Hope is Yellow

Jeridah"I have lived a life of many adventures, finding myself in the depths of despair on many occasions but knowing the richness of love and hope too. Do I wish my life had been different? No, for if it had been different things would be different now, perhaps without my beautiful children and dedicated husband. Experiencing troubles makes happiness sweeter. Happy memories are scarce for me but for this reason held as a precious gift and recalled with a deep sense of gratitude that I have any at all. Some choose to believe that life is something you are thrown into without direction, left to find your own way scrabbling around in the vast unknown. I have spent many a desperate, immeasurable amount of time in the vast unknown but I was never truly alone.   My story is not unusual and I have not chosen to let it be told for the sake of pity, I do not need or want to be pitied. The reason that my life is about to be made black and white and reduced to several pieces of once blank paper is due to the curiosity and love of creating that my best friend has. Over the years I have shared my childhood with my best friend, allowing it to unfold before us both and be explored and dissected. Talking within the security and freedom of friendship I have had the opportunity to see my life through the eyes of someone else. Someone coming from another world.  I have marvelled at the strength of a child in the midst of adversity and wept at the ability of man to destroy another, to invade a child, to invade me. Over time the pieces of my life have been presented to my friend in a jumble of words and emotions, I felt exposed but not vulnerable, for trust is a wonderful thing. Knowing the most intimate parts of my life so well she could recite large chunks of my story as if reciting a famous poem, my friend once said ‘You could write a book about your life.’ And here it is."   As she laid there her delicate, limp frame hardly moved. Perhaps she was dead, one could only hope. The cold darkness enveloped the pitiful sight of her skeletal body. There was nobody there to mourn for her totally wasted life. No one had ever been there to cherish the precious moments of her should-have-been blissful childhood. And now, no one was there to comfort her or offer her the last chance to feel loved. Love, what was love? How could she even possibly start to contemplate the concept of loving someone, of being loved, when she had never been under its wonderful spell, never felt the magic.   Love had never been a frequently used word, even less an action.  The truth that there was never any time to love was crudely explicit here, every hour the day sent brought an infinite of pain, hunger, hardship, a***e, and neglect. From the moment the sun came up the day was being wished away. Only the sight of it setting in the cool, dusty night air gave the people a sense of relief. They had survived another day.   Life was a constant battle; even the air seemed against the people, hot, sooty, thick, and hard to inhale.  The little bundle of dirty rags lay inconspicuously on her back, eyes tightly screwed up, sheltering from the glare of the midday sun. People came and went about their business; some ruffled the thin cloth wrapped carelessly around the body as their legs brushed by. Nobody noticed the infant. Nobody cared. She lay as if a piece of rubbish in its place on the dirty mud track, an unwanted possession lost amongst the village litter.   Two little fists appeared from the bundle, firmly clasped they waved frantically in the heavy air, but still nobody noticed. Unperturbed the fists waved on until a frail old man on a dilapidated bicycle flew past catching the corner of her foot under the wheel. She screamed, crying tearlessly the sound was lost amidst the cacophony of village noise; proud owners angrily beeping their car horns, bus brakes squealing to a halt, parents scolding, children crying, market callers selling their wares and the everlasting chant of beggars: “Watoto wangu, wao si wazuri!”   Rats busied themselves collecting fallen crumbs stopping only to sniff the strange obstacle in their way; it did not taste good so they left hurriedly. She knew nothing about her misfortune, she was only aware of a world that should have frightened her but fear was a concept not yet known to the infant. Fear was learnt and there was nobody to teach her what to be afraid of.  Nobody would ever be there for her.  She had been born into a world that was anti-survival, depriving her of even the most basic needs. From the day she pushed her way through tense, stubborn legs her stark surroundings made it overtly obvious that her presence was unwelcome. There had not been a celebration in honour of her arrival, only a silent agreement that she would have to go. Her tiny, helpless body was wrapped in a piece of thin cloth and left on a flat rock between two overflowing bins, the glare of the sun ferociously pounding on her delicate skin.   Several days passed before anyone took it upon themselves to visit the small infant. By then her translucent skin was blistered from the harsh heat of the day, her severed foot had been a more than adequate feast for the thousands of rats that had made their home among the people. On more than one unfortunate occasion, drunken men had peed up against the wall behind her spattering warm, yellow urine over her face, as it dribbled down to her mouth she licked her lips. The men would often stumble away, trousers around their ankles, still dripping from their last activity soaking her foul blanket and causing her to shiver from the damp. Children kicked her mindlessly as they passed and many a beggar spat into the tiny, innocent face of the bundle they thought to be rubbish. Nobody cared.   The empty eyes of her mother bore into her own showing no sign of affection. They were not cold eyes nor were they callous, large, deep, brown and furrowed they looked sad, as if they had shed so many tears they were now dry. Two huge, stagnant pools of emotion tired from the effort of seeing, of absorbing so much suffering. Elegantly the lady stooped down, the heavy sack of half-rotten vegetables sunk into her back and she let out a shallow gasp. The food was heavy and her back weak but she could not place the sack onto the ground for fear of furry thieves known to strike at every opportunity.   The woman reached out a long, bony finger and prodded the infant in the ribs. No sound was made. She prodded again, this time her nail pierced the papery skin but still no sound was made. Thick red blood seeped from the tiny nail shaped hole adding yet another stain to the blanket clothing the child. With a hint of a smile just reaching the mothers lips she turned her back and walked away, the sack of vegetables balanced at a precarious angle.  Only then did the infant stir, crying as if in protest that before she had lived she was being forced to die.  The tiny, fragile body shook as a tremor of hunger sped through her, each whimper tore at her sides, and she winced in agony. The woman stopped, turning around to look at the feeble object before her and sighed. She was still alive.   No one had noticed that the infant’s limbs were badly twisted or that she appeared to be blind. With nothing to stimulate her but the scurrying of rats and the coming and going of a drunk, her eyes were unfocused, dark, empty holes. If she were older, she would perhaps understand that everything she deserved, everyone she could have loved had failed her. Now even her body was giving up. Although she would never know it, it was a blessing that her life would be short lived. There was nothing to offer her, no one to take her under their wing; life would be lonely and ridden with disease.   She had almost certainly contracted HIV from her mother who was unaware that she was a carrier of the deadly virus and her body was misshapen from malnutrition. Had she lived she would have been cast aside and forgotten by even her own people. Nobody wanted to know a cripple. A sick child was a curse to the family and many a hardship would have awaited her, endured alone and afraid. She has been a victim of depravation since the day she was born and finally the one thing she had depended on, the one thing that kept her alive was now denying her, she had suffocated, her lungs smothered by the all consuming, thick, poisonous smog.    She was a person in her own right despite her contorted physique but nobody had any qualms about sacrificing this innocent baby for the sake of themselves. She had not been wanted from the start yet a lack of education meant that, like millions of other babies, she was born into a family that could not support her. Her mother, the object of the husband’s pleasure was obliged to make love at his every whim and protection cost a whole week’s wages. To her it was simply s*x; to him it was fulfilling his natural, manly desires, either way it always ended in the same, a new mouth to feed and the desperate need for more money. She loved her husband, he was a good man and he cared for his other children but she wished he would consider the consequences of his actions more seriously. This was their third unwanted baby.   There was no more suffering after death and knowledge of this often comforted relatives of the deceased. Some even chose to join their dead friend or relative by hanging. The tightening of the rope around the bony neck was nothing in comparison to the pain of life and the noose offered a pass to another world where people danced for eternity. All the same, no matter how many times a mother gave up her child it was equally unbearable. Some went insane, others left their husbands fleeing in the middle of the night to an unknown destination, mostly they remained at home and suffered the heartache alone, knowing that all too soon they would have to dispose of yet another part of themselves.    Understanding everything but explaining nothing, the mother picked up the young child and held her to her chest. All the life had been deliberately sucked out of her beautiful baby; she lay limp in her mothers arms starved of any affection until now. But it was too late. For a brief moment her mother had such a queer look in her desperate eyes that she resembled a small child holding a doll, wishing her friend was real, alive, and living but there was no mistaking this was not a doll. Gently cradling the infant in her arms she walked to the river and stooped down. The warm wind played in the stream creating spontaneous ripples that danced along the water, the reflection of the burning sun lit up the stream, warming the dull water.   A few feet from where the woman was stooped, children played happily in the water, splashing each other and laughing merrily. She watched as the water trickled down their coarse skin, closed her eyes, and imagined the baby in her arms playing in the same way. Just for a moment, she visualised her baby, three or four years older, n***d in the cool water playing along with the other children. Full of life. How she longed to have had the chance to see this baby grow strong like her sisters. To hear her first word, watch her take her first step. So many questions raced through her mind, questions that would haunt her to the grave for they would never be answered.   The body in her arms was nothing more than a prison for the spirit within, defying life to its capture.  Could it be said that this little girl had every really been alive?  Does being alive mean experiencing life, for if it does then the infant had been born dead. Mama wondered sadly if her baby would ever dance with the angels for she had died unnamed and without a christening. Her heart refused to beat as she put the infant’s lips to her own as if to breathe her life into the child. She felt nothing but the air between both their skin and feeling faint she opened her eyes and willed her pulse to resume its usual pace.    Mama Toto“I know you judge me. It’s ok go ahead and believe that I should never have been blessed with children. I agree. The curse of being a woman is her childbearing ability, child bare, child less, one more part of my being violently torn away. The first time you lose a child it’s like watching your own reflection fade away, with no shadow it is hard to tell whether or not you really exist. I live for my children and they die for me.    My husband is a good man he really is and he shows this goodness by giving me the beautiful gift of his seed so that we may continue to exist beyond the grave. If my husband did not exert his manly desires over me I fear that you would assume he did not take his responsibility as my husband seriously. He does. And I take on every aspect of being his wife, I find solace in his firm grip and beauty in the pain when he enters me roughly to show how much he cares. He only hurts me to help me appreciate pleasure, bitter sweet lessons that he must teach me his lowly wife.   Does he love me you wonder? That I don’t care to discuss for now. What I can tell you is this; through pain something wonderful is born.  My toto so beautiful and pure, the gift of life given to me by the man who cares for me most and taken from me by the God who knows me the most. Life is more than just being alive, I have not been alive for a long time now, but I still breathe in all that surrounds me. Death has become my companion and I do not fear it.”   A sudden sad, hollow cry shook her sharply back to reality; she gazed expressionlessly at the shallow murky water beneath her before turning to see who had disturbed her dreaming. Lying uncomfortably, merely inches away was a small figure clutching their bloated stomach. The woman gasped in a mixture of confusion and dread, this was her child too, her daughter, her own flesh and blood, wretched and helpless in front of her. Gravity defied her as she tumbled to the ground sending a cloud of dust into the air. The baby was tossed from her arms and hit the ground with a sickening thud that went unnoticed by her mother. Leaving the baby the woman struggled to her feet and ran to her daughter’s side, tears staining her rough cheeks.   The world was spinning as she screamed in a feeble attempt to warn off the blanket of death that was so familiar to them all. Her spidery finger reached out and stroked her child’s cheek tenderly.  Blinded by tears and choking on the dust that settled about her she was forced to watch as her beloved daughter lost the fight against the all-consuming enemy. One child lost intentionally, the other taken, stolen by the authority of death. Both tragedies, only one mourned.    As family and neighbours surrounded both mother and child, the certainty of the girl’s fate was confirmed. Tuberculosis was a known and feared killer that destroyed the lives of over half the population every year, there was no known way of preventing if from stealing loved ones. The people had become accustomed to death and ironically, it was considered part of everyday life, a journey that took all passengers without discrimination. Young, old, crippled, poor, rich, they all walked together when their time was up, and death took them all without shame.   To the outside world, the child had been another anonymous face that may or may not have appeared on their television screens during the news. Famous for being a victim of depravity, a symbol that made strangers count their blessings before switching channels and stuffing another fistful of crisps into their greedy mouths. To the outside world, she was another number, a statistic that white children learned about in school, one of thousands dying unnecessarily of a preventative disease. To those in her community, to her mother, she was a cherished life, another that they had to witness being robbed of a future that was never theirs in the first place.   Knowing this did not mean that it was easy to watch them falling like flies, the pain of loss, the anger, was unbearable. For several minutes, the girl was left untouched by anyone but her mother. All previous thoughts regarding the baby were shadowed with the sickening reality of what had just happened, those mourning the girls death wept silently, holding one another for moral support. Young comrades of the girl understood too much about the cruel thief that had cheated their friend. They stood traumatised. Uncertain. Who would be next?   This little girl had been special, the whole community loved her, she was a rose trapped in thorns, unable to blossom as the weeds stifled her. Success could have been hers given different circumstances, instead she had had no choice but to occupy the day fetching water when the well was not dry. She was a pretty girl; one could not help noticing the large inquisitive almond eyes full of unanswered questions. Her eyes told a story no child should be familiar with but there was no anger, just a deep, dark ocean of content and acceptance making her so appealing.   When she had had rare time to herself, her eyes would light up, growing to almost fill her impish face as she skipped with her young friends. She had taken great pride in her dark, woolly locks which cascaded down her back, a black waterfall going nowhere; it was worn loose around her slight shoulders with a single flower tucked behind one ear. Her voice sang as she spoke softly, only ever kind words, complaints were never made. She had known of a better place, faraway, but the life she led was familiar to her and she had faced it almost fearlessly until now when her spirit was released to join the dancing angels.   Unknown to her mother or anyone else, she had spent time with her baby sister when all were asleep. Holding her gently in her small arms, she had sung soft songs of hope, giving her sister a glimpse of love. She knew in an absurd way, that the tiny, deformed bundle clutched where her breasts had never had the chance to grow, was her own families sacrifice. Playing God her parents had chosen to let her die, one less mouth to feed. Faithfully, every night the little girl had waited until she heard the familiar sound of her fathers long, loud snoring, a sign that indicated her family were deep in sleep dreaming of another life, one where being alive meant living not just existing. Then she would wrap her thin blanket around her frail shoulders and tiptoe out of the house with the agility of a deer.   Once outside the bitter night air showed no mercy as it struggled to snatch the blanket, tearing like lightening between her rough skin and the smooth cloth that failed to serve its purpose of offering warmth. Crouching by her tiny sister’s side she would coo affectionately, stroke her dry cracked skin and sing beautiful songs of far off places where the people lived like princesses. She knew that her baby sibling was being deliberately left to die and this came as no surprise to her. It was common for the poorer women to leave their babies to pass away and she had witnessed several of her friend’s younger brothers or sister’s left to the same fate. For some reason, now it was her sister, things seemed different, wrong, unfair, and cruel.   At her young age, she could not fathom why her mother was willing to let her baby die just days after living. She did not understand the concept of being cruel to be kind; if this baby lived she would require valuable resources that the family could not spare. Feeding her would mean starving one of her other sisters, it was a no win situation. Occasionally when there was food left over she had stolen some and hidden it in her pocket then, later that night she would secretly feed her sister, mashing the food into a paste, her finger the spoon. In their ignorance nobody realised that the baby could not possibly have lived for two weeks without something to nourish her, however small. They just assumed she was strong, a fighter, but despite her apparent determination to live there was no questioning that she would have to die.    It troubled the girl greatly when she contemplated the decision her parents had made, why this sister? had she been a boy would they have let her live? Sometimes in the dead of the dark night she even considered whether she was entitled to be alive, had she been wanted dead after appearing like a pink, wrinkled sack between her mother’s strong, sturdy legs? Did death choose it victims or were they chosen for it, maybe some people were born to die. A bond had grown between the two sisters, one of understanding and love; after all they shared so much in common, parents, sisters, and now the same day of death.  It almost seemed natural; right maybe that they should die together, the young infant had become so dependent on her older sister that she would need her in eternity. As the clouds began to gather in the warm red sky, two men carried the girl to the riverbank and lay her down. Gently a yellow flower was tucked behind one ear as she was lowered into the water, her tiny sister followed and the people watched as they floated peacefully downstream.   Survival was, in part, determined by the strength of will and their Mama, knowing all too well the agony of losing a child still struggled, without complaint, to provide for her five remaining children. She looked lovingly at her daughters as they slept that night, despite their sunken cheeks and bulging eyes she thanked God that he had spared them.  Baba Toto“I am a man through to my core; you will know this by noting how many daughters I have. A man provides for his wife and family in whatever way he can but before you judge me show me a man who can provide eternal life for his children. My wife tempts every part of me, the way her hips dance on her frame as she walks, this is how she shows she wants me, and I must tend to her. She cries because she can’t express her feelings towards me as openly as I can for her, I accept her tears as gratitude. Sometimes I find myself ‘being with’ her just to feel the damp of her tears on my shoulder, I have to hold her in place and cramps get in my muscles but I’ll do it so she can cry her love for me. To me. That is how much I love my wife.   The God I honour has chosen to take my Percivia, I must now give my wife a new life to nurture.  A wife has to nurture, and I will provide her with many children so she can do this. Percivia brought much joy to our house and I can’t help but feel sad she has gone, I will not show this for fear that you will doubt my masculinity. The toto, she was beautiful there is no denying it but life is transient and dispensable and hers was not necessary to our cause. What good is a gift to your wife that she will never be able to take care of? It angers me that my wife must always bring a life into our relationship, when will she learn that her tears are enough for me?"   Life in Mbala was built around animals; dependence on the livestock a family owned created a deep respect for them. As soon as a child could walk they were part of a team responsible for tending to the goats or whatever animals their family owned. Percivia’s family raised cattle and goats, which grazed on the scrubby grasses that sprouted from the dry ground. She had grown up with the animals, been well fed when they were well fed, sick when they were sick but now she was dead and through no fault of the animals who were in fact prospering thanks to the monsoon. That evening, as Percivia’s mother lay down to sleep she felt sick to the pit of her worn out stomach as she looked at the space where her daughter had slept just the night before. Why did she not know that death would choose her beloved daughter next? How could she? Why was the merciless monster not satisfied with the baby left freely for its meal? Why should it be?    Jeridah“I remember the day as if it were yesterday that my sweet beautiful little sister died, when she left this place for somewhere better, a part of me was taken too. I loved Percivia with all the love my twelve year old little self could muster up, she was my ally and my best friend, she was my confidant and my encourager and she was my own flesh and blood. Looking back I wonder how Mama coped losing what may as well have been her right arm, it was hard for me to see life after Percivia but for Mama it was unbearable. Mama had carried Percivia in her own stomach for nine exciting weeks, watching her own flesh swell and move as baby Percivia swam around unaware of her fate. She had always been Percivia, Mama knew the bump was a girl and therefore Percivia had to be her name, after the much adored and revered Percivia Agatha Mwanyati or Grandmother Pam as she was known.    The first night after her death still remains much like a coma induced dream, blurred picture memories like a distorted television set, voices from deep under water moaning and calling out to the God who had taken Percivia. I remember most clearly though the space where Percivia used to sleep, empty now of the little brown body tossing and turning as she dreamt. A gaping void now between me and the wall, a vast menacing open clearing, the centre of a ravine where the other side is unreachable. Still, I tried to reach her, my arms moved of their own accord to the spot where she should be, they wrapped themselves around the devastatingly thin air and remained there for the night holding Percivia’s space.”     They lived in a hut woven from grass, offering little shelter from the cold night air and even less from the angry sun. There were never enough blankets to cover everyone, so they would sleep closely knitted together, the warmth of their breath a comfort. Mama mourned the death of her beautiful daughter and cursed the reasons behind her best friend’s death. Percivia was no doubt her favourite daughter; she was different from her older sisters, working twice as hard in half the time and always with a huge grin spreading across her tiny face. Yellow teeth standing proudly on display between lush, pink lips under a pert little button nose that sparkled on a face wise enough to be a grandmothers. Two deep ocean pools looked out from above the nose with a quaint stare that defied description neither sad nor happy, content perhaps but never satisfied. There was always more. Wasn’t there? It was as if she had known she would die young so had tried to cram in as much happiness into her short life as possible. And for this reason she was special.   Her tiny sister’s death was shadowed by thoughts of how cruel the world was, a hardness formed when you had watched so many babies die but a child was different. A child had been around long enough to get to know and there was nothing worse than losing that child just as you began to truly love them. Love took time, energy and emotions that could not be spared, if a woman loved every child she had lost she would not be able to continue with the rituals of everyday life, indeed she may become mad. Therefore, it was common practice that a child was loved only once they had reached adulthood and in Mbala this was at the grand age of eleven. Before then a child was still easy prey for whatever disease was looming about but if a child lived to eleven it was almost certain they would survive at least another ten years. Percivia was thought to be ten and half.