Odongo stood up and looked into the distance out of enthusiasm. He caught a glimpse of a handful of students toddling along the path cheerfully from school. And further into the distance, he saw the sun bowing gracefully, its golden flickers filling up the place, as it sank into the occident. Its setting warmed the cockles of his heart. It was like witnessing the meek departure of an ugly powerful long-clawed goblin, one that had roamed the earth and scorched the poor with an unimaginable heat.

The day had been long and the grazing fields dusty and torrid. It had not rained for a whole month and yet still, there was no sign of rain coming forth. He gazed at the scrawny cows and sympathised with them. They were starving. There was no grass and there was nothing he could do about it, except to wait and hope with all manner of hope that the rains would miraculously come and wet the rugged ground for grass to grow. He remained staring at a cow that kept scraping a dry sward close to him, his mind moving miles away.

It would soon be thick dark and, deep in the night, he would lie down a bit to recall his troubles and to put his mind together for a new dawn. As always, he would open the kitchen window and look out into the sky, to see the moon rising up tenderly and covering the face of the earth. Just like morning dew gives hope to a browsed meadow, the moon would revive his optimism – a hope now fettered all about with adversities.

These adversities were grinding down his heart. Even to just imagine that he could not proceed with his education brought tears cascading his cheeks. Not that he had no parents or any close relative to take care of his schooling. His mother was a cateress at a renowned university in the country and his father was still unknown to him. But he lived with his mother’s sister, Min Pilot, back in the boondocks where the screech of a car was an ambush to little children and the squall of an aeroplane the sound produced by the spirits of their ancestors touring the earth.

He remembered how it all started that he finally landed at Min Pilot's. He had grown up at his grandmother’s place, knowing his grandmother and inaccessible mother as his only guardians. His mother, Imelda, who had parted ways with him when he was still five, was then working for a hotel at the Coast and would only talk to them on phone. But when he turned twelve and was in class five, she showed up one day at their home and disowned him. The words she used still stood erect in his mind to that very day. He had rushed to her shouting ‘Mum!’ like children do when their parents arrive home from a long journey, but she instead thrust him away and told him off in the face, emphasizing every word of her statement, “Odongo, I must never hear you calling me Mum again. Okay?”

“But why, mum? You’re my mother, and you and granny are the only living kindred I know,” he had answered.

“Look, from today onward, you don’t know me, I don’t know you, and we’ve never met. Do you hear me, child?”

“No, mum, you’re my mother. You can’t do this to me.”

Imelda had then become furious all of a sudden and clouted the boy hard on the cheek. At that very moment, his grandmother who seemed to be following the conflict from the kitchen rushed in at once and stood between them. She looked at her daughter despicably, grabbed her palm into hers and pulled her to the kitchen for a talk. He was left wondering why his mother had behaved indifferently towards him.

A few days later, three men came at their home and his mother told him to go and hide himself at the river so the men would not know whom he was. She even urged him to throw himself in the river and die if he felt irritable and bitter for what she was doing to him. He objected at first, but the aggression that followed his protest sent him scuttling away for safety. Even until then, he kept wondering what had come over his mother and caused her to treat him with austerity.

When the men had gone, one of his friends came to fetch him at the river. The boy found him in tears and went and sat close to him.

“What... what is it, Jonah?” Odongo asked the boy, his voice creaking from a good cry.

“I’ve been told to come for you,” answered Jonah. “Why have you been out here all alone? Is it that you fell out with your granny?”

“No. It’s... it’s my mother... she returned home last... last week and... and disowned me,” Odongo tried to explain amid tears. “She told me... she told me to never call her my mum again.”

“Why? Why would she do that to you?” asked the boy, taken by surprise.

“I... I don’t know...,” Odongo replied and went on weeping. The boy had to coll around him as a way of trying to give him some emotional comfort. After a while, he stopped crying and stood up.

“So is that why you came here, because she warned you not to call her mum?” Jonah inquired further.

“When the visitors came home, she told me to come to the river saying she didn’t want the men to know who I am. She even told me that it were better if I threw myself into these deep waters here and died.”

“Oh, oh no, I’m so sorry, matey. That’s the least I'd ever expect her to do. Let’s go. Let’s go home.” They left the river.

His mother left home a week later. When he queried his grandmother what he had done wrong to his mother to deserve to be disowned, his grandmother replied that Imelda had found a man to marry and did not want the man to know she already had a son, a grownup one for that matter.

After that occurrence that left him beset with gloom, he started seeking to know who and where his father was. His grandmother told him that Imelda had given birth to him while still in high school and had refused to disclose the details about his father. Everyone he asked, including Min Pilot, told him the same thing – they knew not who his father was.

He soon gave up on the issue and decided to concentrate on other important matters such as his schooling and helping his grandmother. Then one day, his grandmother fell terribly ill and was admitted to a nearby sub-county hospital. No one showed up, not even his own mother, nor Min Pilot. His efforts to reach out to them on his grandmother’s phone bore no fruits since they were not picking up the calls. He was therefore forced to assume the role of a caregiver.

He remembered that one tragic night when his grandmother would barely sleep. She kept snuffling as if her chest was clogged with shingle. The nurses had all gone to sleep and he was sitting right beside her, looking at her scraggy face and feeling the clock of her life tick away. At about midnight, she turned and threw her languid looks at the boy and then said with much effort, “Thank you. You will be successful, my grandson.” Then she took in one gulp of air and closed her eyes into eternity.

Odongo forgot himself and the fact that he was in a hospital ward and mourned for his grandmother loudly that night, rolling on the floor and throwing his arms into the air. The reality of the cruel life that awaited him had just dawned on him.

The following day, as the hospital attendant pulled away his grandmother’s corpse to the mortuary, he called his aunt and, lucky to find her, broke her the sad news. His mother was however still out of reach on her line.

Min Pilot arrived at the hospital that very day. She did not even seem to be bothered by the occurrence. She simply took with her Odongo who was crying even then to the mortuary and gave the pathologists a green-light to carry on with the embalmment of her mother’s lich. Later, she paid the hospital bill and they went home to break the sad news to the rest of the villagers.

His grandmother was buried at the weekend of that very week she died. His mother did not appear yet, and it became quite clear that he would be adopted by his aunt. So two days after the funeral, he packed up his belonging and left with Min Pilot to her home in Migori to start a new life altogether, anticipating a better future – if there would be anything like that for him.

He was now seventeen, yet these memories had not faded off his mind. A straying cow ousted him from his wool-gathering. He picked up a stone and threw at it. It turned and joined the rest of the herd.

It was getting late and traditions required that the cattle be taken back to their kraal before dusk. So he grabbed his leading stick and began to prod the herd home.

That was how life had slanted him – to be a herds-boy in his aunt’s house while all his cousins went to school. Every day, when the sun had risen and the morning was as clear as crystal, he had nothing else to do but one – lead the herd to the dry fields and watch over them till sunset. At about two, his young cousin Okoth would appear with half-tin-size food for him. Other times, there was no food for him at all. Okoth had developed a penchant to eating up his food along the way. But he gave the act a blind eye, hoping a new dawn would emerge and his life would turn around.

***
Part 2 up next
© Laminsah
#writcostories #Struggle #suffering #parenting #Africa #misery