Chapter One

Being the lastborn in a family of seven, you would think that she would be her parents' favorite child as it should always be, but no, she was not. Her mother loved the firstborn son, Yakobo (Jacob) so much that all his demands were met without question, and with zero hesitation. Her father, Mzee Joannes had two wives. Sewe was the first wife and Nyar Nyahera (daughter of Nyahera) was the second wife. Sewe was known all over the village of Kanyumba for her craziness and her willingness to get into fights with anyone for no apparent reason. She was the type to see fault in every good thing.

Nyar Nyahera on the other hand was the exact opposite of her co-wife. Everytime Sewe would want to start a war with her she would simply take to her heels and head for her mother's home back in Nyahera. She was the only child to Marsella and everyone understood how she was raised and the connection the two had. So Nyar Nyahera would stay with her mother until peace was restored and her family was assured that the same incident would not occur again in the coming future. According to the customs, the husband with the help of some of his brothers, father and uncles would would go to the wife's home to ask for forgiveness and collect her. They would bring with them gifts to appease maro (mother-in-law) and would promise that there would be no repetition of the incident. It was then and only then that the wife would go back to her marital home with the husband.

Anyango would then go back to her marital home and peace peace would have been restored successfully.

Akoth Ogola was born at a time when education was gaining it's importance in the whole country, even though most of the parents sought to take mostly their male children to school. In her community, girls were only supposed to get married, in the process being exchanged for livestock making their parents wealthy while at the same time bearing and looking after children for their husbands. She was not to be taken to school but she just would not let her brother and sister who were nursery school to go to school alone. She just would not stay at home. The mother then sought to take her to school though people talked.

When in class five and would not stop going to school, the mother, Anyango, sent her to her grandmother to stay with her and continue with her education. Little did she know that this would change her life completely and affect her all her life. Marsella was aging and was all alone because her husband, the great chief Otondi, and all her cowives were all dead. Ogola could not complain, or rather she was too young to and even if she did nobody would listen to her. Ogola loved her grandmother because she knew that she would at least be concerned about her since she had no one else to give her love to. Mama Marsella was a very hardworking lady and you could not believe that she actually did the work that she did. She always got early in the morning to till her lands. In return, the land gave her its all. There were all kinds of fruits in that compound.

Ogola would always wake up at 4.00 in the morning, clean the house, wash the dishes, prepare breakfast then head for school while Marsella was left humming in her farm doing some ploughing or weeding. When breaking for lunch, she would fetch firewood on her way back home, prepare lunch then wash the dishes before heading back to school again. In the evening at around 6.00 pm she would again fetch firewood on her way back home. Upon arrival, she would carry her uniform and some dirty clothes to the river wash them the proceed to fetching water. She never had to worry about her grandmother's clothes because she always washed them on her own and often frowned when Ogola she did it for her.

When she finished, she would find Mama Marsella has prepared supper of which they would both take and then she would get to her books. She would only head to bed when the usual night runner came to his errands and start sprinkling dirt, water or mud onto the table she was studying through the spaces in the window. Kudha, the night runner would make sure that he made a stop at Marsella's every night. I'm sure he did this because he knew that there was no male figure to frighten him. Nyahera was a very dark village and by around 7.00 pm you could hardly meet anyone outside and most families had gone off to bed.

Normally after he had sprinkled the mud, Ogola got be frightened, put out the light on their nyangile (kerosene lamp) and rush to the bedroom because of the fright. Marsella would then heap insults at Kudha, which would then send him away because Marsella always told him about his family and how his father was killed doing the same thing. Kudha would, at the hearing of this, stop and disappear in the bushes.

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The transition was not easy, mostly because it involved staying away from her parents and moving from a remote area to an even more remote area, Dago Kokore, but she took to it like fish to water. All the work she had to do became part of her and hardly did she ever complain because she understood that it was either she did it or leave it to the grandmother to do, something she hated so much. Her parents forgot all about her and the mother would only visit on twenty-fifth of December. She got all the essential things to a girl's existence from her grandmother and some from well-wishers. She got books and pens at school from school as rewards for her hardwork. The science teacher loved her so much because she always toped the class in that subject. The parents did not come to visit her and she in turn did not mind about them.

Nyahera is known for its rains and the sticky red volcanic soils that become muddy on the slightest provocation of water, mot juste. It was all scarcely populated with huge pieces of land covered in bushes and shrubs. Despite this, everyone knew everyone and no one could do anything without anyone knowing. Ogola was known for her hardwork. Everyone commended her for that and they said she inherited it from her grandmother. She had very few friends except for Angujo, her classmate who also happened to be her neighbor. Her lack of friends was not because she was anti-social; entirely, but because she was always busy doing something and barely had the time to go sit beside the riverbanks gossiping and spreading rumors.

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Mister Wadiaga was not an easy-to-deal-with kind of person. Every pupil at Dago Thim Primary School was terrified of him. He always had strokes of canes in his hands and he did not mind letting them land on the backs of his pupils. Not a single day could pass without him caning the candidates mostly. He was those kinds of teachers that believed that discipline was instilled through canes.

Mr. Wadiaga had the tendency of starting dictating his notes when over thirty metres away from the class he had a lesson with and expected everyone to have all the notes at the end of the lesson, failure to which you would have canes rain on you like no one's business. Ogola was most of the times lucky because she and her deskmate would be the ones having the notes, even though the some words could not be read. She thus gained favor with the teacher would sometimes be pardoned when she failed to update her notes. Mr. Wadiaga also loved her because she topped his science class everytime a test was done.

Wadiaga was pleased with her because according to him, she did not let her situation deter her from getting good grades. She was actually doing better than most of the boys in her class and despite the hatred the boys had for her,she was still determined to get good grades. She could not afford missing those gifts. She could not because without them she was nothing. Wadiaga was so hard on her. She was severely punished for even the slightest drop in her performance. It is true what they always say, that those that love you are the ones that do treat you meanly. I'm not justifying for the actions of the parents though, don't get me wrong.

In the eyes her classmates she was a threat in terms of her performance and a girl with no manners for performing better than her male peers, like I said earlier, education was considered something for men.