Uncle Jeffrey by Murenga Joseph Chikowero

Willie fingered the small packet in his side pocket. He had opened it several times these past three days to look over the small pink tablets inside but each time, he had suppressed the urge to throw two of those pink things down the throat. Perhaps this Viagra business was really meant for old white men who live in cold places and could really damage a tropical African like him in the long run. And what if he became one of those users who ended up with a stubborn erection for more than 24 hours? An erection was the very thing he dearly wanted but who wanted a permanent erection, especially over this Christmas holiday at his parents’ rural home? And what in God’s good name was keeping his doctor from making that call?

This story has been selected for the StoryTime anthology African Roar 2011, please go to the African Roar site for more info.

Uncle Jeffrey was written by Murenga Joseph Chikowero.

Copyright Murenga Joseph Chikowero 2009.

Murenga Joseph Chikowero is a descendant of great Chief Chiwashira of whom many legends are told. Joseph was born in 1977 at the peak of the war in Mhondoro-Ngezi, Zimbabwe. Because of the intensity of the armed conflict, his family temporarily relocated to Harare’s Geneva Section of Highfield high density suburb where his father worked for a cotton ginnery.

He attended schools in both Mhondoro-Ngezi and Guruve in the extreme north of the country. He credits his interest in the power of the word, whether written or spoken, to his Grades 3-6 teacher, Mrs. Ncube. Later, he moved to Harare for high school.

At the University of Zimbabwe, Joseph had the unique opportunity of working with talented writer-scholar-philosophers such as the famed T.K. Tsodzo, Anthony Chennells, Maurice Vambe, Tim McLoughlin and Memory Chirere, among others. He graduated with an Honours degree in English before finishing an MA in English in 2002.

He taught Literature in English and English Language in high school and worked for the private media before joining the Zimbabwe Open University, teaching English and Communication studies.

Presently, Joseph is in the US where he is studying for a PhD in African Literature and Film at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Among a host of influences, Joseph cites Dambudzo Marechera, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Phaswane Mpe as a key sources of inspiration.

Joseph has a novel in progress which explores growing up in the 80s and 90s in Zimbabwe. His stories seek to pry open the silences of Zimbabwe’s post-independence history and the place of the individual and her community in what is often a violent situation. He believes there is enough talent in the ‘lost generation’ that was displaced by various forces in Zimbabwe’s recent past to produce the new Dambudzo Marechera.

Joseph can be contacted at chikowero@gmail.com

The Tale of Maina by Tinashe Muchuri

Maina came with Mai Dendera from Chiredzi. Mai Dendera’s husband, Mr Dendera worked in the Hippo valley Sugar Estates. He was a tractor driver. He hardly came home. Mai Dendera was the one who visited him every month end. She could stay in Chiredzi for a week. Every time she came back she would find her house broken in. The thieves normally stole sugar and cooking utensils. But on their first month they stole the family radio.

Maina was short and very beautiful. Every man would admire Maina. No man’s eyes could resist her smile. Mai Dendera came with her from Chiredzi to safeguard her home when she was away enjoying her time with her husband at the end of every month. Mai Dendera introduced Maina to the village as her sister’s daughter. Maina accepted everything that Mai Dendera said.

Since Maina was Dendera’s daughter she worked in the family’s garden and fields, for no payment. How could she pay their daughter. It was impossible. Only a stranger is paid for service rendered because she will be employed.

Maina came to Mai Dendera with only one good dress. A red full dress. She wore this dress on Saturdays when attending a St Luke Apostles Church service which was nicknamed Jangaramisheni in our area. She was a good dancer in the church. The church penetrated our area the time Maina came to our village. It came with a bomb. Many people briefly left their usual churches to attend this new church. It was amazing how about 20 drums could produce good quality music. The drum beaters too were excellent. They could dance and run about while drumming. This persuaded many villagers to attend this church.

As time went by, people started drifting back to their churches. It was after some information reached them, that, the church indeed was a refugees church. The refugees who were used as cattle herders in our village by teachers, business people and sugar cane cutters were owners of this church as said by the villagers. “The boys and girls were not expensive to keep”. Their employers would say that, “where they come from, there is war. They ran away from this war. The Matsangaise Militants are cruel. They cut legs of whoever they suspect of supporting the government of Samora Machel. These boys and girls need nothing more than food and shelter. Clothes are a bonus. They don’t bother to go to school. They have no parents. It is either their parents were killed or they don’t know what happened to them.” Villagers nicknamed the sound of the drums. “Tingindi, tingindi, tingindi, dhidhi”. They said the sound says, “Takabva muzambikwi tichinzi makurushu” (we came from Mozambique we are known as cashew nuts). The boys and girls were later also known as makarushu (cashew nuts). This is the church Maina attended. She too was branded as a mukarushu. How could people call her mukarushu, a beautiful girl like her? This tormented my mind every time I heard people talk like that about her.

Mai Dendera was a distant relative of ours. My grandmother and Mai Dendera’s husband were brother and sister. They shared the same totem and same origin. They all originated from Bikita – My grandmother came to Zaka in Gwanha village of Chief Bota through her marriage to my grandfather my father’s father. Mai Dendera’s husband migrated to our village; I really don’t know what caused him to leave his brothers and sisters. Mai Dendera’s daughters were my grandfather’s little wives. By this, they were too my wives. Maina too, being Mai Dendera’s sister’s daughter, she became my wife and grand father’s wife too.

This loose relationship kept me close to Maina. I did not want to hear any bad words said about her. She was my wife. I had not proposed to her but because of this relationship she was. Years went by. Maina still had one dress the red dress. As years passed by her body overgrew her dress. It became shorter. Every time she wore it on Saturdays it reveals her thighs. This caused her not to attend church services. She secluded herself at home. She could only leave home most of the times if she was send on an errand by Mai Dendera. On other days Mai Dendera would give her, her own dress when she sends her to the grinding miller the shops. Still in the oversized clothes, Maina looked good. She was a beauty queen. Her chocolate skin never worried about the lack of skin lotion. It was naturally good and appealing.


In those years women from our area began travelling to Bulawayo to buy goods for resale or exchange with maize. Maize was the main commodity these women wanted. It was so because Bulawayo rarely harvests enough grain for its people. This forced people to sell their goods in exchange of grain. So the women from our area would go to Bulawayo sell their grain and buy dresses, shorts and skirts mainly made of pieces of clothes joined together. People in our area nicknamed the butterfly dresses ‘mabhuruwayo’ because they were bought from Bulawayo. My beautiful Maina found herself in these Bulawayo clothes. She would, after weeding in the morning in Mai Dendera’s field go to work in other people's fields in the afternoon for Mabhuruwayo. Mai Dendera never bought Maina a dress. But she worked in her fields everyday. Mai Dendera’s little children always went with their mother to Hippo Valley every month end. They would always came in new clothes. Maina still remained in 'mabhuruwayo'.

Maina was of school going age. During the years Zimbabwe was still fresh from gaining its independence school was free for all. Only a few dollars for the building fund was asked from parents. But, Maina was not allowed school. Mai Dendera argued that, if she goes to school, thieves will break into her house. That was it, Maina did not attend school.

This made villagers suspicious. Many villagers questioned why Mai Dendera denied a child education? But the villagers only talked and did nothing about it. They just talked behind their closed doors. They were useless.

Maina my wife, courtesy of our loose relationship, opened her heart to me one day when I stubbornly asked her about the whereabouts of her parents. She cried. I was touched. I took her to my arms and my heart. Her tears trickled down into my shirt. They soaked my heart as I waited for her tears to dry. I wanted to know why Maina was not going back to her parents, so she could attend school like any other girl of her age. Why not even one of her relatives did visited her in the years passed by?

It was after a long time of shedding tears that she looked me in the eyes. Her eyes electrocuted mine. I felt powerless.

“Taka, I know you are the only one concerned with my life in this whole village. You love me” I was shocked. “ I love you too Taka” she cried again.

“Please, Maina, stop crying, tell me everything about you. Tell me all you know about yourself. I want to know you Maina” I said as she sobbed on.

“I am sorry, but don’t tell anyone about this. Mai Dendera will kill me if she knew I told you about myself.

“Why Maina?”

“She wants it be kept a secret.”

“What Secret?”

“That I am a girl from Mozambique she is not my mother’s sister. She lied to me ufunge. She said she will be paying me every month if I agree to safeguard her home every time she goes to see her husband in Hippo Valley.”

“Is she paying you?”

“No”

“Why”

“Because I am a refugee. I ran away from war in Mozambique. I don’t know what happened to my parents. My home is in Gaza Province. I ran to Mahenye and the Matsangaise militants followed us. I then ran to Chiredzi where I met Mai Dendera. She took me here. She is a cruel mother. I am only living here for food and shelter. Nothing more. Every month end she accused me of stealing her things and refuses to pay me my wages. She always punishes me for stealing things that I have not stolen. She never paid me ever since I came here four years ago. I hate home. I hate war. I hate these warring people. Look at what they did to me!”

“Why can’t you leave her for another employer, maybe a reasonable employer?”

“She threatened me everyday that if I dare leave her, she will report me to the police and they will either take me to a refuge camp or depot me back home. I am afraid I can’t go home now. There is war. I am afraid my parents maybe dead. I left them one night when the Matsangaise militants invaded our village. I just ran blindly till I crossed Sabi River into Zimbabwe. I then went to Chiredzi. I don’t know what happened to my parents. If I am deported where will I go?”

“But there are many of you in this village. Police know about you. Some of them are employed by police officers.”

“There is war at home Taka. I wish you could marry me Taka. This could end all this suffering I am enduring here at the hands of this cruel Mai Dendera. I am not human here. I am nothing here. There is war at home. People of free lands use you the way they would like to. I am an item.”


Maina’s words forever sunk into my mind, my body, my heart and echoed loudly when my Botswana employer refused to give me my pay telling me blankly that, if I need my pay I should go to the police. Knowingly he does this to use me the whole month, so he could tell me to go to police. What would the police do? Bundle you into magumete going back home and be dumped at the Plumtree border. These cruel people call me mukwerekwere.

Hey God, why do you allow us to be troubled? I know we have a destiny there is no war back home but the economy is depressed. We can not survive. There is no employment and whatever people do cannot sustain them because of the recurrent hunger. I am an item now Maina and I understand what your words meant those years ago, when I was a free person.

The Tale of Maina was written by Tinashe Muchuri.

Copyright Tinashe Muchuri 2009.

Tinashe Muchuri is a poet, performer, actor, and writer currently living in Harare. Many of his poems were published in online journals such as the Munyori Journal and Arts Initiates and print anthologies.

He performs regularly at arts festivals in Zimbabwe and currently features in a local historical soap called Tiriparwendo as the character Jecha. Muchuri has been a long-serving member of the Budding Writers Association of Zimbabwe, a young writers’ organisation in which he served as branch chairperson for the period 2005-2008 and also currently sits in the executive committee of Zimbabwe Readers Association.

Today, some of his poems have been accepted by an international poetry magazine called Illuminations (UK), Rattlesnake Review (USA) and his Shona poems appeared in an anthology called ‘Jakwara reNhetembo’ (2008,Mambo Press, Zimbabwe).

A Story for Nandi by Fungai Machirori

I have always been a lucid dreamer. Once, as a child, my grandmother told me that dreams as clear as mine - as clear as spring water - were my mind’s own way of diluting its distresses. Some people, she said, cried out their woes. And others, like me, found clarity and peace through their dreams flowing with cool relief and reassurance.

Sometimes I imagine Trevor to be such a dream – a still pool of peace amid the chaos of my tainted being, a yearning of my subconscious for purity.

But he is real.

With soft mounds of flesh about his growing bones, big brown searching eyes and a one-two beat to his shallow breath, I can reach out my hands to touch him, unlike any of the other reveries I had before. And I can hold him, smell him and watch him sleep and be certain that neither he, nor I, will dream ourselves away.

Yet somehow, the clarity that he has brought to me has thrown a veil of dimness over everyone else. Even as he was born, no one celebrated except him and I; I heaving and sobbing, and him writhing within his tiny body to take in the still afternoon air. An unfazed midwife and a slight breeze through the clinic ward’s open windows were our only companions and witnesses to the consummation of our eternal bond.

Moist and tired and in pain, I convinced myself that I was in one of my dreams - so deceptively real that I couldn’t find the fine seams that hemmed it to reality. How else could this not have been a dream? There were no anxious relatives beginning to gather at my bedside, no supportive man stroking my hand in admiration, no cards, no flowers, no balloons, nothing to celebrate – just the garish greens and pinks of the curtain that cordoned me off from the next patient’s bed.

“You shouldn’t have had him.”

Those were the first words my mother muttered sullenly as I handed Trevor over to her for the first time. Just three weeks old, he slept peacefully in his matching pale blue vest and pants, his skin laced with the scent of lavender talcum powder. She went on to fold her arms across her withered chest and look away from the both of us as if we were a pair of lepers, disgusting in her sight.

As I pulled my baby back and hugged him to my chest, I watched every detail of my mother’s face. Her thin lips, tightly pursed; her dark crinkled skin, hanging loosely like crepe paper off an undeserving gift and her eyes – her deep unfeeling eyes – blinking rapidly at the wall she had turned to face. On that wall was a framed poster of Jesus Christ, his eyes warm and his palms open and emitting a brilliant golden light.

Matthew 11:28 ‘Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’

Amid this irony of rest and rejection, I left my mother’s home knowing that that would be the last time that I would ever see her.

Sometimes I would see her in my dreams, exactly as she had looked on that day. In my dreams though, Trevor would be a young man, about 16 or 17, helping his grandmother to her swollen tired feet. Her eyes, rheumy with age, would begin to well up with tears she would wipe off with her chapped hands.

“You proved us wrong,” she would say to Trevor, her voice breaking with emotion.

I never knew where I was in such a dream. Perhaps I was just the narrator, all-seeing and all-knowing. Or perhaps I would be standing in the corner of the room, by the old polished wood display cabinet that housed all my high school trophies and accolades – and now also Trevor’s. Or maybe I would just not be there. Either way, all that mattered to me was the words my mother would say to her grandson - words that trickled warm and clean from a once vomiting sewer.

I haven’t yearned for much else but acceptance since Trevor was born. But all I have received instead is the scorn and spite that forces me to retreat into the reveries of my mind.

Just like any other ‘normal’ baby, he has ten toes and fingers and a heaving cry and a curious stare. But what everyone who should have love Trevor unconditionally sees him as lacking, which is a father and a certain future, sets him apart in their minds as less normal and therefore, unlovable.

One day when my little boy becomes old enough to read and write and understand his world beyond the impalpable things that I tell him, he will ask about a daddy and aunties and uncles, grandmas and grandpas. Will I tell him that I am not too sure who his father is, that I can offer him at least three possibilities – but only their first names - without any certainty about which one of them might have given him the cute dimples in his cheeks when he smiles?

And one of those days, with a challenging stare, he will make me explain why I have taught him to say H-I-V instead of H-I-J as the ABC song he will learn will go. Three letters, one misplaced in the alphabet, marking both him and me different, less normal, unlovable.

Could I ever tell him that because of HIV, his grandma was too disgusted to cradle him, that she and everyone else had told me to get him ‘taken care of’ when swelling with new life, I found out that I had the virus? How his grandpa slapped me and called me a slut for having brought such shame to the name of a God-fearing family?

If my mother had given me half the chance to speak when I had visited her with my newborn baby, she might have let me explain that she need only not love me, that Trevor was not dying from the curse that I carried within my body, that he was loveable. He was born HIV negative. But after her obvious disdain at seeing us, I decided that she didn’t deserve to share that good news with us.

In my dreams, I see Trevor growing into a beautiful young man whom my family will feel remorse at never having known. I see his grandmother one day looking up at him for the comforting hand that she was not willing to offer to him, and I pray that wherever I am – dreaming amongst the living or within the cradle of the dead – this act of acceptance might finally bring relief for the pain and shame that throbs so intently within my being.

A Story for Nandi was written by Fungai Machirori.

Copyright Fungai Machirori 2009.

Writing about myself.

What a deeply challenging task. When asked to go back in time and tell someone about me, I am never too sure where and when to begin. Should I start with my birth date – April 2, 1984 – or with the beginnings of my passion for writing – which emerged around the time I was 12? Should I tell you about all the frustrating challenges or just about the deeply fulfilling successes?

I am never too sure.

And so I make a calculated guess at what might be interesting for you to learn about me.

I distinctly remember how, as a young girl, I always seemed to have my head buried in a book. It was torture for my older sister as I always recited what I had read to her on our long morning walk to school. I little realised that that natural inclination towards books was grooming me towards creating my own worlds of poetry and prose.

Throughout school, I always did well in literature and won a few inter-schools prizes along the way. But at 19, out of school and trying to make sense of myself, I realised that the world of arching birches and gargling brooks bore no resemblance to my own lived existence. I realised that though my writing was eloquent, it was not true to me as a young Zimbabwean going through the political and financial turmoil that marked our nation’s entry into the new millennium.

So, I would say that my writing career truly began in 2003, when I let go of my false existence and embraced the contemplative, and at times morose and even comic, voice that I recognise as my own.

At 21, I was privileged to participate in the British Council ‘Crossing Borders’ project – a project which sought to link Zimbabwe’s creative writers with mentors from Britain. It was a great privilege for me to sit at the same table as Zimbabwe’s most acclaimed talents – who included Chris Mlalazi, Raisedon Baya, Masimba Biriwasha and Megan Allardice – and have my young voice be heard among theirs.

Simply put, my career has grown exponentially since then. In 2006, a short story I wrote placed second in the national Intwasa short story writing competition – a deeply exciting achievement for me. As a result, I had a short story published by amaBooks in the anthology ‘Long Time Coming: Short Writings from Zimbabwe’. My poetry has been published by the British Council, and I am currently working with three other Zimbabwean women to have an anthology of our poems published in 2010. Also, I am working on my first novel – which I hope to have published in 2010.

Besides being a creative writer, I am also a journalist and blogger with a special focus on HIV, AIDS and gender issues. Thus far, I have been recognised for an Africa-wide award for excellence in HIV and AIDS reporting by the African Network for Strategic Communication in Health and Development (AfriComNet). The prize, which I won as a wide-eyed 23-year-old has done a world of good for my confidence in my journalistic writing.

I am thankful to God, each day that I can see the potential in everything I happen upon to become a story, an article, a poem.

I know that I am on the right course with my life because each day is so full of ideas and alive with adventure.

Because of my Wife by Kenechukwu Obi

I was just seated, without even the faintest knowledge of what makes a screenplay. And the day to deliver my work to Toby was fast approaching. I got my room littered with papers, which I ripped off and screwed up out of frustration. My wife walked in smiling, with a cup of coffee she had made for me. She placed it beside my notebook and glanced around.

“What a mess you have turned your room into,” she said.

“Does it matter?” I responded with as much calm as I could muster, not wanting to give my frustration away. But I really felt like springing up and throwing the coffee into her face, for her role.

“Yes, Charlie. Even pigs are proving to love neat surroundings. What is happening to you?” She responded and walked out of the room on her way to work. Rage almost succeeded in getting me to pull her back and smash her head against the wall. That was the stuff Susan my wife, was made of. She was a woman whose utterances could drive a man into big trouble.


If there was anything to forget in my life, it would never be the day I met Susan at the Soho theatre. I believe I inherited my love for the theatre from my parents who were both stage actors, though Daddy later veered to the big screen, where he made two uncelebrated appearances. Daddy and Mummy used to take me to work, and that was how I came to develop an interest in seeing stage productions. Fate ensured that Susan and I sat beside each other on that day. And with the hilarious comedy on, we laughed and talked, which continued as we walked out of the theatre, into and along Dean Street. She made my day and I did not need meeting her a second time to be convinced that I was interested in her. I was twenty two then, and she, twenty five. That evening, in which there was gentle breeze, which kept leaves rustling, as I walked back home, was something else. I had fallen in love with Susan, and soon we began dating, in which was great sex. My job as a supermarket sales person that paid thirty pence an hour did not bother Susan. She was from a rich background and ran a modeling agency. My poor background did not harm the love she developed for me. We got married as soon as the next spring came.

“Are you sure of this thing you just walked into?” Daddy and Mummy asked me together one day, hiding their apprehension. Though, they did a good job of doing it, but it was not perfectly done. I saw it.

“Susan is my soul mate,” I assured them, as I felt like a man who had won a million pounds lottery for having Susan fall in love with me. Life couldn’t be sweeter. My marriage was great. It had all the trappings of joy, charm, romance and fulfillment any married couple could need, until I lost my job to a nasty staff downsizing exercise. And what I lost most was the pride I took from being able to contribute to paying the bills, out of my meagre earnings. It never crossed my mind one day to leave the bills to Susan alone, since she made much more money. My pride got wounded. Getting another job was hard, and before I knew it, all walls and furniture at home became my constant companions. My efforts to get another position, only succeeded in mounting my frustration, as hopelessness encased me completely and brought me other companions, which were bottles of whisky. So I started to drink, thinking I could down my sorrows. But alas!

Susan soon became something else. She was now the boss and the bully of the house, I, the gazelle always at the mercy of the cheetah. She railed at me and called me names. Our marital sex became history. Irritating lazy man was by now, the phrase that had taken over my name. I had to answer her each time she called me that. I had no choice. It was winter, and I feared she could throw me out into its chilling hands if I did not.

“You lack the brains to get back on track. Real men are endowed with brains,” Susan told me one day. And that was it. I had had enough, and became totally bent on proving to her that I had brains after all. But first of all, I needed to leave London, away from all pressures, to allow fresh ideas to stream into me. My mind became a store house of different thoughts. Thoughts which struggled to work out a perfect destination. Thoughts took me to Brazil, the land of Samba dance, a cultural heritage I had only seen on television. I thought it was nice to see cities in there, especially Rio, with the statue of Christ. My thoughts went to Mexico, the land of Soap Operas, with a nice Cancun coastline I had also seen on television. The Middle East came up in my thoughts as well. I quickly eliminated every possibility of my going there. The threat I didn’t want was terrorism. The London train tunnel bombings made me sick. Africa later arrived in my mind. A nice spot, I thought. And because I had not been to Africa before, curiosity finally made it my choice destination. I had heard Nigeria to be a land of rich cultural heritage and nice relaxation spots. But it had to compete with South Africa, and Kenya to emerge as my destination. Also at the back of my mind stood the bitter fact that Susan was my only gateway into Africa.

To my greatest surprise, Susan did not raise her voice in disagreement when I begged her to fund my trip to the Kenyan Safari in Africa. Though her facial expression said something which was nothing more than, ‘taking your laziness to Africa?’. I got more money than I requested anyway.


I arrived in Kenya feeling good and free to think, while savouring all awesome views associated with the wild. Then came a day I was drawn to a shack in which a little girl sold well threaded shell beads. She had shells that came in a wide array of beautiful colours, and couldn’t be more than ten years old. I was attracted instantly to make a purchase. I bought three of the magnificent beads and paid fifty pence. That was not all.

“Where did you get all these shells from?” I asked the girl whose name I later learned was Naliaka.

“From Mombasa,” She said. I immediately remembered the port city. The urge to savour a view of its stretch of beach made it a destination in my itinerary.

“Who made these?” I asked, driven by my growing admiration for the beads.

“My mother,” said Naliaka. “You want to meet her?”

“Yes,” I replied.

Meeting Naliaka’s mother brought me what I never bargained for. I expected to see a vibrant woman whom I wanted to praise for her artistry. And to my shock, I met a woman that made me see that she was dying of AIDS. Naliaka had to sell beads to tourists to provide for her till the very day the cold hands of death would take her away. Pity brought tears to my eyes. I fell to my knees beside Naliaka’s mother, who was frail. I took her gaunt left hand with my right hand and asked her to mention a favour she needed from me after she managed to speak of her past ordeals. She then whispered something not audible to Naliaka, who ran off and returned with a dusty manuscript. “Take this to your country,” she said faintly and motioned Naliaka to hand over the manuscript to me. It was not what I expected at all from a woman in her condition. I flipped through the manuscript and saw that it was a play. Naliaka’s mother wanted me to take the play to England and try to find a producing theatre for it. It was a play she had written when she was twenty-two and titled it NEVER FORGET MY DAUGHTER. Ngugi was the name of Naliaka’s mother. Her dream, which certainly was botched by now, was to be an internationally renowned playwright. NEVER FORGET MY DAUGHTER was her first and only attempt, being always enthralled by the ways well weaved dialogue brings playwrights’ ideas to life, and arresting attention of audiences.

Nothing fascinated her more than the craft of delivering captivating plots, driven by excellent characterizations that kept audiences glued to their seats till a play’s final curtains were drawn. Ngugi was full of life and eager to always give her best shot towards achieving her dreams, not knowing fate had other plans.
“I did not know Samson had those kinds of friends,” Ngugi had first said to me. The words were quite slow in coming out of her. They got me curious at once. There was nothing else I wanted to know so much than what she meant.

“Who is Samson?” I quickly quizzed. It was my question that immediately blew the lid off Ngugi’s story. Though her breathing was a bit laboured and her utterances slow, she still pulled it off.

I learnt Samson was Ngugi’s first ever boyfriend whom she meet when she was twenty three. They easily got along. Samson was a young man she liked and trusted so much. She would not have accompanied Samson to see some friends of his, if she had had a way of knowing what awaited her. The atmosphere inside the room didn’t show any sign of yielding the unpalatable when Ngugi stepped in with Samson. Only two of Samson’s friends, Niba and Levis, were in the scantily furnished room that had no bed. A rug was on the floor and the two windows in the room were well covered with colourful curtains. A compact disc player was also in the room, yielding a romantic song at moderate volume that allowed everyone to hear each other with ease. No sooner than Samson had introduced Ngugi as his girlfriend that Niba bolted the door that led out of the room. The friendly atmosphere that initially welcomed Ngugi and Samson became history at once, as another atmosphere, one that gradually peddled unfriendliness and was capable of breeding violence slowly took over. Ngugi couldn’t understand why Niba had to bolt the door. She began to sense danger, got rattled, but managed to check her fears, wishing what had stumbled into her mind and became her thought was never going to happen.

“It is your turn, Samson. Your turn to donate,” said Levis, who obviously ran the affairs of the room.

“But not her. Please spare her,” Samson’s voice went off in disagreement. “I will get you another.”

“Shut up your mouth!” Levis thundered, compelling Samson to find solace in silence. Ngugi was by now overtaken by fear. She trembled in fact when what awaited her was confirmed. It was clear that Samson had long been a partaker in the girls others brought to the room. Levis and Niba were therefore not ready to entertain any reason why he would not get the room a prey. Samson regretted why he brought Ngugi along.
“Please, Ngugi, I am sorry,” he pleaded. “I forgot this is a slaughter room.” Levis dashed to the compact disc player and raised its volume to a deafening decibel.
“Take your hands off me! Get out! You wouldn’t dare!” Ngugi screamed as she put up a fight against Levis who was bent on having his way, come sunshine, come rain. She had to stop warding off Levis’s advances anyway. That meant she lost her virginity to him. Niba took his turn as well. Samson had to take his own turn too, this being the rule in his gang. He did, very reluctantly, when Levis and Niba threatened his life by pointing their short guns to his head.

Ngugi had no choice but to give in when Levis left her with two options. Levis took her to the door and opened it. Ngugi was shocked to see ten other young men, who obviously were members of the gang as they waited for their turn. They must have seen her arrive with Samson. Ngugi did not need to be told that it was better to willingly let only three have their way than allowing things to get really ugly, thereby generating a situation where all thirteen young men would have her. Levis had the power to bar the men outside from partaking, which he exercised in the end. He led Ngugi out of the room and away, to the chagrin of the men outside. And none of them could find the boldness to ask Levis why he was taking Ngugi away without their having their turn. Levis was the boss and bully in the gang, and his decision was final.

Ngugi told me she became pregnant afterwards. Her mother who lost her husband just after two months into her marriage would not take that. Ngugi had brought her disgrace of unimaginable proportion. Ngugi had blighted her life, hope and future. Her disappointment in Ngugi was so profound that her heart became that of stone. Ngugi’s lot then became one of a pregnant young woman thrown into the streets. A woman who had to resort to begging in order to meet the demands of pregnancy that eventually resulted in Naliaka. Ngugi later realised the bitter reality that meagre sums of money, which she got through charitable deeds of others was never going to be enough for her and the additional mouth she had to feed. Enough temptation then began to come on her to sell off baby Naliaka to ritual killers who would take her for blood money. She stood a good chance of making up to one hundred thousand Kenyan Shillings by doing that. The money was enough to get her off the streets and on course to earning her livelihood by trading. Ngugi considered her options very carefully. Selling Naliaka was very attractive but she found it extremely hard to sever the mother-to-daughter bond between her and her Naliaka, which got even stronger as resources they had to live on, got thinner. Strong temptation for Ngugi to drift into prostitution then came around, got stronger as each day dawned, her will to resist, getting increasingly thinner and thinner than a thread every day.

Something about the way I was handed the play told me that Naliaka’s future rested on it. Now I didn’t need to ask if she needed any money from the play should it get produced. I must say the hardest decision I had ever taken in my entire life was the one I took in leaving Naliaka and her mother in their condition. I really wanted to stay with them, get a job, no matter how menial it was; just anything I could do to help alleviate their condition in any way. But I had to take NEVER FORGET MY DAUGHTER to England. I was hell bent on fulfilling Ngugi’s wish.


The morning I had to leave got me weeping like a child, as I threw one more glance at Ngugi and Naliaka. “Goodbye,” I finally said out of my pity laden heart. Then I took one long look at the manuscript, tears drifting from my eyes and landing on it.
“You are wetting it all up,” mumbled Naliaka as her protective attitude towards the manuscript surfaced. That quickly arrested my tears and got my right fingers fumbling into my breast pocket in search of my handkerchief. I pulled it out and wiped off tears from the manuscript. Then I began to leave. Three steps away were all I had taken before a force stronger than the will I had mustered to leave, compelled me to turn back at Naliaka and her mother again. There was instant turmoil inside my mind because so many different words were being coined and arranged at the same time in there. There was this huge jostle amongst them for supremacy. They fed me with confusion. I couldn’t come up with words to utter. Naliaka and her mother were by now drenched in their bid to know why I had turned back. The height of confusion in my mind got me scratching my head, brought a little chuckle on my face. I even had to blow my nostrils a couple of times, with my handkerchief again, coming in handy to do its clearing job. I didn’t know if it was the blowing of my nostrils that did the magic at last. I noticed that my mind got its house back in order after that, and I was ready with my last words to Ngugi and Naliaka. The words left my mouth, backed with a steely determination to actualize them, which I had not had before in my life.

“I will strive with my life to bring your play to light. And I swear to be honest in my dealings with it.” That was all I said. The response I got from Naliaka was a quick nod that said fine, and a cold stare that I read so well. It simply was a reminder to me that honesty was the best policy in all situations. Ngugi’s face just took on a faint smile that vanished like vapour. I didn’t expect much from her anyway. But she did manage to put across a very faint ‘thank you’ in the end and closed her eyes.

Doubts began playing games with me, within the confines of my mind, as I walked away to reach the next destination of my tour. ‘Honesty is the best policy in all situations. Can you implement that? Can you?’ My mind kept voicing these words and questions to my head in a staggering and disturbing barrage. It then got to an extent that I became annoyed because of the betraying feeling that my mind couldn’t trust me.

“Shut up!” I screamed at my mind. “Have I ever been known to be dishonest?”

‘Honest intentions are like a chameleon. They can change their true colours and shades.’ Voices in my head rattled.

“Shut up!” I lashed out. “You must endeavour to trust me at all times. Now shut up!” Anger got my eyeballs to dilate in a cannibalistic manner, revealing how much I wanted to strangle my mind if it were possible.

I saw other tourists running about and having fun. Bikinis of different colours strapped to bodies with adorable curves and contours were in abundance. The sun was out and above, doing a marvelous job of warming things up. The waves constantly roared in varying cadence, yielding breeze that continued to give my face a gentle slap. The coastline in Mombasa offered nothing but a splendid ambience for total relaxation. It was however, relaxation that eluded me in Mombasa. I just couldn’t get myself to savour all the abundance nature offered. Mombasa and its magnificent natural abundance that offered true delight to tourists was a boring place for me. The wish of a dying African woman continued to tug at me to match my words with action. England was pulling me back, and my remaining days as a tourist had no choice but to get abandonment from me. I Just couldn’t help it.


I shopped the play around when I got back to London. Initial responses were that of fierce rejection. I was beginning to believe that the play had no future life until I read it myself. I thought it was fantastic, and by now other ideas were originating in my mind. I discovered I had in my hands what I could use to prove to Susan that I had brains after all. My conscience did not prick me regarding what I was set to do. In fact, I felt good about it. The title of the play then became because of my wife, and was now mine. I quickly shopped it around a few literary agencies I knew, got a response from Toby. His enthusiasm for my play was hitting the sky when we sat down to get the necessary paper works done. I was glad I had an agent. An astute businessman. A competent contract negotiator at that, whose list of clients was an eclectic mix of the finest of playwrights and other sound minds. I needed not to be told that any creative person in the stable of Toby and his agency was in for real lucrative deals. The handwriting was all over the wall. What else did I need to make a bold statement to Susan that would get her to respect me and shut her mouth?

Because of my wife premiered at the Soho theatre and instantly scored with audiences, posting sell-out runs. Soon other theatres in the United Kingdom queued up for a piece of my play, which also began an international tour. Fantastic reviews trailed it. It was like the wind was peddling my name all around. Did I need to say that my fortunes changed? To put it simply, my royalty cheques swelled in number. I felt I was the William Shakespeare of my generation. But somewhere deep down in my conscience, Naliaka was probing. Her voice was quite loud. She was fighting, she was yelling, she was claiming my play, rattling in my head, pricking my conscience. I managed to douse it all and carried on with relishing my found celebrity status.
Naliaka came again with her attack to my mind one day when I was having discussions with my agent.

“I don’t know you! The play is mine!” I had screamed unconsciously.

“Who are you screaming at, Mr. Charlie?” Toby asked in amazement. I had to lie that my mind was all clogged up with little family worries. Whether Toby finally believed me or not, was not for me to bother about. He simply threw glances that carried questions, which still needed answers at me, before our discussions got back on track. Life was good in the home front. I was glad I had finally earned some respect from Susan who never asked when I began to write plays. It all got back to how it was when we got married. Susan was all romantic again; flowers, candies and candle-light dinners followed. And with my bank account looking fat, sex became great again for us, so much so that Susan became pregnant. It all looked good till the day Naliaka came fighting again. I had Susan’s head rested on my chest in bed, stroking it gently.

“Leave me alone, Naliaka! This money belongs to me!” I screamed.

“Your girl friend?” Susan asked, driven by suspicion. I had to begin to defend myself. “One of those prostitutes you call fans?” She added and sprang up, glowering at me.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Susan. She is just a girl I met in Kenya. She was my guide.”
“You had a problem with her over money?”

“Yes, she turned round and accused me of not paying her after taking me around. Don’t worry, Susan. I had that all sorted out.”

“I’m sorry, Charlie. You understand no woman wants her man snatched away. Don’t you?”

“I do understand,” I replied, feeling thrilled I handled Susan’s suspicions intelligently. But the worst was coming.

Toby called me the next day to say he had delivered a deal from Hollywood. A movie executive wanted my play in pictures. I was glad. I was going to be richer, and sinking into a mess. I couldn’t say no to the deal and risk exposing myself. So a contract was sealed that I would do the screenplay. Hollywood wanted my play. Toby was not the kind of man that would entertain talks of cancelling a deal he had worked so hard to deliver. In my mind was Naliaka again, laughing at me, as I realised what a fool I had made myself after all, because of my wife.

Because of my Wife was written by Kenechukwu Obi.

Copyright Kenechukwu Obi 2009.

I am a Nigerian writer of the Igbo extraction. I was born in Lagos, Nigeria, where I attended Pedro Primary School. I attended Nnewi High School, in Anambra State of Nigeria, from where I proceeded for further studies and obtained a degree in Crop Science at the University of Nigeria Nsukka.

My very early writings started in my high school days and soon after leaving high school, I wrote a number of articles in 1991 on the Gulf war, published by the now defunct Daily Star newspaper, then based in Enugu, Nigeria.
My works now include novels, plays for the stage and radio, short stories, poetry collections and children’s stories.

Some of my short stories have been published online, in magazines (including The New Black Magazine and Echoes of Tomorrow Magazine) and in anthologies. Some of my poems have also been published in anthologies as well as magazines and online.

I am one of many Nigerian poets recognized in 2009 (June 3rd) by the Cultural Department of the Italian Embassy in Nigeria.

I am also a lyricist and the author of the novel entitled A Bond That Crumbled Tradition, available at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.co.jp, amazon.de, amazon.ca, amazon.fr, abebooks.com, lulu.com and many other leading online book stores worldwide.

I worked with Simon Brett in Enugu, Nigeria from the 31st of March through 4th April 2008, to create a short story (Who’s Better off Now?) for radio broadcast, during a Radiophonics workshop. Radiophonics is the African new writing initiative of the British Council, and Simon Brett is a renowned British Crime Writer, Playwright, Broadcaster and Former staff of the British Broadcasting Corporation.


I still write prolifically and envision exposing my works internationally. I am willing to work with honest, dedicated and focused professionals and organizations that are inspired to add value to my writing career by tapping into my reservoir of creative talents for the benefit of the creative industry.

Email Address: kencel65@gmail.com