A Look into My Life — Chapter Six

Because we had no television, I read whatever I could lay my hands on. We owned several Bibles: a TOB edition containing the deuterocanonical books, a Current French version written in easy French, several Gideon New Testaments and a Louis Segond Bible favoured by many non-Catholic churches. We also had religious tracts, Christian magazines and a few books by Wim Malgo. I read them all several times and discovered that I loved reading. I also loved the radio, especially music. Voices, harmonies, melodies and words fascinated me. Requiems, gospel, classical, instrumental, traditional or contemporary music, the category did not matter if I liked the arrangement. I joined the church choir, not for the love of God but for the love of music. Soon adolescence caught up with me. I lost both my singing voice and my interest in the choir, and began concentrating on my changing body.

I completed primary school and began preparing mentally for secondary school. The transition brought a new uniform. Primary pupils wore dark-blue shorts and white shirts, with almost any shoes or socks. Secondary pupils wore dark-blue trousers and white shirts. Long-sleeved shirts were forbidden, although I thought they looked better. The school's primary and secondary sections occupied separate courtyards divided by a running track, which doubled as a driveway in rainy weather. Parents normally collected children outside the grounds, but when it rained, cars entered one by one while pupils waited under large hangars beside the track. Those whose parents had no cars waited for the rain to subside. I sometimes imagined Mother arriving in a car, any car, and pictured myself casually telling the other pupils, "Oh, that's my mother. See you tomorrow, guys." It never happened, and my pride remained unsatisfied. Sometimes I wonder what kind of person wealth might have made me. The picture that comes to mind is not flattering. Perhaps I was already conceited and selfish, even in poverty, but circumstances forcibly taught me humility.

Just before secondary school began, Mother gave me devastating news: she could not afford the required trousers. She had spoken to the principal, who had agreed that I could wear my primary school shorts until we found a pair of trousers. To this day, I still feel anger when I remember that proposal. Can you imagine arriving as the only secondary pupil in shorts while everybody else wore trousers? Mother saw rebellion forming in my eyes and understood that her plan would not work. She went to her friend Mrs Therese, whose older children might have a uniform they had outgrown. Mrs Therese and her children graciously gave me a second-hand pair of trousers in excellent condition. They fitted just fine. I was not ashamed that Mother had asked her for help. Mrs Therese was a good woman with whom we felt safe enough to reveal our needs because we knew she would not mock us. A generous widow, she had worked hard while raising nine children alone. She understood Mother's struggle and occasionally brought us vegetables from her garden.

The first Monday of secondary school finally arrived. I woke up early, mostly apprehensive. For the first time, we wore trousers and entered the courtyard of the grown-ups. We expected to encounter important, life-defining subjects. Even Mathematics sounded like admission to an exciting new world. Instead of continuing straight towards the primary section, we turned sharply into the main courtyard, where the prefect of discipline read the rules and assigned us to our classes. He was a bad-tempered little man who looked more like a thug than a school official. I could hardly believe this was the man Mother had approached about allowing me to wear shorts. I decided that somewhere inside he must have been kind. Surrounded by pupils in proper uniforms, I silently thanked Mrs Therese and her children. I looked reasonably dashing in my second-hand trousers. Arriving in shorts would have felt like arriving stark naked.

I was assigned to Room A1 and, for reasons I cannot remember, sat in the front beside a boy called Fabrice. Everything about him, from his complexion and uniform to his bag and shoes, suggested wealth. Yet he was also the most mature boy I had met. He never became a close friend, but he treated me with a respect I have never forgotten. Secondary school brought a different teacher every hour and a timetable that made us feel grown-up. It also exposed everything I lacked. Each teacher specified the required exercise book, two hundred pages for major subjects such as Mathematics and French, or forty-eight pages for History and Civics. I quickly ran out and began dividing books between subjects, attracting the teachers' scorn. I owned none of the required textbooks either. Before I could ask, Fabrice offered to share his books, and we stretched our necks over the same pages. His empathy spared me considerable humiliation. A few days later, Mother found enough money for the remaining exercise books. Fabrice seemed almost happier than I was. People such as Mrs Therese, Fabrice and the aunts who fed us taught me that Providence often sends somebody into an adverse circumstance as a blessing and an answer to prayer.

Puberty brought frightening experiences at night. A lamp outside my window cast fantastical figures onto the curtain. I knew my imagination exaggerated them, yet I stared at that frightening window until I fell asleep.

When the lamp broke, we never replaced it. Strangely, the figures remained and became more sinister. They seemed to materialise, leap from the curtain and dance grotesquely around my room. Some resembled enormous wasps; others formed a procession of tortoise-like creatures. I sat upright, rubbed my eyes and wondered whether I was awake.

I began sleeping with the light on. Darkness terrified me so completely that I screamed whenever the electricity failed. Mother dismissed my fear as attention-seeking nonsense, although part of her worried because I had previously suffered what we called dementia.

One night, she slipped into my room and switched off the light. I woke instantly and screamed. When she turned it on again, my right hand was deeply cut and bleeding. Only a second had passed. Mother wanted to blame one of our unusually clever mice, but they preferred the kitchen and rarely entered the bedrooms.

She stared at my hand, shaken. Although the wound was deep, I felt no pain. I would be lying if I said I felt no triumph. At last, Mother had to believe that something was happening to me.

The experiences continued. One night, a chorus of demonic laughter tore me from a nightmare. When I opened my eyes, my bedroom seemed to have become a cavern filled with imps. They looked malevolent and mocking, and I felt naked and exposed.

I dared not close my eyes for fear of falling back into the nightmare, yet the creatures remained when my eyes were open. Slowly, more by feeling than sight, I sensed the room returning to itself. By then, dawn was near.

Over the following nights, a figure in a black suit spat hateful threats at me in a language I did not undertand. I also heard murmuring whenever I closed my eyes at night. I could not understand the words and forgot them each morning. It was not until 2004, when I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, that suddenly the hateful words of the man in black and the murmurs became clear; they were insults and curses hurled at me in Kiswahili. I immediately spoke against them, rebuked them in The Name of Jesus Christ, and never heard them again.

During our first year of secondary school, our bodies changed without explanation. Most of us had received no sexual education, so we developed spectacularly inaccurate theories.

Hard lumps the size of peanuts appeared beneath our nipples. During breaks, we discussed them and occasionally examined one another to determine whether they had grown. The prevailing theory was that these mysterious masses stored sperm.

Boys who matured earlier acquired an aura of scandal and mystery. We envied them while speaking badly about them whenever possible. If one described an amorous exploit, we crowded around and listened avidly. Beneath the jokes lay anxiety: we feared being left behind by manhood.

Our knowledge came from fragments: torn pornographic magazines retrieved from rubbish bins, glimpses of erotic films promptly stopped when children entered, and salacious adult conversations that fell silent when we approached. Sex became the chief subject of our conversations and occupied my mind throughout the day.

One morning, my friend Patient lent me an entire pornographic magazine. I couldn't believe my luck.The writing was in English, which I could not understand, but under the circumstances the words hardly mattered. Besides, I considered sex to be a universal language. I tucked the book under my tee shirt, ran home, dashed to my bedroom and locked the door. As I turned the pages, the tension in my body became impossible to contain. My first orgasm was frightening, strange and explosive. As soon as I collapsed onto the bed, I knew with certainty that I would do it again, often, perhaps that very day.