The Girl Who Refused The Red Beads

*THE GIRL WHO REFUSED THE RED BEADS* In my village, a girl is not counted in dreams. She is counted in cows. My name is Neema Lekishon. I am 19 years old, from Narok. In my village, when a girl is born, they start counting how many cows she will bring. I was worth 50 cows. I had just scored B+ in KCSE. In secret, I had an admission letter to Teachers College in Eldoret. My dream was to stand in front of a class with chalk in my hand and teach little children to read. But my father Ole Lenku said books will not build a house. He said tomorrow morning I will marry Mzee Koinet, a 62-year-old man with two wives and 100 cows. He was older than my father. That night at 3 AM, when everyone was asleep, I took a small polythene bag. Inside I put two dresses, my KCSE certificate, and 500 shillings. I removed the heavy red beads they put on my neck to show I am ready for marriage and ran barefoot to the Narok road. The road was dark and I was crying. No car was stopping. Then a lorry full of potatoes stopped. The driver was a kind woman called Mama Njeri. She hid me behind the potato sacks. Behind us, I could hear my father's voice shouting my name in the dark. I covered my mouth so he would not hear me crying. Eldoret was very cold. Not like Narok. I had nowhere to sleep and I knew nobody. My first night I slept at the bus station on a sack. A policeman chased me saying I am a street child. A mama frying mandazi saw me and gave me hot tea and two mandazis. She said "Pole sana, girl from Narok." The next day she took me to her sister, Mrs. Chebet, who needed a househelp. She promised to pay me 4,000 shillings per month. I accepted. I washed clothes, cooked ugali, cleaned the big house, and looked after three children. At night, when everyone slept, I read my old school books under a small torch. One day while cleaning, Mrs. Chebet found my books hidden under my mattress. She laughed loudly and said "You want to be a teacher and you are a househelp? You are a dreamer!" But her husband Mr. Chebet was a primary teacher. He saw my B+ certificate and said "This girl is clever." He gave me newspapers to read. Then my college letter came. I was to report next Monday with 45,000 shillings. I had only saved 2,000 shillings. I went to the toilet and cried for one hour. Mr. Chebet called me to his bedroom when his wife was at the market. He locked the door and said he will pay my fees if I become his second wife. I said no. That night he came to my small servant room and tried to hold me. I screamed very loudly. Mrs. Chebet heard, but she beat me and chased me out at midnight into the cold street with my bag. She said I am a seducer. I had no money, no home, no job again. I walked to a church and slept at the gate. In the morning, the pastor's wife found me. She took me to a girls' rescue center for Maasai girls who refused early marriage. At the center, I met 12 other girls like me. Some had been beaten. The matron was a Maasai woman who was a teacher in Nairobi. She hugged me and said "You are safe here, my daughter." She gave me food, a bed, and hope. She took me to Teachers College. The principal gave me a bursary exam. I passed number one. I got 80% scholarship. I only needed 9,000 shillings and the center paid for me. In college, I was the only Maasai girl with shaved hair and beads on my hands. Other girls laughed at my accent. But when I answered in English, the whole class went quiet. The lecturer said "This is the best in English." There I met Daniel, a kind Kikuyu boy in my class who helped me in Mathematics. He did not laugh at my beads. He looked at my bracelet and said "Your beads are beautiful, just like you." For the first time, my heart beat fast. Then a letter came from home. My father wrote "You are cursed. You shamed us. Mzee Koinet took his cows back. You are dead to us. Do not come back." At the bottom, in small writing, my mother wrote one word: "Sorry." Will Neema become a teacher? Will Daniel love a Maasai girl? And will her village ever forgive the girl who refused the red beads?