to cover utility bills. Gradually, they had to be pulled
