It was almost dawn and sadly, the searing weather didn’t look like it was going to cool off. But what saddened my heart more was that the rising of the sun which signified the coming of a new day held no promise of hope or salvation me.
Fatima who barely had an hour worth of sleep due to the intense heat was wailing in hunger. On extremely hot nights, it is customary for my people to soak their bedding in cold water before sleeping. This common practice was to keep our body cool while we slept but the efforts were sometimes futile like in my own case. The bedding I had soaked to keep us cool had dried up within an hour and worse, the bedding now reeked of saturated urine. The horrible stench threatened to derail my senses and my eyes began to sting as immerse shame overcame me.
It was dismal to be reminded that I lived alone with my daughter in a shabby little hut which was situated far away from the other huts in the large compound. It was also unnerving that despite the time of the day, the unpleasant smell of urine had attracted flies who were irritatingly buzzing around and worse, I dared not step outside till it was light for fear of the ever present snakes and stingers.
I have been rendered helpless by the harsh circumstances of life and left with no choice other than to quietly carry my cross in abject negligence. Finally bitter tears flowed down my eyes as I sorted out the offensive bedding while the ravenous Fatima rapaciously suckled from an emaciated mammary glands that was barely flowing due to malnutrition.
This unfortunately was the lot life has dealt me. I have been forced to live as an outcast amongst my people and even my family cared less because it was the general belief that it was out of their hands. The only person who still treated me like a decent human was Musa. Sadly, the thought of him always reminds me of what should have been, what could have been and what would never be.
Musa, Isa and I grew up together. He was Isa’s best friend while Isa was my half brother and I used to sneak out after school to go play with them while they were cattle rearing. Those were bitter sweet memories before Isa’s death and my subsequent betrothal.
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I am from a large and still growing family of twenty three children. I am the fifteenth child and seventh daughter of my father, the second child of five from my mother who was the third of five wives. Our extended household was pretty simple, mundane and above all harmonious because my father ruled his family with an iron fist. He was an ardent advocate of the “Spare the rod and spoil the child” ideology and he enforced it fervently. He made sure he raised his sons in the way he saw fit while we the daughters to whom he accorded very little or no regard for adhered to his will through our mothers.
Father’s belief which reflected those of the typical Hausa man was that his sons would ensure continuity of his family name while their daughters were another man’s property to do as he deemed fit. So this made daughters in our culture second rated and accorded little or no significance in the community.
I was never bothered by my father’s obvious favoritism for I was always kept preoccupied by my vivacious and curious nature. A nature that always got me into a lot of trouble because it was mostly the things that were forbidden to us that held the most fascination for me. I was also so eager to learn that when my father said he would give his blessing to any of his daughters who wanted to attend the missionary school, I eagerly jumped at the opportunity.
Isa was very disappointed because our brothers on the other hand were forbidden from attending. Father believed education was for lazy people and girls hence a waste of time and therefore forbade them from attending because he felt there were far more important and industrious things in life.
School opened my eyes to the numerous possibilities our Islamic and cultural teachings naively shielded us from and I made sure I shared my experiences with Isa. He was older and we weren’t conceived from the same womb but we were kindred souls of one spirit with an uncanny empathy for each others feelings and needs. Our relative intimacy got us into so much trouble and the one occasion that still fondly remained very clear in my memory was the day he had his Kdchiya.
The Kdchiya was a big deal for every young Hausa boy because after the procedure they were accorded the rights to being called men. Isa who was just thirteen then came out from the Kdchiya straight faced and composed and I was so proud of him. I thought him quite strong and brave until I caught him afterwards vigorously fanning his lower body as he wept his soul out in the bush.
I was oblivious to the fact that he dared not display any form of discomfort publicly for fear of being rebuked and made jest of, so naturally I was shocked that he was crying, then appalled when he showed me his reddish member but before I could offer anything in the way of comfort, father caught us red handed. Isa with his pants down, I furtively taking a peek with a mixed feeling of revulsion and fascination.
You can’t imagine the uproar it caused and the subsequent punishment that was meted on us. It was both so horrible and hilarious that till this day, I still laugh myself silly whenever I remember.
So when he passed away five years later it was no surprise that I was the one who was affected the most. His death left me riddled with guilt and pain, then finally horror because of my fathers eventual desecration of Isa’s memory. Isa had been hit by an incoming lorry that had lost control while he was trying to usher two of my father’s cows that had strayed towards the road.
I cried uncontrollable in despair and could in no way be pacified because a very large and vital part of me had been cruelly torn away and lost forever. Father on the other hand had the temerity to proclaim that Isa’s death was the will of Allah and therefore paradise awaited him but the death of his cows on the other hand was unfortunate and unacceptable. He dismissed Isa’s death with barely a wave of the hand but ask for settlement on the death of his cows and the future calves it was expected to birth. I was so outraged at my father and I made sure I let him know how I felt which our culture saw as abominable.
Our upbringing taught us that the father’s decision in a family was final, no one should countermand it and no one dared shout at him in disrespect. So you could imagine the shell shocked silence that befell everyone when I had according to them committed an abomination. My father beat the living day light out of me but I took it all in stride because I was satisfied that I had at least defended and upheld Isa’s memory.
My father wanted to disown me but he changed his mind afterwards and married me away to a Mallam Usman, a man who was almost the same age as himself and a man who had been discreetly asking for my hand in marriage. When I refused my father threatened to throw my mother and siblings out of the house, so I was left with no other choice than to marry Mallam Usman at the the delicate age of fifteen.
I moved into my husband’s house and the first time I had sex with him was a nightmare. I felt excruciating pains as his large member violated and deflowered me. I was bleeding a lot afterwards so I swore to my mother that I was never going to allow him to have sex with me again. But my mother said that if I should stop after the first time, the wound will never heal so therefore I had to continue.
So anytime my husband who surprisingly for his age was randier than a mountain goat came to have sex with me, I‘ll start weeping. He‘ll then smile and pat me on the head like a father would do to a child who was sulking, then tell me that Allah was blessing and rewarding me so I should stop weeping before he mounts me and romp away.
Several months later when I became pregnant nobody offered to tell me about pregnancy issues or how to give birth until I experienced it myself. All I knew was that when a pregnant woman was about to put to bed they brought her back to her mother, other than that I knew nothing else.
Finally the time for Fatima’s conception came and I suffered severely. I bled for three days as the midwives struggled to bring Fatima to terms, before I was finally taken into the dark room. I really don’t know how the dark room helped but It was said that those who had difficulties giving birth were sent there and also mad women who were pregnant were sent there too because only Allah could deliver them and baby. My condition grew worst in the dark room and I was at the brink of death before I was finally rushed to the health center.
The health center saved my life and I am forever thankful to them. Yes my life was saved but the horror I experienced in the dark room left an indelible mark in my life. I was diagnosed with Obstetric Fistula after delivery and it was attributed to the midwives crude child bearing methods. The doctors claimed that my labor had been difficult because my hips had been too tender and narrow, and that if I had been brought to the hospital earlier it could have been prevented.
I never really understood the full extent of my condition until I got back to my husbands house. It was so embarrassing for a young woman who couldn’t tell when she needed to relieve herself and it was more embarrassing when she didn’t even know she had already messed her clothes up like a baby. I had lost control of my bladder and everyone including my husband found me smelly and disgusting. So I was given another hut far away from the main cluster and everybody comfortably avoided me.
Musa was the only one who didn’t feel that way towards me. I think on a subconscious level he felt guilty and therefore responsible for my predicaments because he believed that if he hadn’t cooked up an excuse and left Isa to be with me on the day he died, he probably would have averted his death. We both felt guilty for his death because if we hadn’t been seeing each other secretly to harness our feelings, Isa would probably be alive today.
Musa comes to visit and bring food for us from time to time, I am most grateful that he has finally set aside his misgivings towards me and didn’t shun or reject me like everyone else did because I wouldn’t have survived it if he had done it again.
The first time it had happened was on the morning after my first night with my husband. The look of hurt, pain and betrayal I saw in Musa’s eyes when I came out of his fathers hut would forever haunt me till I die and the subsequent silent treatments he gave me afterwards were heart wrenching.
So on I live my life, not because life was pleasurable to live or there was something better to look forward to but because I take solace in the fact that no matter how dire my situation was, there is someone out there worse off and wishing they were in my shoes.
My Dark School Of Thoughts 
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