A SLIDE OF A STEEP MOUNTAIN

The dawn comes, madam Mary in a faint voice calls out blood-seed Scovia from a very small closest room of hers. ‘My daughter, wake up and taste your painful soup.’ The mother and her daughter delegate the tasks between themselves. The former cleaning the house and the latter warming up cold soup on a tripled-stony stove. Sinamenye and his son Calam are deadly asleep and have to be stirred up soon after a table is made. Scovia has got used to the morning biting breeze, yet she never overlooks her pen and notebook a heartbeat never quits her bosom. In her dreams and waking hours, my notebook and a pen,  a weapon to get the boulder off my back’ is an integral part of them and the way-out from the bondage. ‘Now listen my daughter, do not grunt, it is nature that the females be submissive to the males.’ Said mother to her daughter. Scovia stares at her with bleary eyes and resumes her work. She is a moderately thin-tall girl with dimpled cheeks, often calm and smiles occasionally when playing with her mates at school.   Her brother Calam as an only begotten son of Sinamenye is a messiah of the family. He has a princely awe  and impetuous attitudes.  His father is a badly great debtor and her daughter seems a good collateral through a dowry when she gets married while the boy has to climb the academic ladder to the fullest at any cost to turn up the page of his family’s brokenness. ‘As far as I am concerned, scovia as a girl, knowing how to read ABC in her language is enough for her no matter what.’ All the thoughts mingle in Sinamenye’s mind while launching an attack at the steaming soup on a round table. ‘You woman, You see,  we have got two parasites and I have an idea to pawn that our piece of land for the sake of the continual of our son’s education as alternatives around seem closed.’ Sinamenye informs. Mary contemplates it for a while ‘Why are you always mouthing your son, is Scovia another man’s olive? She retorts.  The man frowns and snaps back that a girl is naturally born to raise a family and know her stuff at home. The remark moves the creature. What a sort of a father are you?, We are equally born no matter what, a ladder a man climbs has no special male genes that restrict a woman to do alike’. Mary provokes her husband so much that it seems like squeezing his unhealable wound. He feels tempted and goes for her with a clenched fist. ‘Stand still you fool I handle you’ The chap shouts at her. She cries out for mercy, unfortunately no one is around to help. Sinamenye stumbles and the caged bird gets a chance to get away from the claws of the eagle. On her way to the village’s grocery, Rachel, a neighbor of Mary encounters her sobbing. ‘Again? What is wrong with your so-called husband?’ she asks. “No, let’s drop it Mrs Jacob,  You are a blessed family; your husband is an angel in a person who knows nothing of sexism and wouldn’t hurt a fly.

To say nothing of your daughter’s fame in national arts committee. Jesus was right when he said that they have eyes with no faculty of sight. That so-called husband of mine is mindedly blind and clueless about what is around him. When it comes to family’s brokenness way-out, his daughter’s name never strikes his mind. Thus, his only hope lies in his son who is only obsessed with the underage” Mary lashes out. Rachel is well-built woman and Gasasa village’s women made her a well of peace when it comes to mend the families’ broken fellowship. Despite her fortunes, she is really convinced that no one knows what tomorrow brings. Hence, do right and leave is her slogan. ‘Maria,’ she breaks a short silence, ‘I always beg you to report your case to the police for justice but it seems you enjoy the caging life’. Proactive spirit is what matters more than reaction to the incident. Maria winces imaginatively at seeing her husband behind the bars. Rachel bids her goodbye and they depart. ********************

Back home from BRIGHT school, Scovia and her friend Joyce along with their colleagues tease one another. Joyce is really fat  and she has just become a topic to chase journey away. She and Scovia are like chalk and cheese when it comes to single out the cuteness. Indeed, all school boys crowd around when Scovia uncovers her lips with dimpled cheeks. Being born with a sliver spoon in her mouth, Joyce has any means to taste the fruits of education, though her mother has passed away two years ago. Her father, Naftal is itching to get a second wife to enjoy his wealth. It has not been long since he started to get romantic interest in a little girl who is about to sit for senior three national exam. Scovia now gets home and finds her mother burying her head into her palms. ‘Mum, what went wrong with you?, Did he do it again to you?’ She bitterly asks. ‘What? No, It is only a matter of life condition ma fille.’ The girl feels suspicious but ignores it. She throws herself into household, her brother Calam gets home soon after from the school, then stripes himself and flies away targeting to get back home to have a super at right time. At the center, he stumbles across her girlfriend and insincerely flatters her. Plainly, he always salivates at sight of the half-ripe orange in front him. “My bae, you know what? When I look at you, I wonder whether you are your own-creator. Your figure is a focus which distracts all concerns of all the guys of our village when it comes to African natural beauty. And I wonder if you will be mine to make me luckiest man in the world.” Margo, the name of the girl in the furnace of the itching and flaming firewood reacts coyly and finds herself lost in the boy’s arms. ‘Please stay on my back and I will be your Lambo to actualize your dreams.’The boy flatters himself. ‘Anyway, can we have a drink to burn down your reservedness babe?’ The boy suggests. “Uuuhh, you know I am still too young to sip the alcohol.” The girl replies. ‘Hear me well, love means patience and you have to be submissive to what I say if you love me, even the Bible commands a woman to be subject to her husband as to the Lord.’ The boy insists.  ‘So what?, I am free and I am not smitten with this wrongness of your judgement. Anyway, it gets dark and I am to serve my brothers as usual tonight.’ Margo walks few yards and looks back to see the boy disappearing into the dark. Calam tries to search his way home with difficulties as he does at home when their lamp is out of oil. On his way, he contemplates the recent incident “freedom” What does she imply? His heart pounds bitterly. ‘Let her alone, the bird says that since men have learned to shoot without missing, he has learned to fly without perching.’ His mind whispers. *****************

Every evening at sunset, the RELAX BAR is always noisy and almost all men Gasasa village talk the evening away there. Today makes no difference as a quite number of men are chilling over the wine. Sinamenye is among them and is enthusiastically chatting with one of the wealthiest men in the village. ‘Barman, get us another round, can’t you realize what a client needs before he shouts?’ ‘Naftal demands. We have unreservedly talked but there is something that is at the tip of my lips and itches me ceaselessly.’ Naftali resumes the talk. ‘What is it?’ Sinamenye asks him. “Eeehh, that girl of yours, I mean Scovia who never quits me in my dreams seems a perfect switch of my late wife. I have recently learnt that the land you pawned for your son’s school fees is on the verge of being auctioned. The girl in question has already completed senior three. Isn’t that enough for a girl like her? Then let us strike a deal which is equally profitable between us.” Sinamenye’s heart burns with flames of wonder and suspicion. He cannot visualize her daughter getting married to the goldenly born man. He pinches himself on his left arm to verify if he is not dreaming during daylight. Naftali conjectures a plain answer from the companion as his eyes hint. ‘Allow me to ask you if you are not kidding with a man like you.’ The man over the moon asks.   The wealthy man surveys half-filled glass in front of him then at the poor creature in front of him. ‘Count on my word, her beauty fits $5k as a dowry and your all problems will be thrown away from you into Atlantic Ocean.’ Sinamenye in wonders is never smitten with the fact that the ailing-mannered chap is thrice in age of her daughter. He dreamingly tastes the fruits of Eden and makes a covenant with Naftal that Scovia is now his and what remains is to get her home to feel the warmth of her birthday suit. The bill was on the head of the guy in control and a dash of the hours does them parted. On his way home, Sinamenye’s thoughts build an impressive house, his son gets educated like others from the well-fated men in the village. ‘As matter of fact, girls were born to raise family and take care of their lords.’ his heart confirms. Having arrived home, he finds his wife soundly asleep. Impressions on the door caused by his knuckles are still fresh. The poor woman gets up with bleary eyes and gropes her way towards the door and is warmly greeted with a very tightly clenched fist on her countenance, then a very heavy slap on her left jaw that wakes up the thunderlights in her eyes. The caged bird has compromised on the sour soup that puts her on unintentional diet. Her instinct is to run back and slip into her daughter’s bed who is deeply too asleep to realize what is going on in the house. ****************************

The sky is blue and trees are swaying with breeze. BRIGHT School is a zone of comfort to many people. All school girls are racing for getting the hall that is reserved for FEMINIST CLUB on time. Madam Jeanette has to address such very special talk to the girls today. “Good afternoon to every heartbeat of our desired community. You are all aware that in our community, it is plain that some of us are deemed vulnerable which results into female-based violence. Today is your day, lead today. Our voices have to be crammed into one song entitled “Women emancipation”. As a matter of fact, we women have to be under the men only in bed even vice versa when necessary. Shout for your freedom, line up in the roads as well until your shouts pierce through men’s ears and tear down their stereotyped attitudes against women. It has become like a teacher and chalk that only boys inherit our families’ wealth and get educated at any cost while we girls are looked down like Israelites in Egypt. Some of us are prematurely forced to marry without completing their studies, why us?  I am really convinced that anyone of you have taken heed to what I have just said. I would like to end this session by saying that the dream does not mean what you see in sleep but what never lets you sleep. Let ‘Never say never’ be your motto when in sleep or daylight.” ******************

Days fade away like a mist in horizon, day in, day out. Sinamenye and Naftal secretly keep on adjusting their ploy. The rich man pays finally his would-be father in-law a visit for negotiation. Sinamenye sends to his daughter to come and greet her husband to be. Scovia comes hurriedly with a wonder and seems struck by a thunder at the sight the old man, a father of her great friend Joyce. ‘Where is he dad?’ She asks unbelievingly.  ‘Is this man here a trunk?’ He asks her back. ‘He cannot wait to spend the rest of his life with you.’ He continues.  Sinamenye’s wife Mary is taken back by what is going more than anyone else in the house. ‘What kind a movie are you shooting here?’ She addresses to her husband. ‘Listen carefully my daughter, marrying your lookalike father is an everlasting wound on your back, you are the same age as his daughter Joyce. That is the evil thing in the humankind.’ The desperate mother beseeches her daughter staring at the ceiling as in a prayer with outstretched arms.  Scovia relives what Madam Jeanette ever told them in the very last meeting of the club and assertively tells her father that she would rather get buried alive than marrying such man with no manners. Naftal gets back home disillusioned. Sinamenye flings in a rage more severe than that of a lion that has spent three days unserved and loses a prey at hand. He rushes to the kitchen, brings out a cleaver, gets back and goes for his wife. Mary lies down like a helpless animal, stabbed into insides. Scovia runs away crying out for help and Rachel, Mary’s neighbor arrives on time. She holds Mary up and called for an ambulance. Sinamenye in despair flies away unknowingly where to find a hideout and now becomes a culprit by Police.  Calam has spent whole day away from home. No one has a clue of his bearings. Scovia is in a need of him in order to cope with the mess. Like that rain which poured down on the day of Noah, village children come running to Scovia to completely chop her heart by mouthing that her brother has raped Rahab’s daughter the one who jilted him on the day he was challenged by her utterance of Freedom of a little girl. The poor girl Scovia wishes a very big fish like that one which swallowed Jonah could come and do likewise to her because she feels sinking deep into the muddy sea with nobody around to bail her out of the misery.  She moans over what her brother has done and resolves that his name CALAM needs -ITY To make it complete. As a law enforced for the sake of women’s rights states, former CALAM, now CALAMITY is to be kept behind the bars for twenty-five years whenever he might be convicted for the crime. Scovia is now a lonely tree in the forest where other trees have been cut down for charcoals. She winces with anguish at thinking of her mummy lying on supporting machines in the hospital, her so-called father running away as fugitive hopelessly to locate, her brother rotting in a prison. What additionally piles up the weight of her load is the idea of visualizing her education fading away like the Titanic in the ocean after the game of the iceberg. A couple of days passed by without police to find the fugitive. In a distant village called Hangali, an old woman who was left famished after her husband’s death, glimpses the figure that has been described over radio as a murder who has tempted an intentional killing on his wife. The old woman known as Mama mkuu in the village rumors the dummy hallucination around the neighbors  and the crowd stalks the man. One of them made a ring to a well-known free police number to report the suspected chap.  The most wanted man finds himself in claws of the AMANI National Police. After having been tried, the man is sentenced for five years behind the bars. The villagers got struck by the saying “Like father like son”. Uncle Boal, who is a brother of Mary lives in Tanzania later, learns the calamity that has occurred in his sister’s family and gets back in motherly country Amani. His sister is recuperating little by little. As God is always with those who are in need of Him, the uncle pities over the poor creatures and resolves to pay off any cost of Scovia’s education. Time rashes like a wind; Sinamenye gets out of the cage and finds her daughter as high commissioner who presides over national committee of womanist movement in Amani country. All the village is proud of the girl who has become a voice of women not only for those from the village but also all those from all corners of the nation. Plainly, women came to know their rights and are now in all position of Amani governance thanks to Scovia and so many other conscientious women who stood up for their freedom. Sinamenye (I did not know as the name signifies) shouts out that what makes a knife sharp is a sharpener regardless its mark and exerts to found a club of men in the village that is designed at helping all regional men understand the role of women in AMANI’s development instead of being male chauvinists.