I grew up in a big family, my mother was a single mother of 8 children. Seven girls and one boy. The boy was the last born but unfortunately he didn't live long enough. He died mysteriously at 12 years. One topic that was not allowed at home was "who's our father". If you wanted to see my mother mad,then bring that up.
Anyway we were all bright children,we would get very good marks at school and our mother always asked us to tell her whenever we felt like we were struggling at school. We all had special pencils and pens that we had to guard with our lives. She made it clear that whoever loses that would have to also lose themselves.
We didn't realise that we were living with a very dangerous human being. Reason being that everything she did seemed normal because we grew up that way. Our mother did not want anyone in our yard,we were not allowed to bring friends at home. Our yard was surrounded by many trees.
By passers wouldn't be able to see what's inside. No one knew what the inside of our yard looked like. We also had a small damn at the back of the house next to an outside one room. That outside room we were all forbidden from entering at night. We could enter only on request during the day but at night we were warned to never even look it's direction.
The room was made of mud and thatch, it had no windows just a very small door that was home made. It was made of thick tree branches. The floor was not made ,it was just the soil and if you entered you'd think we have animals living there. You'd never see any animals there but there was always animal foot prints and animal dung.
We were also not allowed to ask questions. Every year before school starts we were told to choose any bright pupil at school and get in the room and call their names and utter the words "you are going to give me your brains". Little did I know that by saying that we were literally stealing their brains.
When schools open we were told to write the names of pupils we had chosen with our special pens and pencils on the floor at the classes entrances. The minute the learners we chose entered the classrooms we would suddenly have intense headaches for a minute.
That was their brains being exchanged with ours. We were so used to that and we thought it was normal. But we knew never to discuss it. We were very poor at home,so poor that we had torn school uniforms and some teachers would donate school uniforms to us, little did they know that they were also donating their lucks.
My mother was a very horrible person. She had a horrible odour too and I've never seen her take a bath since I was born. But we would always hear her bathing at the pond that was at the back of the house around 4 am. It was a pond not a dam. A dam is wider and that one wasn't very big and it never went dry.
There are days when she would wake me in the middle of the night and told me to follow her. We would go into people's yards and bury muti and dead animals at their gates and sometimes if their yard is accessible we would bury those things at their front door. When we were done we would always leave our faeces there then return home.
We were never allowed to ask any question. When we got home we would just take a quick bath at the pond then sleep 🥱 the last few hours left. The next day at school we would be so tired and sleepy. We were not close with our only brother. He was my mother's precious child and she wanted him close to her at all times.
He was not even allowed to attend school because he was born with a mental sickness and back then we didn't have special schools or maybe we just didn't know about them. How did he pass away? One day at school, a snake came out of my sister's school bag and the teachers together with the janitors killed it and when we got home mom was furious at my sister.
She kept on beating her up asking her why she took my brother with her to school knowing very well that he isn't allowed to leave the yard and now they killed him. We were all confused and we only understood what she really meant years later after she had passed away.
That evening she gave us a sjambok each and told us to enter the one room where our brother was laid and we should each whip him twice so that his spirit may not haunt us. He was dead and we were not allowed to ask questions. No one came to his funeral. He was buried at home and all the right protocols were followed but no one but us buried him at home.
My mother had toy cars that she would use to cause real car accidents. I could go on about her but I won't dwell too deep into this but after her death. It was hard to live a normal life,the society couldn't even accept us. It took us moving away since we were older to another village to have a normal life again.
My mother one day just woke up crazy and saying a lot of scary things. She would walk around bare foot in a scotching hot sun shouting her sins out. This went on for over a year until one day we found her laying at the gate lifeless. The forensics said she was poisoned and to this day we don't know by who.
After her funeral we had to move away because the community did not want us there anymore. Our eldest sisters did their best raising us and today I am a proud mother and a nurse, happily married and free from witchcraft. I have taught my children that studying is very important.
I don't remember my mother's face but I remember the mess and confusion she caused in my childhoods.
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