Angu rafiki...

Hi everyone,

I rarely get a chance to post anymore...sorry! I am doing a degree in Classics and English at the moment, so most of my time is spent reading lots of books and writing lots of essays...

However, I have applied to take a 'Creative Writing' module next year, which is very exciting...and I got a place! I had to write a short story that was a bit controversial/strange etc. I wanted to write something totally different from what I normally do

In terms of the process of writing, I started off writing as a girl, living somewhere in Eastern Africa about 60/70ish years ago. I wanted to write something with sensory, vivid language that the reader could just picture very clearly. As I carried on writing, I started to gather a few more ideas and characters in my head and tossed up a few options of what I could do to make it 'controversial'.

Anyway, I hope you like this :) Please let me know what you think in the comments below...any feedback is always gratefully received!

Bethan x

Angu rafiki,

The day is coming. It is almost upon us. Soon the clan will move onto the next settlement and our home making will begin anew.

I will be sad to leave this place. This place that has become my home. The rich red earth beneath my feet. The coarse grass and the butter yellow flowers and the glade with the boa boa tree, who casts her outstretched arms for protective shadows against the beating sun. The cool breeze that brings the distant smell of grass fires and a sweetness, like honey.

The beautiful open sky under which Modé and I used to lie and trace patterns in the stars. So many stars…

Father says we are moving to a place near City. I don’t know what City will be like. Father says that it is very different from our little farm, with lots more people.

I will miss the rain too, I think. There is something so magnificent about those black clouds rolling over the sky and growling with thunder. And oh…the relief when the heavens open and pour out sheets of water. Sheets upon sheets of it…cascading from the heavens. Modé and I love splashing through the puddles with the younger children. Mother always shouts at us when we first come home again – shouts that we are filthy children and too old to be playing in puddles. But then she smiles and ruffles my hair and kisses my cheek and tells us to stand outside and let the rain wash us off.

I wonder if there is rain in City? Father says that there is not much soil and no place to do farming. He told me the other night that there are buildings that stretch to the heavens…buildings that are even taller than the boa boa tree. That sounds very tall to me.

Oh, Modé had just arrived! We’ve been told to visit Imamu who will give us jobs to help.

kwa heri, Adaeze.

 

Angu rafiki,

The journey has been long and difficult. Mother was upset when we left out home. She cried and kissed the door as she pulled it closed. I hate it when Mother cries – it makes me sad too. But, angu rafiki, I heard something last night. Something that I shouldn’t have heard and I don’t know what to do. I shouldn’t have listened, but it was an accident…

Modé and I had decided that we would sneak away from the mahema and watch the stars again after everyone else had gone to sleep. We agreed, when the moon was at its highest, we would both leave the mahema and meet by the river. I kept watch out of my hema and when the moon reached its peak, I ran out of the camp and down to the river. Modé and I watched the stars and talked for a long time about them – telling each other the clan stories of the bear and the lion and the brave warrior who killed it. I love the flying horse and Modé loves the scorpion…

After a while, I started to fall asleep and Modé told me to go to bed. On my way back, I saw Father and some of the other men around the fire. Father looked angry – he was wearing that frown that makes his forehead crumple and shadows his eyes. I crept very quietly around the back of the mahema.

Then I heard it.

Father shouted about the men. The men who had come to our home with big guns and told us that we had to leave. Father shouted that we should have stayed and fought to keep our land. Imamu told him that the men would have taken mother and me and the other women and girls and done bad things to us. “Jelani,” he said, “Adaeze and Kibwe would have been broken. We did the right thing by moving on.”

Imamu’s words made me scared and I ran back to my hema and hid. I can’t sleep angu rafiki. But I must tell Modé in the morning.

Kwa heri, Adaeze.

 

Angu rafiki,

I have done a terrible thing. Baya baya kosa….

I told Modé what I heard Father say. He was hatiri sana, very angry. He said that no one should take out homes and threaten to harm us. I begged him to calm down and that Imamu knows best, but he growled and ran off to find the other young men. Now all of them are going back to fight the baya tangazo. Even Father is going.

I feel so stupid, angu rafiki, because I don’t know if Modé and the other men will come back. I saw Imamu and he looked very sad.

I don’t know what will happen now.

Adaeze.

 

 

Angu rafiki,

The men came after us. Mother calls them mzungu because of their white skin, but only when they cannot hear us. They told us…that our men were…wafu.

I felt sick when they told us, rafiki. Mother and the other women cried and wailed louder than I had ever heard. My head swam and my stomach ached and I felt like the ground was dragging me towards it.

I…I don’t know what will happen now. The mzungu say that we will be taken far away.

Angu rafiki…Modé…I will never see him again. I wish that I have never spoken a word. I made a terrible mistake. If only I hadn’t left my hema, and if only I hadn’t heard Father speaking.

But now it’s too late.