STORY

ALMAJIRI
BY: UCHENNA EMELIFE

They came into our leaking thatch huts and made a feet-sweeping attractive offer of education. Our Parents were a naive lot bent under the weight of humbleness-cum-illiteracy, so promise of education for their offspring was to them the best gift ever.

In open arms, Baba took them in. Intimated them on the bamboo walls that are ready tinder for the fire, on the tell-tale signs of hunger serrating down our visage, showed them even my swollen toenails I got from kicking an iron ball, in the absence of the regular plastic football, and I saw one of them snarl at me as reception to my wincing.

"Take good care of them" My father pleaded "They are all I have" and even though Baba missed it, I saw the mock-pity face the oldest wore that I would later come to call Baba Maleek as they chorused "Definitely!".

They took a head count of the multitude we made, "Three hundred" I could only make out of all that was said from the little English I commanded. Three hundred. I echoed. To convince myself that I heard right.

They put us on a queue to board the trunk of a truck. Two trucks.

I saw my friend Isiaka limp to the line because polio victim, then I recalled how diffrent medicine men tagged him evil because herbs couldn't cure him.
I saw my neighbor Adamu who I fought with the day before, for calling me "gurmu" and even though he drools, I never call him an imbecile. Annoying boy.
I saw the popular twins "Hassan and Husseini" known for their mischievous ways. They once stole blind demented Baba's hand fan and made him think he threw it away.
I saw Murtala who takes several minutes to utter a sound and popular for his fragrance that gives off a lasting unpleasant smell.
I saw my sister, Aisha feigning a smile and drops of tears escaping her eyelids as she waved.
I saw the future of my Village boarding to leave the village. And I strangely saw excitement on the faces of all. Especially on Mum whose lasting smile mirrored her thought that our being compressed in the truck, was a practical first lesson of the white man's education on Patience and Perseverance 101.

We were going to the city to get an education. We were going to
the city to discover religion. Baba was excited. Mama was finally grateful. I wasn't. It didn't just feel right.

*****************
Three years after our transit from supposed hell to heaven, I was still the Abdul everyone called cripple. It was as if the hell we abandoned at the village doggedly followed me to heaven. If you can call it that, because life in the village though tough, didn't require me to go around with plates.

"When I shall start school?" I asked one of the men in my bad English. "Make enough money for me" he replied. "Besides the knowledge of the Quran is enough education" and I wondered if at any point, he mentioned to Baba that I would be a wanderer equipped with a plate with the sole mission of feeding off leftovers and making money for him, as a perquisite to my education.



5 years later and I still went around in rags with a plate and in a pitiful face to convince passersby for money, that at the end of the day all go to the men. Baba and Mama back in the Village already thought me a literate. Their priding in me made them insist that Aisha be married to the wealthiest man, as the sister to a 'yan boko' - 'educated one'.


The first night I returned with an empty plate with no money to offer to my masters, I met horror in the eyes of Baba Maleek - the oldest and cruelest among them. I explained to him that I had been robbed and beaten black and blue by some other boys who sought harvest where they did not sow. Baba Maleek frantically smoked his cigarette empty, I feared he'd choke from the heavy smoke intake. I didn't actually, I was hoping he would, if that meant leaving this version of hell paradise.



Enraged, he stood, walked up to me for I had maintained a distance to save my face from a reciprocating slap and grabbed me by the collar of my wornout shirt. He screamed, his tobacco breath coming full on my face I thought I shared a cigarette with him, and much to my chagrin it got me remembering home. Home: The little heaven I abandoned where all Baba did was smoke, and have imaginary conversations with Usman - my late brother. At least, home was family and family didn't make me beg. I did, voluntarily. To survive.


"Ka ce meh?" - You said what?
And since he asked, I told the same robbery story whimpering as I did. I saw the fury in his eyes and I wondered if he saw the innocence mine carried. Or the tell-tale bruises that affirm my story. Or if he missed the part where I mentioned being almost beaten to death.



"Cire wandon ka" - Remove your pants.
He said authoritatively and I did quickly to get over with it already. My body had accustomed to the beatings from the harsh weather of the street, what was capable of inflicting a worst pain? I thought to myself. Ride on. And he did.



But this was different. I heard him raise his Jalabiyya and untie the rope that held the trouser to his crooked waist. "Who keeps a cane in his pants?" Baba Majeed has always stroke me as a bit of an enigma, he was after all over 50 years but still hung around younger scholars and if he was gonna give me a stroke from a whip in his pants, I won't be surprised.



"Dago muntakka " - Lift your buttocks up.
I knelt down, bent my back raising my stark-naked buttocks to the angle he stood. He spanked my butt-cheek and smacked his lips. Shades of sadism. He bent down with the whip in his arm and gave me a stroke. This stroke was different. It wasn't like the one I got from the other man when I requested for more food. It wasn't like the sun's that fries my feet barefoot. It was more Intense. I felt an opening on a part of my buttocks like I was being continuously drilled by a big sharp-pointed object. I wanted to pee, defecate, puke, scream, breathe all at the same time but I couldn't. The stroke had sent me to a seizure that with each thrust, all I could do was whimper a plea.



He told me I was a sinner, that what he did was purge me of my sins. He said it was penance for a proper remission ritual. He said that there's need to see me wince to know I had truly repented and I consoled myself with that as I wiped blood of my buttocks.




The next time I felt him inside me, I had comitted no offense. "You need to be put in check" was the explanation he gave but I knew he was lying. Allah had just seen me do penance for my sins days ago, what checking does his servant intend doing? It lasted longer than the last time and he seemed to enjoy it more, evident in the sound he made with every thrust.



It happened again two days after that day, he said he wanted more assurance and his beloved was hellbent on getting it from me.



Happened again three days after that day, this time, "I noticed a doubt in you during the last session, you need to have your faith restored".



He grew tired of making up excuses, that all he did was walk in and ask that I take off my pants. He had me whenever he wanted and I grew tired of saying yes to his sjambok in the dead of the night. I had to do something.





That day when he bent down to begin the strokes and brought out his whip, I took out a knife I picked on the streets and slit it in half. I fled aftewrards.

****************

Now I'm 19, 8 years away from home. And 2 years away from Baba Maleek's reach. This stranger wants to tell my story, and as he translates into English my narration in thick Hausa, I whimper.
He had an ALMAmater, I had none. He had gone to school, I didn't.
I am an ALMAjiri deprived of an ALMAmater. I am a body of forgone dreams. I am a victim of lies and deceit, that now I have to walk around with two clothes incase I soil in faeces the one I'm in.


My sister is still waiting for the richest man. Baba and Mama still think I will speak 'spri spri' like the white man when I finally return. Murtala now lives in isolation because of body odour. Adamu is now my best friend. Hassan and Husseini are now distant entities from mischief. My right toenails have grown worse. I now walk with a third leg. I am Abdul. I am a beggar. I am a wanderer. I am hungry. Give me food. No, shelter. Food and shelter. Or money. Give me food, shelter and money. And some tissue to wipe me clean.