sands of time;FORGIVE THEM FATHER.

FORGIVE THEM FATHER
Salome was a teenage girl who upheld good morals from childhood. She grew up in Nairobi city in the hands of her mother in a single parent family.
Soon she wrote the primary school certificate examination and passed. She was admitted to a government high school in the neighborhood. She was sixteen and in the second form when she had her first boyfriend, a handsome youth in form four, soon a great bond developed between her and Lincoln, the boy friend. They used to walk from school together to the nearby road where they would take different buses home, since they did not live in the same district.
Salome’s mother was a vegetable vender. She owned a stall at the nearby open air market. She had two other children besides Salome. The family, lived in a two roomed house made of iron sheets and timber at Kasarani estate, were stone structures.
Just near Salome’s home lived another family. They had a very beautiful stone house, surrounded by a tall stone wall. In these home lived two teenage girls and in time they became friends with Salome.
These neighbors had not been there before. The head of the family was a sea captain, who was well paid. He had bought the plot recently and had elected the beautiful house.
Agnes was the eldest child in the family. She was nineteen years. She was a sixth former in a British curriculum school. She befriended Salome and would visit the laters humble home whenever she knew Salome was in. They would chat for hours and even take a walk in the neighborhood. Salome was a devote Christian and Agnes joined her church and became a member of the church choir as was Salome.
All was going on well for a long time, but all of a sudden the tide changed. Salome started feeling unwell after the Christmas holidays of the year 1998.
She was vomiting regularly and had heart burn. Her mother wanted the doctor to prove her thoughts, he did when she took Salome to a mission hospital. Salome was expectant.
Although she was pregnant she reported to school the following year. She couldn’t learn in peace because teachers and fellow students were giving her looks before whispering in groups as the pregnancy progressed. Salome was surprised when her close friends including Agnes and her younger sister abandoned her. Agnes wasn’t paying her usual visits and whenever they met she didn’t wish to hold any conversation with Salome. A casual greeting without the usual handshake and they would pass on only to whisper and laugh loudly about Salome’s condition. Even Lincoln disowned her. He accused her of having been unfaithful to him. Soon Salome stopped going to school. She was heavy with child now. The only solace she got was from her mother who had forgiven her and was helping her get along. Fortunately when the time came, she had no serious problems. She named the boy after her absentee father a man she hadn’t would come back to be the head of the family.
“She will have a baby girl soon,” Agnes and mercury were said to have mocked behind her back. Salome went back to school seven months after giving birth. The task of bringing up the baby fell on her mother’s laps. She had to carry her grandson to the market daily.
Agnes and mercury’s father was usually absent from home for long periods. He used to come home twice a year. He was a sea man and would be part of the crew of a ship taking long voyages; he had visited such big African seaports as Port Sudan, Cape Town and Massawa.
One day while the sailor was away, his Nairobi home was broken into by a gang of burglars. They gained access into the compound through the back gate, they cut off the window grills to gain access into the house itself. The burglars were heavily armed and the mother, Margret and her four children were scared stiff. It was at two in the morning and the neighbors heard about it and came in to console the family. The children were unable to report to school that morning.
‘Margret informed her husband about the incident through the wireless telephone.He was speaking from Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
“What was stolen?”
“Nearly everything of value,” she replied. “The television sets, the refrigerator, your beautiful sea shells, the Honda generator, video player and even the money you had left behind,” she said amid sobs. “They must have known that you have been here recently.”
“How much money was taken away?”
“Sixty thousand, and said it wasn’t enough. They said they are coming back soon.”
“How did they carry all these in the rain?’
“Our car is gone too. They loaded everything in it and drove off. They had another car packed a few home steads away.”
“Listen,” the family man said. “My ship is broken. We are waiting for spare parts from pain. It might take weeks before it is fixed, At least another fortnight before goods are loaded, cocoa at Accra, and palm oil at Free town.”
“I’m listening,” Margret said,
“I shall send you some money the usual way I do, through western union .Try to buy basic necessities like gas cooker and a new television set. Try to keep the home orderly in my absence”.
Margret did as she was told. She used the money her husband used to send well.
A month later Michael, Margret’s husband spoke from Free town. He said they were
heading to the high seas. Ten days later he called from the coast of Sao Tome Islands.
“Why are you taking so long,” the concerned house wife asked.
“Delays at ports. We are carrying goods from one port and offloading the same at the next port of call, as we always do. I shall be home soon”
The next time she called, her man was in Cape Town heading East towed the Seychelles Islands. He arrived home five months after he had left. He travelled from Mombasa by bus and his family was in town to receive him. They went home.
Margret narrated all about the night the unwanted quests arrived as they inspected the back wall which had been repaired in several places. The damaged window grill had been repaired by a welder and had been repainted. Margret hadn’t narrated all about the night in question.
“When are you expecting the baby?” the question did not come as a surprise since her body was showing.
“It is coming in four or month’s time.”
Afterwards he was unsually quiet and unhappy for days. His wife was pregnant and so was his first daughter. As usual in Africa men await for the wife to account for the daughter’s condition. She didn’t. Michael spent three weeks at home and soon he was gone back to his work station.
About four months later, Agnes was the first to go through labour pains. Her mother and a neighbor took her to a mission hospital in Nairobi’s south lands. She underwent the cesarean Section after two days. She produced twin boys. Five days later her mother had a baby girl.
Mercury had to stay at home to take care of her sister, her babies and younger sister .Was it a blessing that three new members of the family had been added within a short time?
The father came back home four months after the birth of the youngest daughter and grand sons. He was happy.
A few days later he requested for the birth certificates which had been already issued. He inspected the dates of birth. It showed that the mother had become pregnant in the same period as did the daughter. He counted backwards some two hundred and seventy days. He landed on a day of a week he hadn’t been at home. He had already gone back to work. That is before robbers had visited his home.
Michael concluded that he was not the father to his youngest child. He explained the point to his wife who saw the truth but tried to defend herself.
“By then I was long gone, probably for weeks, if I’m the one responsible you would have given birth earlier than this date indicated on the sheets,” the father reasoned. “I know how to count”
Soon the exchange of words entered a lethal phase. A fight ensued and both mother and daughter were kicked out of home together with the babies. They rented a room in a tenement in the neighborhood. life was really hard for the two women so was it to the other children.
Agnes got married early and had another child within a year. She did not go on with education. Back to Salome.
Salome went back to school leaving her baby under her mother’s watch. She worked hard at school and passed well. Later, she joined a missionary medical college.
Today Salome is a nurse in Kiambu County. She earns a modest salary. On the other hand Agnes is a house wife with no professional training. She works as a small scale trader.
We should learn to treat other people the way we should love to be treated. Do not laugh at another person’s perils.