Dawn in the creek

HOW OUR TROUBLES STARTED....

Usually I spend my evenings giving my mum intricate details about the things I noticed, experienced or vividly saw during the day or I spend it narrating to her funny stories I heard from school. She would usually listen to me quietly while I animatedly gave detailed description in words about what I had learnt for day. But on this particular evening my mum noticed there was something wrong with me, she tried to pull me out of my foul mood but all are efforts yielded no positive result.

You see, when I was seven I came back from school to people gathered in our compound. As a little child who had never seen so many people gathered in my house before, I was so excited. I wanted to run around to see if I could find other kids my age to play with but the drive to see my mum and dad was more intense than the will to play. So I went in search of my parents but I noticed that everyone I walked past where sad and where trying to avoid my gaze. I asked Mama Chichi who stayed in the next compound where my mummy was and she looked at me with sadness in her eyes and said "your mummy is inside". On getting inside I saw my dad laying so still on a make shift bed in our sitting room while there where other people who I didn't recognize sitting and discussing.

I approached my dad and screamed "daddy wake up, I'm back from school and it's time for my lunch, where is mummy?". My question was met with no reply. I tried to reach out for my dad's hand but that was when my mum came in, grabbed and took me inside where she kept on holding me and crying. She kept whispering that my dad was gone and he was never coming back. I tried to wrap my my little mind around my new reality, the reality of my father not being part of my life anymore but I couldn't. I felt my heart break not because I understood the meaning of death but because I understood daddy was gone forever. We cried till we slept of right there on the ground. The following morning I woke up in my little bed, while I tried figuring out how I got there, my mum came into my room and I greeted "Good morning mummy", she sat down on the edge of my bed and reached for my hand which I gave her. She smiled that bitter sweet smile which told me a lot of things were wrong right now even though I could not fully understand it as a seven year old. she held on firmly to my little hands and said "baby it's just you and me against the world now" then I asked, "is daddy really gone forever?" she said yes, she also said "don't worry he is up there in heaven watching over us". She reached for me and sang me a lulluby in our dialect which was as good for her just as it was good for me.

When I thought my only problem in my child mind was dealing with the death of my dad, trouble came knocking on the door.

TROUBLES....

Life after the death of my Dad was a huge change. Even as a seven year old, I realised early that life was never going to be the same again.

My mum was so busy with running around for my Dad's burial and it seemed like she was not handling it well. She was constantly lost in thought and always sad during the days that led to the burial.

Different people were trooping in and out of our house and it didn't feel like home to me anymore.

Some days after my Dad's death, a different set of people came to the house. They were dressed in coperate attire and I was fascinated by their presence in our house. After parking their car in our compound opposite my Dad's car, one of them dressed in a white shirt, black tie and black pant asked me if my Mum was in and I replied that she was. I then dashed in to go and call her. I searched for her from room to room while shouting " Mummy ", eventually I found her in the bedroom she and my Dad shared pouring over their wedding pictures and our family album. She had tears in her eyes and tried to hide them when she noticed I had come in. I approached her and held her hand in my little ones then said " don't cry again Mummy every thing will be fine again and I will take care of you like daddy made me promise to". This statement only made her cry more and I kept holding her hand in one of mine and wiping of her tears with the other. After a while, we heard noises outside, that's when I remembered the reason for which I came in. As we walked out of the room to find the sources of the rackus, I told her there were people outside that wanted to see her and she chastised me for not telling her sooner and started schooling me on the dangers of letting strangers into the house. On getting to the sitting room, we discovered that the visitors had already made themselves comfortable while they waited for me to call my Mum.

My Mum sat on the seat opposite the oldest person in the team that came and carried me on her lap.

She went on to ask them who they were and their reason for coming.

They gave her answers to her questions and the answers were disturbing. They told her that my Dad collected a loan from their bank and used our house as collateral, the oldest in the team said " if you don't pay one before next month you will lose the house". My Mum was shell shocked that she sat there with her mouth wide open and unable to speak. When she recovered she asked " how did this happen? when did he take this loan?" and the man went further to give details about the loan and it's due date. My Mum was so sad after the visitors left that she didn't eat. She called my Dad's lawyer and they agreed to meet the following day.