A Child Connecting

Then one day the question in my mind developed a mind of its own and I had to get an answer. So I raised my hand when we were asked to ask any question at all. I was not very sure if that question would be considered at all, so as a precautionary measure I preceded my question with a factual statement. I did this because I had known adults to say you could do something and get punished for doing exactly that.

“God created us right? 

“Yes the Almighty in His mercy created us in His image.” The instructor answered with such verve.

I still was not sure I could ask the question so I, as coy as I had become, framed the question within the factual statement I had just said.

“If God created us then who created God?”

The question took the instructor by surprise and he mulled on it for a moment then said in an authoritative manner,

“Sit down!”

I was not satisfied with the answer but I sat down as I had been instructed. The class continued without much ado after that but as the class learned new things I was caught in the whirlwind of that same question until I was thrown out for becoming a bother.

I pretended for days to go class so I would not have to answer questions about why I was thrown out. I was finally found out. When I was asked why I could not go to class anymore I said that it was because I did not do well. I was enrolled in the class the next season and the same thing happened with another instructor. I learned from that point on not to ask any questions that were religious in nature.

I became quieter after that so when a very well-known friend of my granduncle sexually assaulted me I could not, would not, and did not say a word about it. It was a shame that I lived with for a very long time that had a damaging repercussion on me. My granduncle’s friend who was a blacksmith near his home had been sick for some time and was not going to work. My granduncle told his wife Abba to send me with some food for him. I did not want to go but once again it was not my decision. I was just not comfortable with this man. He had not in any way, shape or form made any sexual gestures toward me, but I was still not comfortable with him. It was a gloomy day and it seemed like it would rain. I was told to take the food to him and then come back and have my supper. Since he lived a few yards away on the other side of the street, I agreed to go and come back. Not that I had any choice.

I had experienced the major incidents that were to play a key role in molding my character and thus shaping my destiny.  I had started to form wishes in my mind without a clear definition of thought. I was like most African kids, to be silenced by the rules of my culture for the next three decades. However, that did nothing to curb my need to know more about the why and how of my life. That did nothing to wash away the need to learn and share with others my findings. I would spend most of my time in silence listening to the adults who I thought were the culprits of my pain and suffering.

I would spend the rest of my time watching other children mimic the adults who hurt them in one way or another. They would do to others what they hated to be done to them. I watched in silence, abhorred by the unbroken cycle of cultural defects that plagued my people in the name of culture. To some degree, my silence was my salvation and at the same time my doom as it was and still is for most African children. I was to experience it all and survive all for posterity’s sake. I endured it all and got stronger, all the while being shielded by my silence and obedience.  I was to speak for the silenced who might end up disliking me because I dared to disclose a closely guarded shameful part of our culture. I was to become the traitor by voicing out my experience and the atrocities that go on in our society.