Breaking Free: A Journey to Love

CHAPTER 1 Dawn was yet to break. Amidst the freezing white fog, a lone hut stood visibly. Inside, a twelve year old girl was still in slumber. Zuri’s bed was nestled in a cozy corner of the room and a separate corner of the room hosted the chicken shed. On the other side of the room was a delightful little kitchen area, complete with the stack of wood and the three stoned stove which acted as their cooking place. A kitchen rack which was made from rusted wire mesh was set just at the foot of her bed which often woke her up when the metal cups would fall when tripped with rats chasing one another. This is where her family’s utensils were placed. Zuri could not suspect, even once, that her life was about to take on a whole new trajectory. She was sleeping in her bed staring at the roof of her mother’s thatched hut as she occasionally rubbed her eyes which were teary and painful. Black smoke that depicted that the firewood being used to light the fire was not dry had thick smoke wafting through the air above her head. The combined scents and sounds of the mooing cows enveloped her, creating a sense of chaos that let down her spirits every morning. The place left her feeling cramped and disconnected from the rest of the house. “Zuri, get up!” It was not an inaudible grasp. Confused and still bleary-eyed, she mumbled a response, struggling to understand what her mother was saying. When she turned, a curvy figure stood beside, not habitually. In any event, Ada assigned her daughter duties before nightfall, and the checklist for every ensuing day was always drawn neatly beforehand. At this time of the day, girls of her age would have woken up hours earlier and helped in the milking of cows, cooking breakfast and helping the mother with holding the baby. The aroma of her mother's roasted yams wafted through the air sending pangs of hunger into her stomach and it began rumbling. She knew that she was cooking tea made from the milked cows which had a shed just behind the hut she was sleeping in. Only in the previous day was she allowed out of her cage, their half acre sized, bare home. Their first landing point was at the Elvis. He had requested for a hand to harrow his farm. Then followed the suitor’s dance. Zuri could still remember Mr Kevin’s cutting words. “Lastly, allow me to remind you. At your age, people and especially men will begin salivating. We have gone beyond and will tell you this, become not a victim to your customs!” The community that she was born in did nothing to fancy the life of a girl. Girls were born to be a source of wealth that would help the boy children of the house marry other girls from a different clan. They were fancied because they formed a chance for continuity of the clan while the girls they believed would just leave the community and join her husband’s clan once the few cows had been exchanged.