‘I thought I was wrong’

OVERVIEW

‘I thought I was wrong’ tries to narrate a story of a young man who has passed through a society that has a lot of rigid traditional social practices where very few people have formal education. This few that have the education try as much as possible to use in favour of themselves and try to use the others for their own benefit.

Most youths, just like the narrator, tend to involve themselves in alcoholic drinking, early sexual practices, early marriages and other anti- social vices that tend to ruin their lives. The narrator passed through all these, but at the end, he realised that he has a life to live. He opted to change his attitudes completely towards a future that he dreams for.

Tomorrow, he is graduating at the K.I.C.C. Grounds in Nairobi, having ventured a lot in Social Work and Community Development, though this is not an end, he believe is a beginning of an end. To him, the future is not a continuation of the past, but today is the beginning of the future.

PART ONE

I could admit that my early years on earth were the worst in history; the worst I mean the worst socially. Today is my first day to put them in public, I can not call it rape or a sexual intercourse, and I have no word to call this. This happened when I was in my aunt’s place by that time, I was a young boy by then, not really sure how old I was but very sure that I was in nursery.

This happened one day when we were taken by the so called ‘big boys’ to a local dance. In that particular village, local dances were a normal way of life; almost all the young men had passed through the practice and more than a half of the population had got their wives in that traditional activity. In the local dance venue, we were denied the entrance as they claimed that we were very young to enter inside. Though we were out, we could clearly know what was going inside there.

You are given a tap and you give it to a person of the opposite sex. The tapes were taken by the ladies in most cases but occasionally ladies can request the men also to take the tapes. After that, the laps are put off and the tapes were played one by one. To them, this was normal, but to me, there was something that needed to be done.

If my memory is right, almost all these friends have married or have children of their own. Some of them have as more as four children. Whenever we meet, you are being asked, “Unaongoja nini?” (What are you waiting for?)

Every month of December, these dances could be very many. Due to the same, the place has a lot of children who are born out of wed lock, some after realising that they are about to give birth, they decide to get married, some even to people who are not fathers of their expected children.

I thought that dad was wrong when he insisted that never will I stay with any of my relatives till I was old enough to take care of myself. In this particular case, we had to wait out till the end of the local dance. This was because without the big boys that were with us, we won’t have got a place to spend a night. Aunty usually slept early and she will make sure that she closes the doors; they did this because almost the whole society was one ethnical community so you can easily spent in any house as long there were children of your age there. On our way home, we were convinced that all was okay and that next time we will be forced in, I come to realise that all this were just theories that will never ever come to pass. My dream was to enter into the house and just have a look at what was happening inside these houses.

Life is full of stories and surprises, that first day that we were convinced to go to a local dance was my first day to realise a lot in life. How can you feel if you go to a pub, get drunk and then in the morning  when you woke up, you find that your real sister is lying next to you, all of you are naked and that without any doubt, you had a sexual intercourse in the course of the night. This may look as fiction, but believe me that is a real story. That was my first day to see a real biological brother having a sexual intercourse with a real biological sister!

All these ladies are married at the moment and whenever we meet, we fail to have a word to share, and I do not know is it because of the shame or what is going on.

That day, when we entered the house, all the sisters were a sleep, coincidently, they are three sisters and three brothers; first born being a lady, a gent, a lady, two gents and the last born is a lady…………

(The story continues….. would you like to know the whole story? then be a fun of the page, send a comment to the page or email to get a copy of the book).

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