by Aluta Nite
On the other hand, many institutions also abused the gesture through the organizers who collected funds and only put to use a very small percentage of the funds and pocketed the rest for their own use. In the end, the targets could not be met or if they were met then they were done shoddily because funds had been siphoned to unknown places.
One case in question was as follows.
A family of four children whose parents were holding good permanent jobs and good pay including retirement benefits did the unthinkable. The family lived in a middle class area in an owner-occupier house. The house was big enough because it had three bedrooms and two full bathrooms and a half bathroom.
The house had a lounge, a dining room, kitchen and store; cabinetry, built in wardrobes, double garage, a front yard and a backyard. They also had a self-contained quarter for their resident house-help. The house had a fence around it and a gate. They had two reasonably new cars and lived very comfortably with their children going to private schools.
In the parents’ mind, this was not enough. It was inadequate in their eyes. They therefore started scheming as to how they would move to up market housing where the rich or cream of the society lived. Obviously their combined income could not afford a loan for a house in the desired area.
But because the program of pulling together was available, they would make use of it come rain or sunshine. Knowing that nobody would donate funds to them to buy or put up a house, they had to come up with an idea that would make them con people easily.
The idea they came up with was that their firstborn, a twelve-year old girl, had some ailment that required urgent attention abroad and their local doctor recommended it. The disease was described as an abscess on the backside that required urgent operation only possible overseas.
The couple printed receipt books for collecting funds and harassed their friends, workmates and neighbors seriously in two weeks to come up with the funds otherwise their daughter would never walk again. They needed money for air transport to and fro, accommodation while recuperating, medicines and payment to the hospital and the doctor abroad.
Also, one of the paternal aunties of the girl was accompanying the girl and therefore would incur some expenses. The estimated time of all this to happen was also approximated as two weeks. Friends, neighbors and workmates donated money as a matter of urgency, but felt really harassed by the parents’ calls and repeated calls.
In some instances, the parents even dictated how much one should donate depending on how they viewed certain individuals or couples. In a country where salaries and wages were paid once a month and at month end only, a part from casual workers who were paid every Saturday, this could be very challenging to the donors and the recipients did not want postdated checks for the coming month end.
All in all, there were a few individuals who did not buy the idea of an abscess being taken abroad for treatment, but they did not have the proof to go with their doubts. In that part of the world, abscesses were called boils that generally swelled under the armpits and on the glands around the groin.
And the treatment was normally not so intensive. A lot of them were treated at home while some got injection treatment and cleaning at the health clinics. To confuse donors, the couple made sure that they used the medical term for boils hence the word ‘abscess’ to make the issue sound weighty as many people would not bother to find out what an abscess really was.
The couple raised enough funds to their hearts content within two weeks and the issue died down. After two weeks from the date they said that the journey would be on, if a donor asked any of them how the whole thing went, they declared that their daughter was back and she was doing well and back to school.
The truth of the matter was that neither the girl nor any of her aunties went abroad. The girl was around and lying low so that nobody could ask questions. She boarded the family car to school within the home compound and left the car after school within the compound again instead of at the gate as was usual.
She did not get out on to the road or within the compound to play and shout or be with her friends as before. The windows to their cars were tinted therefore it was not easy for anybody to peer through.
A month after the supposedly operation, the couple got land allocated to them by the City Council in the up market area and they started building a bigger house with an additional small loan from their bank. The house was built in six months and the family moved to the new classy area.
The abuse of the good gesture took many angles with some lying that they were going to school abroad and raised funds and within two months, they were back in the country and driving the biggest and most current model of Mercedes Benz.
There are even worse scenarios where people in towns and cities lied that their close relatives had died upcountry so that they could ooze money out of others in the name of sympathy for funeral expenses. Some even forgot that they already claimed such before on particular relatives and they once more claimed death and donations for the same relatives.
Two Leaders
Power was so sweet and consuming that it made two incumbent leaders behave and talk like children who had lost their parents when they were defeated in parliamentary elections of the time.
The older of the two had been in politics for three decades and had held prestigious posts all through with generous pay and big perks to go with the positions. He had been assistant secretary and secretary of several government portfolios, director of several institutions and board member of several institutions throughout this time.
He was used to being driven in sleek Mercedes Benzes with the national flags on tow on the front left side. The cars had many extras that are not available in all cars. He was used to having bodyguards and an escort team in plain clothes or in uniform depending on where he was at any one time.
Over that period, he lived in big government mansions in secluded leafy parts of the city and the houses were guarded twenty four hours seven days a week. At the beginning and end of each school term, his drivers took his children to boarding schools and also during mid-terms or any other time; in other words whenever he or his wife could not make it himself or herself or both.
His children were so spoilt to the extent that the drivers had to collect their dirty clothes to be laundered at home and returned to the schools the following weekend. His children had extra school uniform to allow this to happen. When someone from home failed to go to school one weekend, his children would cry themselves silly because they wanted extra food as well especially chocolates, cakes, sweets, biscuits, cookies, chips and juices.
This life was very sweet to him to the extent that he forgot who he was or where he came from before all this. He was a secondary school teacher and his wife was an elementary school teacher with limited pay to start with. He then became a schools' inspector before joining politics.
With the handsome income that he made, he also put up a big mansion in his upcountry home area. He also married a second wife therefore he had many children. As far he was concerned, this was going to be his life so long as he was alive. He was forgetting that he was an elected official and the electorate had the mandate to elect him in future only if they so wished.
The fact that he had been re-elected several times clouded his mind and made him think and conclude that there could never be somebody better than him from his constituency to compete with him and win. Unfortunately, it happened.
He campaigned as usual every five years and when the voting was over this time and counting of votes was in process, he was already celebrating with his supporters because it was unthinkable in his mind to lose. When the returning officer announced the results the next day, his name was nowhere near number one or two or three.
He had lost badly to new comers who were not seasoned politicians at all. Scales turned and he became a nobody. He could not take it. His last public words were horrendous and disturbing.
He said, “How am I supposed to take care of this big famil
y and myself without that job? This is throwing me to the dogs forever. I cannot survive this.”
And indeed, he passed on not very long after.
The younger of the two politicians had been an accountant in public office for a decade and a half and he also had his own small accounting firm by the side before he became a parliamentarian.
He became a politician not by choice in that he became a friend of another politician of his age and from the same region as him and the friend inspired him to become one especially because he divorced his first wife and married the friend’s sister. In order to hang around together and do many things together, it was awesome to be a politician like his friend.
His friend taught him the ropes; introduced him to the people and bodies concerned and mattered and led him by the hand through campaigns and he got a foot in the door through an election that he was just trying out without any surety of ever winning.
Once he was in and tasted the fruits and benefits, it became the best thing ever for him. It brought him more respect than he could ever ask for. It earned him class in the hierarchy. It changed his status just like that. He became rich. He eventually became an assistant secretary in one of the government departments.
He abandoned the small saloon cars he used to drive. He would now only fly to different destinations he had to go to. Road transport became a thing of the past except in very short distances within the city or within his constituency, but in big vehicles.
He said goodbye to many simple things in life like queuing for things or issues. He acquired bodyguards, drivers and security at his big homes both in the city suburbs and his place of birth.
As parliamentary periods ended and new ones started and he was still elected, he became so comfortable with the new life that when the wind of change started blowing, he was not alert enough to see it or embrace it. To him every day would be a Sunday henceforth since his new found circumstances.
He had a few children with his first wife. When he remarried, he had a few more with his friend’s sister. The two men were very close and the families too. The two men were representing two areas that were adjacent to each other. They therefore did more or else everything together including campaigns.
Apparently, the wind of change was gathering momentum slowly but surely and within the next general elections, people had made up their minds that they did not want the incumbents who preached wine and gave water, as they worked with their stomachs in mind without regard to the sufferings of the voters.
As Election Day drew close, the two friends still did not see chances of any change in the status quo. They therefore went to the polling station to vote themselves in without realizing that they stood no chances at all.
And indeed as the votes were counted overnight and through into the next day and the returning officers started announcing results throughout the country, they started panicking because some of their colleagues who were unbeatable were already out of the races by morning. By midday, his friend had been knocked out.
His last public words while crying were, “If my friend is defeated and out of this race then there is nothing else for me to live for except death. What would I do on my own even if I win?”
By four in the afternoon his results were announced loud and clear. He was not going back to parliament.
This man did not live for another few years. He lost hope, confidence, tact and civility. He could not walk with his head high up again. He got depressed and died a miserable man leaving young children who were spoilt to the core due to luxurious living.
Barrenness Drama
Nature gave everybody something and at the same time denied everyone something else and no two people are exactly alike on this gift giving and missing out on another.
Two very talented women come to mind on this issue. One is Louisa while the other is Matilda.
Both women were highly educated and had good jobs in the private sector. They were also both married with good husbands. Their husbands too had good jobs therefore money was not a big deal in both homes.
The problem in both families is that the couples could not have children. In Louisa’s case, it was not possible to have a child because she had some issues in her system that needed scrutiny and treatment before she could conceive. It took her long to figure this out therefore she stayed for long before getting pregnant.
In Matilda’s case, there was nothing wrong with her it is her husband who was not prepared to bring forth a child in this world because of what he himself went through as a child, the details of which are not available because of the pain involved in the issues since his own parents were involved in the issues.
In desperation while feeling incomplete and developing an evil mind and envy towards others with babies, Louisa did the impossible, one Monday evening. A colleague of hers, who lived in the same estate with her and had had her first child, a little girl of eight days old had returned home from maternity hospital.
After work, Louisa decided to go and see mother and child and maybe even help with the washing of the baby's clothes, utensils and so forth. Mother and child had returned from maternity hospital the same day in the morning and both were not very well, as the mother of the baby had had a difficult delivery.
She knocked on the door and the father of the baby answered the door. He greeted her and showed her the way upstairs where mother and child were in the main bedroom. He remained downstairs while washing dishes and cooking in the kitchen.
After about thirty minutes he heard the baby cry in a very abnormal manner and he had to rush upstairs. On reaching upstairs he found Louisa rushing to put the baby on the bed and the baby was not covered as she was before. The front parts of the baby's body were fully exposed.
The mother of the baby was in the bathroom and she was also struggling to rush out as the baby wailed, but she could not be fast enough because she had both internal and external stitches that had not healed or been removed.
He asked Louisa why the baby made the queer noise and she said that she did not know. Meanwhile, the mother of the baby also reached and started examining the baby. They could not believe what they saw. Louisa had pulled the baby’s white unhealed umbilical cord that was still hanging to the navel.
The result was blood coming out at the joint where the two connected. The father of the child sensing danger told her to leave immediately. And she left.
The fact that she did not have a child after being married for four years did not sit well with her especially when seeing people who got married after her having babies was rather painful to her and in her evil mind she had intentions of hurting an innocent baby.
After she went through her treatment fully she got two children in her sixth and eight years of marriage.
In Matilda’s case, she was not the villain. She is the one who was treated very badly by a couple who had their first baby boy who was six months old.
Matilda had gone to the couple’s house to collect the baby's ayah who she was taking somewhere for something important in the ayah's life. The ayah did not know the location, she did not have a car and the place was also far therefore Matilda offered to give her a ride to and fro, a period that would take about three hours and she would be back with the baby as agreed with the baby's parents.
The ayah had made prior arrangements with the baby's parents and both parents arrived in one car fifteen minutes before Matilda to take care of the baby till the ayah would be back. When Matilda arrived, the ayah was still holding the baby. Matilda knocked on the door and the baby's father went to open the door.
As she entered, she exchanged pleasantries with him and his wife because they were not strangers to Matilda and then she hurried to where the ayah was and took the baby just out of joy of seeing an adorable infant. The baby’s father rushed and grabbed the baby from her hands and took the baby to his wife at the disbelief of Matilda. He did not wish to have Matilda touch the baby. His wife equally did not object to his reaction and just marched off
with the baby to their bedroom.
The whole scenario was devastating to both the ayah and Matilda, but there was nothing they could do or say. The two left for their errand and returned three hours later and Matilda made sure that she did not enter the house this time. She said bye, bye to the ayah at the roadside and drove off.
And even in the car as they drove to and fro, none of them visited that scenario because it was too painful and embarrassing to relive.
The baby's parents were weary of something that they did not spell out. But the guess is that they were not comfortable with a woman who had no child despite being married for many years, yet they did not know what her story was. It is like they assumed that she was the one who had a problem.
Poisonous Assumptions
Baraka was born among people whose thoughts he saw as always upside down. He never understood what was going on around him because what he thought was the right thing to do was always disputed or shunned among his people.