Oh my God! Zamani sat on the rug with her shoes still on, the house look so messed up and dirty. Gosh! it looks unkept like a poultry.
How can four healthy looking adults live in a house like toddlers. I am getting fed up and frustrated with everyone in this house. Gosh! I am so tired, she muttered. She stretched her back until it made a sound, she yawned ;I'm just eighteen years old ,but I'm working like a forty year old person. My story is rather sorrowful and pathetic.
She kicked her shoes out in anger,I only have three good shoes but Joses with her terrible foot will rather wear them out leaving them condemned and I dare not complain. I will be reminded of how I was saved from the lion's den
my father's house.
She removed the cap from her head, and her hair which was looking old and unkept. Even my nails looks like that of a prisoner who has been detained for donkey years. Story of my life! I can barely take care of myself .
She walked round the house to check the balcony, and the dustbin was turn upside down by some wandering cats in the neighborhood. The building is made up of four bedrooms with a big sitting room and three bathrooms with toilet,the house is at its second stage of obsolescence with cracks on the wall with faded paint as she picked a stick from the ground to hit a lizard that had entered through a torn window net.
Mtcheew! Lizards don't show respect any more.
she walked back inside the room and sat on an old dirty rug. I came to the city to look for a greener pasture but the pasture has turned into a desert and sometimes I feel like nothing is working for me, she muttered to her herself.
Hmmm,she sighed ! I don't know why Joses will leave the room like a dustbin,she behaves so off and odd. Times they say changes everything, for my cousin she has become saucy,unkind and ill tempered and those friends of hers are not helping matter but instead adding more salt to injury.
My name is Zamani Yung, I am the only child of my late mother,my mum gave birth to me in pains because it took her twenty years before I was conceived. I was told she married at a very young age,although I didn't get the chance to meet her in person as I was told,she gave up the ghost in the labor room immediately after my birth. I was tagged "a bad omen" and for my step mum
mama nick
who usually say, "I snuffed the life out of my mum", how could I hurt my own mother? I often thought. Meanwhile, my step mum is a thorn in my flesh.
At some point,I almost ran out of the house at the age of seven ,because I became an object of abuse from my stepmother and my half siblings which was undoubtedly understandable but the same energy of hate coming from my dad was unbearable which was why I wasn't receiving the same amount of love and care my half siblings received and I work like a machine for my two half siblings.
People said my dad loved my mum whole heartedly,their love story was well known by the whole village. The people,friends,relatives scorned him for not having a child of his own for ten good years after marrying my mum; my dad "believed love will prevail and at the right time they will definitely be blessed with a child of their own. So I wandered why my dad couldn't transfer the love he had for my mum to me and it's a question I still can't answer till date.
On one fateful day, on their fourteenth year anniversary my grandmother visited them, but this time was not to celebrate the anniversary but to mount pressure on my dad due to his inability to give him a child. She frustrates my mother everyday, hurled insults and curses on her ,it was so bad that my mum was depressed at some point while she was still alive.
My mum grew out of patient and couldn't take the insult and abuse anymore, so she got angry and told my grandmother to marry another wife for her son so that she can have her desired grand child. That was how my evil step mum came into the picture, after my birth, she was so good to my mum like a good person and later changed after her death . She made my life a living hell.
Metcheew! I wish never to be born!
Can you believed I attempted suicide once in my father's farm and I knew my step mum would have wished I succeeded but thank God for a good Samaritan who saved me and took me to my maternal grandmother's village.
May God be with you Mr Yale,I said. I would rather stay with my grandma and drink water in peace than stay with my dad and his evil wife and her children.
My grandmother was my saviour,she was everything that matter to me. she is hardworking and lovable.
She enrolled me in a local school so that I could have a proper education; I didn't know the harm my dad and his wife was doing until I was all grown up, they really wish me bad.
I attended 'Union Baptist Missionary School' that was where i learnt the basics of education as simple as it sounds, school was a thug of war for me because to mingle with other children was war;l have always been an introvert because of what I have been through at a very tender age.
There is this saying that people sometimes inherit hatred but in my own case I was born into hatred the moment my mum passed away. And to crown it all, I came from a place where superstitious belief controls everyone and everything.
Grandma koko told me how my busy body paternal grandmother went to see a native doctor to see if I had any luck in me considering the circumstances that surrounded my birth , I laugh!
"If you were the shaman,considering how the story of my birth spread throughout the village of 'Vilah'
Of course your reply will be negative.
He said the child and I quote"
"The child born with a three star birth mark on her right foot has no luck, she brings calamity ' he warned.
My father's mother
mamama
looked for a way out from the shaman and she pleaded if there was anything that could be done.
Wait! The shaman said, the gods has provided a solution to reduce this bad luck.
Thank you great one, my grandma said in reply.
"On her sixth birthday, bath her with black soap at 12 midnight for three consecutive day and the local sponge used should be thrown into river Vilah. Also prepare a white chicken for her for three consecutive days and this must be eaten by her alone, after then the gods will chase or reduce the bad luck.
Thank you great one, my grandma said.
Zamani stood up from the ground and walk towards the fridge to take a chill water,she open the fridge and saw maggots and cockroaches inside, for god sake when will I rest,this house is a mess.
She rushed quickly into the kitchen to get a dishwasher and a disinfectant to clean up the mess made.
Gush!! The dishwasher is no where to be found' I will use the detergent I got from the store like that. Its past nine and no one is back home aside me I'm already used to it. Like I was saying before about my life story,years passed and the long awaited sixth year birthday came,if there was anything I remembered in my life,it was from that moment.
Zamani!! She tapped me thrice in the middle of the night, she grabbed her wooden bucket has instructed years back,took out one black nylon 'I believe it contains the black soap' I was stripped naked in the middle of the road.
Yey! Mamama' I am cold !
Shut up,today every bad luck in your life ends,we walk towards the great Vilah river and threw out the used sponge into the river,this was done for three days and on the fourth a final delicacy was made for me. That was the only time I enjoyed while under my father's roof and two weeks later, I lost my Mamama, it was heartbreaking.
Despite all, my evil step mother accused me of killing my grandma because of the silly dream she had. Like for real my fighting for survival has been since both my mum and grandma died, and till date I still remember the emotional trauma I went through in Vilah's village.
The most painful incident was that of mama koko, it still hurts till date. she developed a serious high blood pressure which resulted to stroke;all my life I knew nothing but sorrow. Zamani wiped her face with a handkerchief,everyone that ever mattered to me are either sick or died.
Grandma koko suffered from serious amnesia, she couldn't walk nor talk until it got worse to a point that she deficates and pee on herself, I had to start praying for her to die so that she could rest. she died when I was twelve after my Common Entrance Examination. I cried for days after mama koko's death but it seem destiny was playing a game with me because I would rather die than go back to my father's house,indeed God doesn't sleep I said this quite prayer within myself 'oh God if no one would come to my rescue just show me the perfect way to die'.
At a very young age I was tired of life but God sent my aunt and uncle down to my maternal village, that same day my father's witch wife wanted returning back home with me,I cried and said no
No....
I begged my aunt to take me along with her and that's how I escaped from the hands of the enemy.
I arrived Port Harcourt with my aunt,who lost her husband a year earlier, things were not easy because her in-laws wanted taken over the properties her husband left behind,they succeeded in taking over the bakery and supermarket so they were left with land documents and two uncompleted buildings.
And for me living with my aunt was a dream come true because I was far away from the suffering I experienced while at my father's house.
My cousins were nice to me at first but has time goes on everything changed. The first child is boy named Jonas while the second child is a girl named Joses. The girl is about my age but because of my slow education,we don't see things on the same page. I think she gets so jealous of me at times.
She made a statement "beautiful bitch' don't get it twisted I wear a lot of shabby dress that are unattractive,my aunt warned me that if I get pregnant by mistake she would send me back to my village and has gullible and naive as I am I started wearing big clothes to make me look less attractive,but my cousin is my opposite she is so beautiful,well dressed and attractive but all she has now is a beautiful face and uncultured attitude. She can leave home at will and return back when her sugar daddy and boyfriends releases her.
During her secondary days in junior class,she always top the class until she start mingling with those ill mannered girls.
What turned me off these days is Jonas who has also join the reckless living and you dare not complain or make observation for my aunt the heavens will tear up that day. When life happens to you,just be ready to see people exhibit strange characters. I am done whining for the day,I have to cook ,clean up and fetch water before everyone return. I just wish a miracle will happen to me so I can give myself a better life.
Knock....knock
Yes,I am coming
Zamani what are you doing inside?I have been knocking for over three minutes.
I just returned home not quiet long. Its alright.
She smelled the air,the house smells better and well arranged, well-done dear
Thanks ma,
Wow!! thank goodness power has returned after two weeks of power shortage.
Did you prepare any food? No ma
Don't bother cooking, I brought food from madam CeCe Home warming ceremony. Just clean the whole place and come back to eat.
Joses mum turned towards the door of her room when she noticed bruises on Zamani's hands and foot.
Zamani" what happened to you?
Nothing, Did your boss assault you today.
Jesus! I am such a dick head,how can I not know how to lie!
I am coming to destroy that stupid shop of his. I knelt down immediately
No ma,my boss didn't hit me ,I had an accident while delivering a message on a scooter today.
Are you sure? Yes ma.I won't permit anyone to assault my children, not under watch. Becareful when you do your delivery work.
Alright ma.
I remembered how my aunt beat up my former boss till he fainted,although he deserved it. He was touching inappropriately and I have told times to without number to stop the harassment but he remained adamant until I involved aunty and she dealt with him the best way she knew how" beating "
Laugh out loud' she was a fighter right from her childhood and beating people up has become an hobby.