CHAPTER TWO

Owele; Piranok's husband would find himself at the best level of comfort if he had listened to his son, Okuti, but this was now too late to crave for the gone. If only he knew how ingenious Okuti was, just like his wife, then he would offer him the best. Just like many drunkards, he abandoned Okuti after birth and didn't give any help that signified his role as a father. Although he was the eye of his wife since both of them were orphans, whose whole life experience before getting married was in an orphanage, he didn't remind himself of such a painful past experience. He was such a good boy who listened and respected everyone; both age-mates and elders. Likewise to Piranok, she was such a polite and a humble young girl that was hard to understand due to her quietness. Their vibe and betroth was of no doubt within the baseline of their statuses, but Owele's interpersonal characters wouldn't permit Piranok to enjoy her marriage.

Now that she had left to her sister's home, she would begin regretting why she refused to marry Doki, who enticed her for more than a year before finally deciding to get married to Owele. Doki wasn't in the care center with her, but his uncle was one of the directors of that orphanage. So he always spent most of his leisure time with those of Piranok and Owele at the care center. Before becoming a great friend to Piranok, Doki first established an intimacy with Owele and for the whole six months, they treated each other as brothers. He shared everything with Owele and whenever he came to see his uncle at the care center, he often carried either food or drinks for Owele. Besides the free clothes and other basic goods distributed to children by donors and other well-wishers, Doki didn't mind of that, but generously continued helping Owele. Time came when he began moving with Owele to his uncle's home and sometimes they spent the night together. Although the rules and regulations didn't allow any child to move outside of the the orphanage's perimeter fence, Owele became addicted and was given an exceptional consideration compared to his colleagues. By then, Owele was already a promising lad and wasn't too much into love with Piranok, so most of their interactions were of normal human traits and no emotional biaseness was observed between them.

Many children, including caretakers, directors and as well, the nearby well-wishers knew that Owele and Piranok were from the same womb and for many times, they kept giving them fair treatment by leaving them to stray independently, especially during the bright hours of the day. At first, before Doki had realized that the duos were pals, he implicitly kept giving Piranok attention, and just like a dog would be woed by meat, he took the advantage of Piranok's narrow source of survival and started giving her some gifts like sweets, dresses and edibles. Nevertheless, Owele knew his friend's relationship with Piranok but as a young boy, he thought Doki was just trying to extend the same favor of copious traits to Piranok. Neither did he ask Doki nor Piranok about the kind of bond that existed between them. He minded his own business and though sometimes his colleagues laughed at him for having betrayed himself, he gave them no room.

At the time when Owele thought of leaving the care center, he hesitated that Doki would take advantage of his absence and take over Piranok, so he thought no more than convincing Piranok so that they would leave together. Though all of them had potential relatives who would take care of them at home, they didn't want to live their lives with them. As soon as they departed from the children's home, they decided to unofficially get married and after six months, they approved their relationship by introducing themselves to the elders of both families who later blessed them to have a perpetual love.

Now thàt misfortunes had started happening in their family, with Piranok already departed to her sister's home with Kolumi, and Okuti with his father lonely wailing with life at home, Owele's suspect all relied on Doki whom he guessed could have impregnated his wife. He restlessly thought of asking Piranok about Doki, but as an exposed husband, he wanted to find out the truth by making his own silent investigation. So for the little time that Piranok had spent at her sister's home, Owele in his own wisdom kept making a research about Doki's whereabouts until he allocated him. With the help of his friends, he kept asking for Doki for over two weeks until he confirmed that he stayed in the deep land of Kilokoitio. At that time, Doki had already secured the government job as a primary teacher and had been teaching in one of the schools in Kilokoitio. To Owele's surprise, Doki had already wedded and was now having one handsome baby boy with his wife whom he married from one of the areas in the northern part of Kilokoitio village.

As a long time friend, he wasn't having any biased feeling about Doki and he only wished if he met him,he would request so that he could be linked to work as a casual employee in one of the community schools since Doki had many connections. Before leaving his home to begin looking for Doki, he didn't tell Okuti where he was going but the only word he said to him was, "I will be back soon." As a lonely but a bold and a hard-working boy, in whose hands lied all the domestic works, he did it everything to ease his father's life just like his mother always did whenever his father went for a long journey.

Food and warm water for bathing were all set in their respective positions, readily waiting for Owele but it became Okuti's agony when he waited and waited with no shadow of a human being appearing in the compound. His father sometimes came back at midnight and when he saw that it had already clocked at such a late hour, he decided to lock the kitchen and lock himself too, inside the main house. For six consecutive days, he kept doing this and on the seventh day, his father came back and that was when his hope regained. Owele arrived home by midday and got when Okuti had been busy in , heaping sweet potatoes. He felt pity of him having seen how the young boy was sweating and without for long, he removed the hoe from the edge of the kitchen roof and joined his son in the garden.

Without any thought of another task, he bent and began heaping seriously, heavily taking the breath with slight sweats on his face.

Okuti did not bother to ask his father about where he had been, but in his mind, he had been thinking that he had gone to bring his mother, but after seeing him returning with gloominess on his face, he guessed nothing than disappointment from where he had gone.

After counting one hundred heaps, he left his father to continue heaping and he began planting the vines. The young boy never looked back at his father's faults and didn't bother to remind him of such a painful experience. Mother was gone and no one was there to help him. According to Owele, the return of his wife would still add more pain to him, for seven years, he contented himself in living a lonely and a low life without a woman. For all these years, hidden tears always streamed down Okuti's face and he couldn't have managed to overcome the multiple challenges around him had it not been because of his love for God and other minor help given to him by his neighbors.

Owele's decision to secure atleast some monthly paid Jobs got intense with time as he saw the need for Okuti to begin his elementary school impatiently growing. As a person raised and educated from an orphanage, he didn't want his child to experience the same hardships and to escape from all the evils of illiteracy. Although he didn't like sharing his motive with Okuti, he had big dreams for him. At the age of thirteen, Okuti hadn't yet started schooling and his hope gradually dwindled as he continued seeing more difficulties arising in the family. His associative personality and awakened mindset always helped him to overcome certain challenges that would have been hard if he didn't have such qualities.

As others kept complaining about drought that sparked off famine in the whole three villages of Aleda, Ladigo and Kilokoitio, Okuti didn't experience that. He always balanced wetland farming with upland and and his concentration was least on upland, so for many years that he had been alone and doing all that his mother used to do, he maintained his lane of farming on oranges, rice and cabbages, but on small scales. Most of such crops acted as supplements to the ones grown on the upland like beans, simsim and groundnuts and all these were under his charge. As young as he was, Okuti was now able to explain certain occurrences based on agricultural activities.

If his father was such a good parent, then he would have used what Okuti had been harvesting to sell and raise money for his son's school fees, but even when he claimed to be looking for a job to help in taking him to a good school,sacks of rice, beans and simsim remained packed inside the house; a clear sign that he didn't wish well for his son academically. Okuti, though physically promising and inwardly yearning to Join school in his mother's absence, didn't bother his father about issues related to school but what he didn't keep quiet on, was his agitation for Kolumi's return. His love for Kolumi was distinct and indeed that was the only joy he had. His parents had failed to provide full attention to him. With all the hard tasks he was exposed to, he wasn't credited at any one point, even when his mother still lived together with him, before her disappearance.

Kolumi's life with his elder brother would be a good start of a new living if Piranok would accept to bring him back.

When he had been near his brother, Kolumi would think of nothing than Okuti as his father. With many chances that Piranok had been giving her husband for her to be treated with fairness and equity, just like any others and still failing, she wouldn't accept to come back to Owele again. As she kept pursuing life with her sister, she got used to a single life and didn't wish to offer any chance of a second marriage to dream busters and vision snatchers.

"If only I can settle and regain myself from the lost opportunities, then I surely know I will be able to keep my two children without bothering their father for a support of any kind," Piranok thought as she woke up from a long dream. The night had been chilly and no one was at home except her. Akumu and her aunt had gone to help their neighbor with some garden work in the nearby village and had all slept there. This was her first time to remain alone at home since she joined her sister, so it seemed it was the deep thought and fear that had struck her into such a wild dream.

The abandunt fertile land and the presence of natural fruits eased her life and there was little worries about her children's starving. Unlike Okuti, Kolumi and Akumu were a little secured and would be able to realize the comfort zones of their lives since their mother was always within the shadow of their feet, hardly struggling to provide anything they needed. Above all, their aunt wouldn't leave them alone. She loved children and was always at bay whenever she had no child beside her. Her only pride was Akumu and she treated her as a blood child. In the same way that Piranok loved her sister, her children too loved their aunt except Okuti who had never seen and known his aunt.

After a year of silence and no harvock from Owele, Piranok truly believed that she had already been abandoned by her husband and at this point, she decided to regenerate herself as she had been picturing before; at the time when she still hoped Owele would follow her. She began utilizing her creativity in pottery and weaving in a bid to earn income to cater for herself and the children. Her sister loved digging and she had no any other side business to supplement with farming. Sorghum was her best and highly cultivated crop compared to peas and millet.