Grandma said that she deserved the beating when I asked her whether the
girl lying down with a bandaged leg, wounded hand and a making up face was
helped. It is the going to Nairobi, where every mistake can be discussed
otherwise that made me ask the foolish question.
This is the story;
There was luvego in the
village. Luvego is a traditional
anniversary for a man or woman, who had children marked to send him/her off
sometime after burial. It is believed that the slaughtering of the bull
(spilling of blood on the grave) cuts the person from the Earthly to spiritual
world. And the event is marked by a night at the home and later a short
ceremony in the day. It is the night that youths love.
The girl silently closed the door behind her. At least she did not use
the window, the boy’s door. She was on her way to where her father, a young
villager who could not be in the house even if sick when such an event was on.
He looked and saw his child. He looked closely and confirmed that his girl
child had risked to be in open in dangerous times. His slightly drunken eyes
kept gazing at her every moment.
Alas! The girl was being led by a grandchild of the home called
Vodoti. Boys of nowadays don’t know taboos. He couldn’t honour his grandfather
by staying close to the fire.
Slowly the father followed and saw where his girl was led. He saw him
open the door and her enter. Blood rushed, the alcohol composition diluted and
for the first time, maybe second time, he wanted to swallow somebody alive.
What was the fifteen years old girl going to do with the boy?
A knock and the boy vanished. His fate is awaiting. A bang and the
girl screamed. He took her by the hand, in fatherly love and yearned to give
her a scar. In such moments there are no rooms for counseling or negotiations.
The victim received her portion. Up from the house, a cross roads, down to
their home, father and daughter accompanied each other, one in the pain of
being denied respect and the other in the pain of crossing a danger line.
Whether he coiled her hand or inserted her head in between the legs
and clung to the neck for maximum beating, it is not an issue. Households were
woken up in the tense night by a death scream of the mother. She was not
against discipline. She feared that the girl was in a comma, dying.
She was held in a crouch position, wiping the blood on her face and
legs. Aunts looked and got puzzled. Yes, the mistake was great and the
punishment greater. She needed to see a doctor.
Our story ends there though the girl still lies on the bed.
Girls in my village start sex as early as nine years old. Penetration
sex comes two or three years later. It is evidenced by the number of teenage
pregnancies and promiscuity among the populations. Young mothers and fathers
leave the task to their parents who are poor. The absence of strong and ‘wild’
parents leads the young to take the way of vanity early in their lives. The
fear of punishment is the beginning of caution. As her sisters witnessed, only
the blind will mess. And for the boy, will he again pass by that route?
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