Chapter 1.

My beginning

How can we determine life's turns and curves? Can we have a say in our desolate existence? Why does life deal hard blows and knocks? Must we be on ground all our days...
My name Nnenwa Okami, I am the 6th child in a family of 8, in a polygamous home. As if life isn't hard enough my mother is the 2nd wife of 3 wives. I hail from the south eastern region of my country, where a man's strength is measured in the ability to produce a large strong brood.
Unfortunately that didn't translate to wealth as my father chewed more than he could swallow. My mother has 6 daughters and 2 sons, according to the traditions she had wasted her husband's strength by birthing females, we were disposable and not valued as a man needs strong sons to work on farmlands to produce food which converts to money.
I can say that my father was quite unfortunate in that regard because in the 20 children he had with 3 women he had just 5 sons. I can't say if that was the reason for his constant gloomy outlook, but I grew up knowing my father isn't given to smiling or being happy, he always seem to be in a foul mood.
I am not saying he is a bad father but I guess he is living under a failed dream or expectations of life. By the time I was 5years, I realized that life was hard and I was on my own, survival was the watch word. With food and resources stretched thin, my sibling and I resorted to helping ourselves in whichever way we could just to get by.
I remember my sisters and I helping some richer families fetch water or wood from a far distance for a meager sum which we quickly deliver to our mother to scourge up something for dinner. One day, my older sister who was 14years at that time was molested by a young man on her way to run some errand, it was decided that the man will marry her, that was the first time I saw sadness in my sister who had a beautiful disposition irrespective of our hard situation, till date with 4 children and 12years of marriage, my sister is a ghost of herself.
When I was 8years, my mother in a bit to lessen her load decided to send my immediate elder sister and I to the city to live with some families she thought she knew, that was the beginning of the end for us or at least for my sister.

To be continued
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