“Do you perhaps need some”
She just nodded and the lady handed her a packet of beef go’slos that she was eating. Upon seeing how dry her lips were I couldn’t even shout at her for taking food from strangers.
“Sis please do not shout at me”
“I won’t just don’t do it next time. Not everyone is trustworthy out there”
We headed home and I had a bucket of water on my head and it was heavy indeed considering the long distance my sister and I were attacking with our feet. I felt for my sister but I knew the journey will be shortened as she had something to calm her rumbling stomach.
“If only you were still alive mom non of this could have been happening to us. Father took another wife and he had changed to a total stranger. He took care of another man’s children and at the same time abandoning his. They threw us out of your matrimonial house and now we live like orphans. Father seized our inheritance from us and the only thing he left us with was his surname. My little sister is too young to understand this and she lives under a lie. I told her mom and dad exists and they both live abroad and that one day they will come take us to the luxurious world. Every day before she sleeps she talks to God that her parents come sooner than expected. How will I expose the truth to her once she is grown? How will I raise my little sister who has turned out to be my daughter?”
“Will you get me these go’slos on your first salary sis”
I was awoken from my thoughts by my little sister and she seemed to have found them delectable and come to think of it I had never tasted them. I just wondered if I will ever get a salary.
“It’s okay my angel I definitely will. In fact you can write your long grocery list and I will definitely get you want you want once I get my first salary”
“Really”, she asked in ecstacy
” Yes baby sis”
If by lying I would become fat then a baobab tree was I to get! I always did everything in my ability to see my sister smiling. I’ve never been more sure of the uknown but I always prayed to correct my father’s mistakes.
A WEEK LATER
Both my sister and I were chased out of school after failing to pay fees for two consecutive years. I have managed to get money for survival as well as pay our fees through car washing but things turned out the other way round when the business was no longer offering favourible conditions. Ouch! The pain was getting too deep than I had wished.
As if headed on a military training, my sister and I headed home. My heart and mind was everywhere making life more of like a paradox. I was a bright student and my sister was just double my brightness. I had been applying for scholarships every single day but poor us, I couldn’t find favour with a good life! As we headed home, I thought of taking the most drastic decision which was going to shock my ancestors. Neverthless I had made up my mind and my decision was final.
FOUR MONTHS LATER
“Give me two shots…I need hennessey instead of black label….Is my order not ready?…Hey where is the brai located in here?…Do you also have stretons?…Just give me your best taste here”
These words reached my ear like a rejuvinating river and I had no idea as to how I was going to adjust. Yes I had dropped out of high school before sitting for my final year Ordinary level examinations. Its been three months since I have started working as a bar lady at Inkeswa beerhall. I had no choice but anyways it is what it is! Whatever I was doing, it was for the best to at least make my sister and I sail a survival. I had now started educating my lytie (little sister).
The bar lady thing depreciated its value as salaries became more than a zero figure to sustain my sister and I. I later turned into a sex worker at this very same bar. The salaries were more than the word favourable but still I was ashamed with the job at first. It made me feel disgusted in myself as well as cheap but I had no choice than to adjust. I vividly remember how my sister would be happy after bringing her a packet of beef go’slos as well as fun n fresh from work. I don’t know if I was glad to call it “work”.
This drastic decision I took shook everyone but who cares, I was already damaged anyways.
” Where were these people when poverty had our faces on it. When mother earth had turned her back on us. When life gave me no reason to keep on respiring”, I said to myseld before sipping a glass of water
I was tired of people asking me why I did what I did and “It wasn’t by choice”will always be the answer.
Indeed It wasn’t by choice
