Life Staked On Love

By Peter Lumba

How do you prove your love to the girl you love? That is what Bedina wants Ladino and Dazani to do. But Ladino and Dazani think Bedina is pregnant and each thinks the other is responsible. .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Lumba
• Release date: Dec 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465887108

Peter Lumba

The author runs a Public Benefit Organization (PBO) for disadvantaged children. Has special interest in youth development, especially teenagers.

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Life Staked On Love

Published by Peter Lumba at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Peter Lumba

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CHAPTER 1

A score of kilometres away from Jojo city was a tight-knit feisty community that comprised time honoured farmers and business entrepreneurs. The village sat on a low imposing domed hill flanked by a shallow river that on the odd occasion dried up. The people lived in small timber houses linked by pathways that criss-crossed the landscape. Most of the houses were overhang by canopies of indigenous trees that provided some refreshing shades from the sun.

In the village lived three newly married young women, who had achieved the notoriety of scandalizing their neighbours by their spiteful gossips. Massa, Farina and Shama, who were born and raised in the same village, knew virtually everyone there. Almost daily, the three women had the pleasure of meeting and exchanging the hottest gossip of the village, before engaging in their own made up stories about their neighbours. Apart from the ordinary gossips, the women could invent their own pejorative anecdotes about anyone in the village, or pick a low-key fact and flagrantly blow it out of proportion.

Massa, aged 25, was a medium sized woman who looked younger than her years. She was oval faced with an elongated nose and mere slits of piercing squinty shiny eyes. Farina, a year younger than Massa, was plump and short with lustrous cheeks and big round clear eyes, while Shama, two years older than Farina, was slender and tall, with a triangular face and big tired eyes. Although her nose was long and shapely, her thin-lipped mouth was rather wider than average.

Massa, Farina and Shama achieved so much notoriety as irresponsible gossips that men started warning their wives against associating with them. This was after it became evident in the neighbourhood that the three women were the cause of most fights among several couples. A case in point was Bozo and his wife, Jolina.

As usual, Farina had visited Jolina one day. At the age of 23, Jolina was a slight woman with delicate limbs and small brown eyes. The round-faced woman had remained childless for the last two years she had been married to Bozo. After exchanging their usual pleasantries, Farina suddenly said to Jolina, I could not imagined your husband being unfaithful to you! Men are all the same! Is it because you have not yet given him a child?

Her small bright eyes blinking continually, Jolina gazed at Farina inquisitively. What are you trying to tell me, Farina?

I am just talking about your husband and the woman he is seeing, Farina said innocently.

What? startled, Jolina asked

You mean you didn’t know your husband is seeing another woman?

Are you sure you know what you are talking about?

I mentioned it because I thought you were aware. Just forget about it, I don’t want to pit you against your husband for any reason whatsoever.

Farina, who is my husband seeing?

That is not what exactly brought me here, I told you to forget about it.

You must tell me who that woman is, Jolina said ominously.

Of course, she is not from our village, said Farina. I hear she lives in Jojo city.

I want to know who she is. Come on, tell me.

Okay, let me gather all the details first and then I will let you know.

First tell me what you know, said Jolina. Don’t leave me in suspense please.

It’s getting late, Jolina, Farina remarked. I should be leaving now. I will come back to visit you another day and we will talk about the matter when none of us is in a hurry.

Although Farina left Jolina before substantiating her allegation, the damage had already been done, for when Bozo returned home that evening, he found a different woman from the wife he knew. Apart from giving him cold responses that evening, she went through her domestic chores humming ominously. Bozo had no explanation for her behaviour, for she had never behaved like this before. The medium sized man with a small round face and large protruding eyes had always been very polite to his wife. Although Jolina had not yet given her husband a child, Bozo continued to shower her with affection and there were no signs of a strained relationship.

Be patient, please, Bozo always told his wife. God will give us a child in the fullness of time. I want you to be always assured of my love irrespective of our circumstances.

I am happy to hear that, my husband, Jolina always replied. I appreciate your understanding.

Bozo now could hardly understand what all of a sudden had changed his usually jovial wife. Jolina, what is wrong with you today? he asked her