Broken Record

Before my friend became my first University boyfriend, he told me how he falls in love every day. I thought it was silly, love is not that fickle. That was twenty years ago.
I may have changed my mind because I have friends who may think me a broken record at the rate I fall in and out of love. Could love be fickle or am I just falling into nothingness disguised as love?
My great love two years ago was Monday, my friends couldn’t possibly hear the last of it, we went everywhere together, even when with my girls.
Last year it was Tuesday. He probably was a rebound and did not last as long as Wednesday. We did like same movies and laughed at same jokes, he really got me. He was easy.
Wednesday ended last month, he was always the life of the party, a charmer. Every girl wanted to be me, the relationship was a trophy.
Today, my friends are not so excited to hear about Thursday because I am a broken record who will fall in love with Friday tomorrow.

I Am Woman: Balance for Better

I am woman.
I have had highs and lows, thorns and roses. I have cried and laughed, mostly laughed. I have danced and mourned.
I have strength and yet I get weak a lot.
I've been hated on, but I have mostly been loved.
I have made friends and I have lost some.
I am woman:
Assertive, resilient, adaptive and human, always human.
I have had it easy because I am woman, and I have had to work twice as hard to get just half as far as my male colleagues.
I have fallen, more times than I can count, but I rise, I always rise and push on. I am woman.
I am intelligent, smart, and stupid. The stupid get lesser and lesser as I learn and grow.
I am beautiful, inside and out. I have been called stubborn and kind, talkative and blunt, all of which I will not apologize for.
I have been married and divorced. I have had and lost and found again.
I am woman, I grow and glow.
I can be intimidating and sometimes cowardly.
I have fears, some I hide too well even I don't see them anymore until they hurt me.
I have love, sometimes I'm afraid to give it, but this is an easy fear to conquer.
I have dreams, some may never happen, but I will never stop pushing as long as I have life.
I live! I do what makes me happy, hurting no one, lifting those I can.
I have scars, some you see, some you feel. Some are mine alone to see and feel.
I am woman. I nurture, I motivate, I support, I lend an ear or two to other humans, because just like me, we all get weak and we all need a little lift, a little smile, a little reassurance, a little warmth, to know we are not alone.
I am woman: It is my life's work to create balance for better.

Happy women's day to my fellow phenomenal women.

TAKEN LAUGHTER

I was a girl so full of life, energy and dreams.
I had goals that seemed unattainable to most.
Until I became a woman.

I had the loudest laugh, I was nicknamed talkative.
I was that child loved by all for the energy I bring.
Until I became a woman.

I was dressed in a single wrapper around my chest.
Made-up with lovely white chalk designs and adorned with royal beads. Me and other girls my age.
We were about to become women.

The cut from the blade took away my voice.
The screams from the other girls turned my dreams to mares.
Laughter was taken from me.
The day I became a woman.
-Ttonia.

#endFGM
#endChildAbuse
#endCuttingGirls

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE #Leaving

“Why wouldn’t she leave?” is the most popular reaction you get from people when they’ve just heard another story of wife battery. This is actually a better reaction to that of stories of women who left marriages, “she should have stayed and worked things out, build her home”.

Leaving an abusive home is not as easy as some would think. A lot of factors contribute to a woman’s hesitance or inability to leave her abuser.

One of the reasons women are unable to leave abusive homes is upbringing- the way girls are raised in our societies. Many parents raise us in such a way that it is imprinted in us that the successes of our homes are our only mission in life. A failed marriage therefore means failure for the woman.  So instead of leaving, she keeps giving up pieces of herself, losing herself, changing and tweaking, anything to stop the abuse from repeating. But the abuse repeats again and again, making her to make more changes...she gives up her friends, her family, her voice, until she is a ghost of herself who says things like, I can't live without him...if I don't provoke him, he won't beat me. OR if he doesn't love me, he won't beat me.

Another reason is religion, especially the Christian religion. The "phrase till death do us part" said as vows are exchanged has claimed many lives prematurely. Divorce is frowned upon heavily by majority of Christian leaders and some of them encourage the victim to pray harder, cook better and sex more often to keep her husband happy and save her made in heaven marriage. The "hear from God" craze among Africans as regards picking a spouse doesn't help. How can a woman leave a man she has advertised as "God's will" for her? Would she tell the members of her world she isn't sure anymore it was God who spoke to her? Trivial as it sounds, this is a strong reason many stay on.

Fear of injury and death is another reason victims of Domestic Violence stay with their abusers. These abusers threaten to hurt and kill their victims if they think of leaving. They say things like. "I love you and I will kill you then kill myself if you think of leaving me". Sometimes, they say these things between punches or slaps on their victims. A lot of times, perpetrators of Domestic Violence have made good their threats by hunting for and harming their spouses who had somehow made it out of the door. This fact further serves as a deterrent for those thinking of leaving their abusers.

Coincidentally, someone who just left her abuser walked in just as I was compiling the above written reasons; I have just returned from “speaking out” for her. Like her, most women do not leave their abusers early enough. Their major reason (not the only) being finances. They do not want to leave without the children and they do not want to be faced with the reality of taking care of the financial needs of both the children and themselves. Mostly, they are scared they would be unable to earn enough to give the children the life they are accustomed to or keep them in their current schools. This is no small matter considering the fact that women work twice as much as men but earn twice as less (at least approximately so).

Methinks that women do not leave for one major reason; they have been gradually reduced to become less than who they were created to be. The subtle but frequent and seemingly harmless critique he gives to her even before marrying her, the alienating her from family and friends, the passive aggressive way of telling her that nothing she does is ever good enough, and the reminders, however false, that she is nothing without him. These add up to make it difficult, nearly impossible for her to make a life saving decision to leave her abuser. It takes a whole person to take a step as big as leaving a spouse. Her inability to take this gigantic step is because she isn't a whole person anymore, it is NOT because she is stupid.

FADING HOPE

Our hope is getting dimmer as the sun sets.
We had springs in our steps and loud brags about the power of our votes.
Now we whisper to one another, the possibility that we may never hope again.

We were optimistic as we chanted "change"...The Nigeria of our dream so real we could touch it.
So we marched with our thumbs, powered by our cards. And we voted to bring our dreams to live.

There were promises, some we weren't too gullible to believe. Like a Dollar to a Naira in a year...we weren't fooled. Yet we hoped for change and for change we voted.

Our hope is getting dimmer with every sunset, but with every sunrise we await the News still. Hoping to find therein, something to rekindle our hope.

Selky, the POOR girl

Selky! selky!!

The poor girl heard her mother call out loudly.

She ran as fast as her legs could carry, wondering as she ran if she had done something wrong.

There by the stool she found her mother grinning, “Selky my daughter, Aunt Ralia will take you away from the hardship of the village to the sky lights of the city.”

All she had to do, her mother told her, was to be grateful.

Selky! Selky!!

The poor girl heard her aunt call out loudly.

She ran as fast as her legs could carry, wondering as she ran what she did do wrong this time.

There on the sofa she found her aunt fuming, “you stupid child, I rescued you from a life of hardship and plan to put you in a school but you are good for nothing.”

Selky wasn’t sad, now she is grateful and hopeful.

the POOR girl

You see her gathering burning coal from the neighbour’s fire. 

You know she is about to make her own fire.

She has to cook water for her brothers to bathe and have some meal.

While the fire burns, she is bent over, sweeping her father’s compound;

Ever so careful not to wake her brothers from their restful state.

You will be moved to pity her for she is only an 8 year old child.

She cooks and cleans and waits on her brothers.

She is a girl child for whom there are no plans for education.

But don’t pity her. No. Don't pity her for the reasons you've so far come to know - Because she is happiest in the mornings while she cooks and cleans and tends.

Because the morning liberates her from the terror of the night; for at night she is worried about the rough big hand that goes up her skirts.

She is scared about growing up; more like terrified.

She recalls too well what happened when her sister was declared “grown up”.

She remembers loudly the screams from her sister as she was being sliced from childhood to womanhood; her genital cut and sewn to keep her “chaste, beautiful and worthy of a husband.”

This girl child is terrified most of all about marrying her father’s friend, a choice she has no voice in. 

The poor girl’s worry, you must know, is that her father's friend chews too loudly.