CHAPTER FOUR

All in all the ride to the country wasn't all for naught. I enjoyed the scenery even though my seat was basically, skin, bone and evil. Even when I was younger I processed things differently that others. My brothers were freaking out by then but I was as calm as a cucumber. Being hysterical never brought anything good to my table so then it made no sense to me. I don't think that to this day I have given myself time to freak out. Well, on the ride down my mother decided that she wanted to visit her father, this was our first taste of country dwelling, and it was a doozy I tell yah! The house was like three wooden jail cells stuck together, smelled like piss, old age and death, and the our grandfather was a man to behold. He had elephantiasis in his legs. "Elephantiasis refers to a parasitic infection that causes extreme swelling in the arms and legs. The disease is caused by the filarial worm, which is transmitted form human to human via the female mosquito when it takes a blood meal."

So that solved the origin of the urine smell. But they were lovely people, who believed any and everything can be solved with food and prayer. They made things there bearable. Coincidentally enough there was where we all ever petted a cat. Our father wasn't big on having'creatures' in the house, or around it. Our lives weren't built in a way where we had the chance in encountering a stray and petting or feeding it, we were carted to and from school, no dilly dallying for us. Anyway, after that we were dropped at the steps of our grandmother's. Carefully we made our way inside, clinging to each other because it seemed as if the entire village was packed inside that little box house, staring at the fresh meat. Not one of them said good night or smiled to make us feel at ease, they just went straight into making us feel like interlopers. While all that was going on the house our dutiful mother was outside yelling and screaming things like "I'm free, lord ah free!" and kissing the dirt ground. I can tell you that shit didn't last long though. Our life there consisted of sleeping on the floor with one chair cushion, no sheet to cover ourselves, being woken up at 4 in the morning to full the water barrels and bottles while everyone else slept, being fed food that can be described as 'natural disaster emergency rations' and not being able to go to school. I can't exactly tell you what my mother's plan was seeing as she didn't take any of our things, we were living like scavengers and oddly enough our relatives took pride in that. It was as if suffering us seemed to quell their anger and jealousy toward out father a little. My father once told me that he was going to just forget about us because we left with her, of course that's bullshit because WTF?! Our primary school teacher at the time at Febeau convinced him that the children shouldn't have to suffer over a squabble between parents so he came for us. Lesson number four was learnt that day: PRIDE IS FOREVER WHILE TRUST IS FLEETING. He came for us alright only to take my older two brothers and leave my younger brother  and I with a solid Screw You! Do you remember back in the 90's how in the Simpson's whenever they introduced the Jesus character he always had a back light? Yup, that was how we saw our father that day, like his appearance would solve everything.

We were enrolled in a nearby primary school because having four children doing nothing all day at home started to look bad and those people were all about appearances. Indian Walk Government Primary, the school that can give anyone a time trip. It was fully board and the classes were separated by the black boards.The school was a slower pace than what I was used to though so fitting in was a breeze, what tripped me up though was my second enemy/frienemy/crush/first love. He beat me at everything in class, that pissed me off to no end but gradually he started to grow on me. I never pursued him even though that class of kids stuck with each other for seven more years of our lives, I always knew in the back of my mind that I was leaving that place so no attachments. Yea I was military that way. When our father came, his face betrayed him for a minute when he saw the kind of pressure we were under but the minute he saw our mother that spite was back. The vipers didn't say a word in the background, when they had the most to say about my father. They reminded me of the sneaky girls in school who whispered behind your back but smiled in you face.

I can't remember exactly what he said to me when I was bawling my eyes out for him to take me with him, what I do remember though, and what would probably stick with me forever more is his last statement, "You have to stay with you mother because you are a girl." That one sentence dried up my tears faster than the Sahara sun. It was like they were gong that struck the bell, the wiper that made everything else clear to see, the fortune in the fortune cookie that gives you the willies. I was dumbstruck, made to stand still as he picked up what little my brothers had and began his trek to get them a taxi. My little brother was going on four so he didn't really understand what was going on, he was still attached to my mother boobs so he wasn't going anywhere away from those so I was truly alone. Nine year old me knew it the minute he walked off, it was every man for themselves.