The Homeless Child

I descended from my mother's womb in a tense time; I opened my eyes out of an enormous curiosity of a newly born baby and read the bold letters of pain on mother's innocent face. While in the womb

, I had been so anxious to feel the worldly air —  even kicking part of the womb with my feet softer than a cotton – to remind mother that the eagerness to feel the earthly life reached its peak. The very day mother let me out, I felt myself sprawled on the cold floor of the earth, I felt the quite difference of the new environment characterized by a harsh weather and a thick smoke of firewood coming from the kitchen. I began to cry – 'inya' 'wuya' 'inya' wuya'...

But surprisingly, I heard and saw people celebrating, some young girls going around to announce my arrival. All the celebrants seemed oblivious of my mixed words of a baby's cry 'inya' and the Hausa word for 'wuya' lucidly translated to 'hardship' in English. All things went the way those people wanted because they could not understand my language.

Days, weeks and months of sucking the naturally garnered and garnished milk of mother, incomparable with custard, artificial juice and fruits, mother distanced me from my natural feeding bottle to an artificial one that used to hurt my tongue because of its odd taste– the taste of the earthly life. Having read her face again, I realized how unhappy she also was. Consequently, the idea of adaptation to the new stage of the earthly life came to mind.

Since my forceful retirement from mother's chest two years later, my father introduced me to yet another chest, but this time to the chest of the farm. He took me along to the farm, bought a small cutlass for me and taught me how to handle the tool. I had injured myself several times before I learnt how to use the cutlass. Oftentimes, father scolded at me when I responded to the stimulus of an injury. He always told me that the legacy of his father had to extend to me; he regarded it as the only ladder to greatness.

One year later after the harvest, farms were as dry as the Sahara desert, streams were so thirsty that their tongues could not produce any saliva, I saw my father coming back from the direction of the weekly market with something in a polythene leather. No wonder all my clothes were washed and my head was beautifully shaved in the morning by a local barber. The following day, I discovered that what my father bought was a small bowl for taking and eating food. He took my Ghana-must-go bag and asked me to follow him like a puppy; we did not stop until we arrived at the motor park where he handed me to a driver going to Birna town. The only thing I was able to grab from their conversation was about one 'malam' (Islamic teacher) at Kwanan Mikiya. Not so long after my father left the park, the journey began without me fully understanding the purpose of it as a young child of 3-4 years old.

The journey was really a new experience. I knew much things I formerly had no idea about. I suddenly fell asleep and did not wake up until I realized the engine of the bus was going down. We arrived at Birna park. The driver handed me to a man who helped him to empty the boot and the carrier on top of the bus. The man took me somewhere few miles from the park. Upon arriving, I saw young children sitting with their slates reciting the Holy Qur'an; they seemed exactly those young children coming to our house in the morning, afternoon and evening to beg for food. A thought came to me that father had sold me. But I also asked why mother had allowed him despite her immeasurable love and affection for me. It seemed they connived against me.

The malam said to me: "Welcome my son. I do hope your parents are in appreciable degree of health. I could remember those long days ago we learnt the memorization of the  Holy Qur'an with your father here when we were children . You are now here to pick up from where he left off." He stretched his hand to give me a new slate, "This is the slate your father ordered for you."

I found myself at Kwanar Mikiya, a popular community in one of the busy North-western cities, trying to catch up with a strange life among my age-mates and those children slightly above my tender age. As a boy of four years old, I thought my father would come and take me home in the evening like it usually happened when we went to the farm some two kilometres away. But even after the sunset prayer, I could not see the windy approach of my father; I could not also hear the sound he made while clearing his throat; a thing which usually announced his presence and made him recognisable. I realised that I was really meant to pick up from where my father left off as stated by the teacher. My father attended the same traditional Qur'anic school with him. And as a way of preserving the practice, my father deemed it necessary for me to learn the Holy Qur'an in the same way they did.

About 7:30pm, I saw the kids I met there with empty bowls ready to roam about and beg for food. They asked about my own bowl and I suddenly remembered the one my father bought for me a day before he sent me away. I joined those kids unwillingly as my stomach kept roaring in hunger. Just like any other kid, I found my way too, going from one house to another in search for food. I went to about twenty houses but, still, with empty bowl while the hunger was becoming more impatient deep down my stomach. I was saved when I met a fellow kid from the same teacher who got a leftover that began to spoil. The kindness of the kid was very impressive as he asked me to join him. I would have collapsed if a minute was added without me recharging my stomach through the cable of my oesophagus. I thought that was entirely all for the night even though with a stomach not fully satisfied, but my fellow kid told me that the teacher and the seniors would beat me if I returned without bringing for them too, a bowl of food.

I found my way still penetrating through dozens of streets at Kwanar Mikiya, to beg food for my teacher and seniors while the night was eyeing me with lightening and thunder–a signal that told me the rain was coming soon. Within some minutes, the gallant cloud began firing the droplets of rain on the roofs, making a sound that reminded me of my mother, the time she used to call my attention on the health danger of playing in the rain. I got a place to stay for the rain to subside. But it was the kind of heavy rainfall that lingered for almost two hours. The place I hid was close to the gate of a particular house with bulbs and flowers all over; above the gate was a kind of roof that covered me from getting drenched.

It was more than an hour the rain was still falling. I sat down and leaned my back against the gate with my new empty bowl before me; I began to doze as the night got deeper and darker with punctuation of lightening and scaring thunderstorm. Finally, sleep gently stole me away.

Not so long later, the blaring horn of a car frighteningly woke me up. Upon opening my eyes, I saw the headlights of the car flashing me. I quickly took my bowl away from the gate. The car driven in after a man, more of a gateman, slid the gate. Quickly, the door opened and the man rained cloud of insults on me. He warned me never to come close to his mansion let alone leaning and sleeping before his gate. This man never considered my age and the circumstances I found myself. It was not my doing but that of my parents whom despite what they had been hearing and seeing about such system of learning, still forced me out of home to a homeless life.

I returned after getting the food for my teacher. I thought I would be shown a place to sleep but I saw every kid taking his slate to recite before sleeping under the watchful eyes of senior colleagues there who beat anyone that did not recite. I brought my slate out. A senior colleague collected and wrote something on it with a tiny, small dried stick like a pen after putting it inside a dark thick water that was more of a washable ink. He read and asked me to read after him.

After two hours of learning and recitation, we went to sleep. It was very much terrible to my eyes the place I was to sleep. A dirty, smelling, cold and rat-filled dilapidated building was the new home. The small room was containing ten kids, the other room too while the senior colleagues occupied another room. We slept on torn off mats that were spread on grassy ground. The rooms had no ceiling. Lizards could be seen hanging on the top sides of the wall. Cockroaches, mosquitoes and begbugs were the real companions of the roommates. The room had a smell that could destroy the lungs if one stayed too long. That's why some of us prefer sleeping outside the house if there was no rain. We were exposed to dangers of all kinds.

Expect the continuation.
Written by Abdul Mutallib Muktar
abdumutallib.muktar@gmail.com