Note: Reference to trauma.
I don’t have water. Whether in the ground or on my tongue, i don’t have water. I must tell my tale with dried mouth; a berry, out of colour, my lips must open and i must speak. If i don’t speak, what will i gain? Will my silence melt the clouds; will it drag the sky down to my door? If i am silent, will that river crack open and a flood will pour out from its charred skin? I must speak because i am human; i am a parent who has to watch children go to bed with ribs stitched to their skin. I must speak.
I watched the news, hoping that someone would speak for me, tell the world that i have been to the well and there was no water to be found there. But i have waited in vain. I sat there on my soft chair, my first child between my knees, weaving her sister’s hair with shrivelled flowers. I told them to stop but my daughter said it was the only way to stop her sister from crying. I did not cry when i heard her words. What was left to cry for? They do not know the value of our tears now, but i do. I know so much now that i hurt just thinking of how to forget.
The news spoke of wars, of men who seemed to think that pushing sons, husbands and fathers to kill each other was a way to prove that they deserve to be in positions of power and mothers weeping near unmarked spaces of faces they will not touch again. What is my business with war? When the rebels climbed down my rafters, stole my goat and beat my brother and broke his leg, where was the news? Where was the news when my father walked out one afternoon to see his friend at red house and never returned again? Where was the news when my mother... ha! I will not speak of what still bitters my tongue and breaks my heart. They did not come to my house when the bombs ran through the town and children were running to their mothers as if these women knew anything about saving children from the war of trauma. I did not see the news in our town. They did not come when the church was bombed or when soldiers ran through the people and i watched the train take the rich away.
I don’t have water. It is a simple request. It is simple demand. It is a human right. I have heard that word among the young in their armour of knowing, speaking, speaking and unable to move themselves into doing something tangible. I was there, when Aghogho held a placard at the water plant in DSC demanding that the plant be fixed and clean water be given to the people. This was before the plant was bombed for hiding rebels. Even then, the news did not speak of the protest. They were busy speaking about election tribunals and results, sharing pictures of young people dancing in the streets, celebrating the new governor of our state. Aghogho disappeared before that election. I know this because he was my friend, Ojo’s only child. She had a degree in religious studies.
I know you want to hear kind words and how the world is beautiful because you have your own pains, your own troubles and it might be better to turn away from anger and trauma but who will i tell? Who will listen? If the news will not tell of my famine and drought, who then, will carry my story to the world? Who then will stand before all these powers so focused on the limits of their power, to say, see people here are dying of thirst. I have gone to enough funerals this past week. I have listen to priests speak in front of their temples, calling the people to calm. But what can the priests do? Besides, they are well off, having water come from the sacred Ethiope River. The water of that river never dries. Nobody knows how or why but what we cannot do is go there to get water.
I am sorry that i do not have kind words but who does in this world? You who live in the midst of wars like i do, or who live in the midst of peace as i once used to, do you have kind stories to tell that have to do with the human race? Can you stand and speak for the whole of the human race and find kindness there? That a lioness licks her young, does that mean that the veldt is at peace? That an elephant survived a poacher’s hunt, does that mean that tusks are safe? In Nepal, as the news say, tigers and leopards are attacking humans, despite the deliberate attempt by humans to save the forest and the animals therein. In Bangladesh, women fight for water even as the hunger for shrimps that feed the fancy restaurants of your civilization continues to demand for more license to feed their terrible addiction. Does this mean that all is well? I know that there are beautiful days. I hear in the news, beautiful stories of art and creative work, human kindness and times when the people rise above their circumstances and demand accountability from their immune leaders. This is beautiful to hear and see but i don’t have water. I don’t have water to drink or bathe or swim. Is this not my own nightmare, my own death?
Tomorrow, when i am gone, silent as the sand that sifts the wind, you will say i said nothing. You will imply that i hid my pain for too long and so, you did not hear on time. You will lie about how you tried to get to me, to help, to build a safe space for me and mine. It will not matter. The sun will have passed over my unmarked grave and that of the persons that passed before me. You will build statues, write epitaphs and poems, paint pictures to commemorate these pleas for help but you will be late. No matter what you do, you will be late. Maybe my children will have survived enough to have children who will witness your rewriting of history. I hope they are strong enough to demand silence on the news because the news did nothing for me.