Against my complexion: A black and white story

By Ketsia Lombosso Engoya

Reviews:

"This novel feature vivid imagination, as well as lots of dialogue and description" - Writers Guild of Alberta" "I admire the ambitious premise" - Catherine Cho Malaysha is a beautiful and intelligent albino who faces discrimination in society. She began to question her complexion at a very young age becau

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bybocam.inc
• Release date: Feb 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781777037505

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DOOMED TRIBE OF BLACK UMOJA

A BLACK AND WHITE STORY

KETSIA LOMBOSSO ENGOYA

DOOMED TRIBE OF BLACK UMOJA

Copyright © 2020 by Ketsia Lombosso Engoya.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations em- bodied in critical articles or reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Book and Cover design by Ferenc Rozumberski

Cover picture credit is from https://entertainmentmesh.com/beautiful-black-white-face-art.

ISBN                             978-1-7770-3751-2

PAPERBACK ISBN    237-0-0007-4879-9

EBOOK ISBN              978-1-7770-3750-5

First Edition   February 2020

Published in Canada by

Bybocam group

CONTENTS

DOOMED TRIBE OF BLACK UMOJA

CONTENTS

Dedication

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Interlude

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Epilogue

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

AFTERWORD

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my family, my friends, and all who’ve helped me along my journey.

This book is for the broken, for those who have been told, time and time again, that they are not enough for this world. I write this because you are enough!

I am inspired by the strong women who have gone ahead of me, serving as trailblazers on paths not often trodden. I say, Still, we rise!

Prologue

I

Here, at the crack of dawn, asleep but assured of    

guidance lay the Maasai-Makena kingdom. It is  

famed for its shiny diamond that guided and protected its people. The Maasai-Makena people had lived in a state of constant war, with both tribes (the Maasai and Makena tribes) fighting to own full rights to the sacred diamond.

The story of the sacred diamond that gave life and hope had been told a million times around the kingdom. People worship it. Folklore had it that the power of the diamond was incomparable to any. It could change human thoughts, bring the dead back to life, and fulfill all desires.

Moreover, the next person to have this diamond placed around his or her neck would become a prince or goddess princess and rule the kingdom. He or she would be untouchable and unstoppable. Forever, the blue diamond necklace would shine on the person for whom it was destined.

In the meantime, the diamond lived in a shielded glass box in a special room, inside the beautiful castle built to protect it from intruders, with warriors from both tribes taking turns to watch over it.

The Makena tribe had a chief named Igwe Zawadi, a loud man who was quick to get angry. He had his eyes on the shiny blue diamond and wanted it so badly so that he would become invincible. Hence, he started killing people who stood in the way of his possession of the necklace.

In Igwe Zawadi’s mind, he deserved the necklace—no one else ought to have that shiny beauty thing!

But there was a problem. It was rumored that the diamond was so special that should anyone find a way to kill everyone guarding it, it would still protect itself. One day, two groups of men entered the sacred castle to steal the diamond of life and hope. After only three minutes, fire came out of the castle and burned them all to death.

Everyone was in awe. The diamond necklace had the power to kill those who were not supposed to be in possession of it.

Astonishingly, a few days later, the diamond disappeared and was nowhere to be found.

Igwe Zawadi did not want to rest until he found the diamond because only then would he be able to take over the royal kingdom. He was determined to keep searching!

II

There was a man named Minatu, a sheep farmer who belonged to the Maasai tribe. He had 120 healthy sheep. One morning, Minatu noticed that one of his sheep had died. He inspected it to know the cause of its death, but he found nothing. The same thing happened the next day, and the next … until fifty of his sheep were dead. It was very alarming, and Minatu knew he had to find a solution; otherwise, he would be left with no sheep to tend to, and he would no longer be able to take care of his daughter, Lekuma. She meant a lot to him, and he had sworn to take proper care of her when her mother died.

Lekuma was very fond of her father’s sheep, and she always helped her father tend to them. One day, while feeding them, she found a shiny crystal necklace on the neck of one of the sheep. As soon as she removed it from the sheep’s neck, the sky instantly turned black, and there was deafening thunder. Two hours later, Minatu, her father, was shivering seriously, and his body temperature was off the roof.

Minatu’s fever grew worse every day. His health deteriorated, and he was forced to stop farming. Lekuma was sent to live with her uncle who had five wives and twenty-four children. Lekuma was often left to starve by her uncle’s wives, and when her uncle started making suggestive moves at her, she had to flee from the village. She became a street urchin. On the streets, a nice woman had mercy on poor Lekuma and took her to her own village, where she started to live. However, she never left the shiny diamond necklace. Lekuma kept it and took it with her wherever she went.

III

The Maasai-Makena kingdom was in disarray because of the lost diamond necklace. When it was discovered that a farmer’s daughter who was on the run had the necklace, the power-thirsty Igwe Zawadi sent his son, Kamla, to find the girl, get the necklace, and bring it to him.

Finally, after several months, Kamla found Lekuma and pretended to be in love with her. His eyes were on the shiny diamond necklace in her possession, and she would later discover this when she overheard him discussing with one of his servants about how he wanted to get the necklace from her, kill her, and leave the town where she had settled down.

It was heart-breaking, but Lekuma knew what she had to do: she had to be on the run again. She now knew how powerful the necklace was and vowed that she would not let anyone who just wanted power for themselves to have access to it. She had heard of how dangerous Igwe Zawadi was, and she vowed to protect the necklace with her life.

IV

A few years had passed, and Lekuma now lived on the streets of Nairobi. She fell in love with another man, Elvis Johnson, and they had a child, a girl called Malaysha, who was an albino.

While Lekuma was pregnant with Malaysha, evil had befallen the city, as the king was rumored to have been killed by his albino mistress. As a result, all albinos were banned from the town.

When she gave birth to Malaysha, Lekuma knew her child being an albino would be a problem. Moreover, her husband didn’t want the child because he specifically wanted a baby boy. For fear of getting her child banned, Lekuma used charcoal and the magical sand of Umoja to paint Malaysha’s face black. When the government came to check if Malaysha was black, they could not remove the sand because it could only be removed by Umojan women. Hence the story of Malaysha, the black-albino child. However, the people of Nairobi knew Malaysha was an albino because of her eyes and her hair. She, therefore, still bore the stigma of an albino all the days of her life.

How would she survive?

One

I

came into full consciousness of the life I’d been called to live at the age of eleven, just one year after my first decade of life. Fortunate kids were only bothered by food and games (the stuff healthy lives were made of); I didn’t have that luxury.

As soon as I dragged my tired body through the streets of Nairobi, my physical fatigue would be complicated by the mental troubles of having to deal with all their stares. Some of them looked at me with eyes that bored through my flesh and deep into my bloodstream, and I would begin to sweat and hyperventilate when it became too much. One thing was clear: I was different. I didn’t really know why or how then, but I was separated from the other kids by the amount of inordinate attention lavished on me—of course, in a negative light.

If someone wasn’t sneering at this girl in her tattered clothes, it was some other person muttering words of disgust as they stared at me like I had committed some heinous crime. But I was eleven. What crime committed by such a child would be so severe to warrant deep-seated unforgiveness? I wondered about this for years. I would ask myself questions about what made me different from the others, what fault was in me that was so entrenched in my being that it defied erosion and, as such, could never be erased.

I finally figured it out at school, where those who taunted me were, thankfully, more straightforward. Kids did not know how to stare and mutter under their breaths without letting out their thoughts, and so, rather mercilessly, they made these crude jokes about how my skin looked like it was made of paper. They reminded me that I couldn’t play in the sun like they could because, hey, my skin bruised easily! Clearly, my skin was inferior to their dark, richly melanized skin, and I was to blame for that. Perhaps I hadn’t played in the sun as much as other kids, or perhaps I was too lazy to go to the stream or to the farm or to simply grow into a full-fledged beauty.

The kids came up with fresh theories every day. It was as though they’d go home thinking about me, and anyone who came up with a better or more rational theory for why I was the way I was would earn the respect of the rest of the pack. At least, that was how it looked to me from the outside, and those who hated me the most worked the hardest to show that I was less of a human being.

One particular theory hurt me the most, and it was that I was whitening my skin. The classmate in question had called me, in the most disgusting tone she could muster, bear. But I wasn’t that girl! I was so hurt I broke down into furious tears and stomped off.

From the outside, it would seem like harmless jokes peddled by young kids. After all, wasn’t that what kids did? Reporting them to the school authorities was of no use; they had other more important things to look into, and no one cared. Then I came up with an excellent solution.

I wouldn’t go to school anymore!

And so, the next day, after carefully hatching my plans, I decided to lie to my parents about my school. I had a carefully thought-out plan, which was to tell them (or, better still, to show them) that I was sick. If they figured I was sick, they would perhaps let me stay out of school. That way, I would be free of my friends’ bullying.

But I was totally scared of how my parents would react. It wasn’t like we had this really deep connection or anything, after all. They were regular parents who did the best for their kids and expected them never to act foolishly by saying they wanted to stay out of school.

I started with my dad because I felt it would be easier to talk to him, but he did not pay attention at all. I should have known he wouldn’t listen. After all, he never paid attention to me, ever. Why though? It was like I was talking to myself. Maybe if I was bold enough to make him listen to me and if I spoke up louder, then he would hear, but that was not me. I would rather mumble my words and hope you’d catch them as they poured hesitantly out of my mouth.

Since I had no other choice, I had to approach my disciplinarian mother, who, if she found out the truth, would beat me up so much, passers-by would have to rescue me from her grip. But the taunting had gone on for too long, and I couldn’t stay quiet anymore.

I knew she was strict, and I did not want her to be mad at me, so I had to target a period when she’d be in a good mood. When I saw my mother, she was eating, and it was the right time for me to say what I wanted to say because she was happy!

Hi, Mom, I said.

Hi, darling, my mom responded.

This sounds like a win already!

I have something that I need to tell you, I said, a little emboldened by her warmth.

Go ahead, she answered.

At that time, my heart started to beat really hard because I was not really sure that I could read her mood, but I was ready to take risks.

Mom, I am not feeling good today, I said.

What do you have, my love? she responded.

As I was thinking of a good lie, I thought that it would be a good idea to lie that I had a headache. But I did not have any fever, and it would have been difficult for my mom to believe me. In addition, she had paracetamol, which she always used when I was not feeling well, and I did not want to take any medication. Then I thought that I could say that I had belly pain, but I needed to show that I had stomach pain by going to the toilets all the time. Suddenly, one wonderful idea came to my mind.

I am dizzy, and my belly is hurting me, I said.

Come. I am going to check if you have any fever, she responded.

No, I am fine, I said. I just need to rest for today.

All right. Let me give stomach pain medication, she said. After that, I will call your school to let them know that you’ll not come today. Then we will go to the hospital.

Immediately, my pulse, my heartbeat, and my body temperature all rose at the same time.

Oh, baby, you just might land yourself in some really shitty trouble, you know! I said to myself.

I didn’t have to be a prophet to realize that if my mother accompanied me to the hospital, the doctor would not find anything wrong with me, and that would be the end of my supposedly brilliant plan. I desperately needed to come up with a second lie, which was better than the first.

I tried letting my mom know that I was tired, but my words barely got a grunt as a response from her.

You need to go get ready for school, darling, she said.

At this juncture, I knew it was the truth or nothing else. I had to come clean with her despite not knowing how she’d respond to my experiences.

Mom, I have something to tell you, I finally blurted out.

What is it? she inquired begrudgingly.

Well . . . I have kept it from you, but do you know that my friends in school bully me in our classes? I said. They call me bear, monkey, and dog. It’s almost like I’m not as much of a human being or a student as they are! Mommy, I don’t get why they treat me so badly.

Okay, is that why you’re lying about being sick? she said. Because you want to stay away from school?

Yes, I want to stay away from them completely. What kind of friends would speak in such a way to someone they sometimes play with? I said angrily. They are rude and very bad for me!

My mother looked at me, and I saw worry etched in the lines of her forehead. I didn’t understand why she should be worried. The reaction that made sense to me was anger. Mama was speaking, and I had to come back into the present to hear what she was saying.

Don’t worry, dear. Tomorrow we will go to your school together and speak with your instructor, she said.

I was relieved to find out that someone other than me could feel my pain. My mother was paying attention to my worries, and even better, she wanted to do something to rectify what had gone wrong. Regardless of the outcome of the meeting with my instructor the next day, I was elated that I got to stay at home today.

When we got to my class the next day, we met my instructor in front of the board, teaching other students in the class. As my mom couldn’t speak English well and could only communicate fluently in Swahili, I was caught in the role of translator.

My mom was so mad, but she could not express her feelings because of the language barrier; hence, I had to take over the conversation at a point. When my teacher asked me what was wrong, I told him the entire story. He then said that I should not worry, that he would talk to my friends, but I was not convinced. Could it be that he was just saying this because my mother was there and upset? Because it certainly wasn’t the first time I was complaining about it, even to him. And he’d always ignored my complaints prior to now, so where was this sudden attention coming from?

After much pleading that the situation should be sorted out, my mom finally left me alone in school and went home, hoping they would keep to their word. On my end, nonetheless, that wasn’t all. I needed to get to the root of this situation at school—and not just at school, but also on the road.

Within me, there were burning questions that sought answers from my parents—my mom, in particular. Yet it seemed like there was an unspoken rule about keeping something like a secret from me. My mom was a very nice woman, and each time I had something to tell her, she would attend to me in a sweet manner except for when she was angry. I was, however, always assured of her love for me. It was never-ending.

I kept on thinking about how to structure my questions before my mother that evening, and I thought about it throughout the class. As soon as I got home, I sensed that something was direly wrong. As I moved in the direction of my parents’ room, my fear was confirmed. Something was indeed very wrong. I could hear several shouts and screams emanating from both my father and mother. They were fighting! Even more upsetting was the fact that they’d been fighting about me, as I would find out from the words I could make out from their discussion, from outside this closed door.

My mother was crying and yelling at my father. Then my father yelled, Go to hell with your daughter, and he slammed the door hastily and barged out without as much as giving me a second look. I immediately ran to my mother, and as she looked up, I saw that she was bleeding from a cut on her lower lip. The blood wasn’t much, but the look of anguish on her face was something I felt in the deepest part of my soul. If my father said he loved her, why would he treat her in this manner? There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but one look at her face, and I knew my mother would rather be left alone than be asked so many questions about how she felt.

However, I still asked her about how she felt. She said that everything was fine, but I could see that she was lying through her teeth. She was the furthest from fine. Her eyes were full of sorrow, and her face was puffy, like she’d spent many hours crying. This was not the first time something of this sort would happen, as my dad was fond of beating my mom up for reasons I couldn’t decipher.

A couple of days later, when I saw that mom was feeling a bit better, I went to have a heart-to-heart talk with her in the way I knew how to. I had to do this before my dad would return, and so I went to talk to her, ignoring her sour mood.

Mom, can I talk to you? I asked her in my nicest voice.

I am not in a good mood. Wait till tomorrow or later, she answered.

I insisted, swallowing my fear of being given a good dose of the cane should she get even angrier.

Mother, I have some questions to ask you, I said.

She sighed out of exasperation. All right, you can ask me. I’m listening.

Mom, I wonder why people treat us differently. Even my dad is among those people, I said. Is it that we are not important to him or to them? Why does Daddy beat you despite saying he loves you? I don’t understand.

She sighed again, and this time, she looked into my eyes tenderly.

Don’t worry baby, everything will be all right? she said.

I nodded, but I wasn’t done. I needed to let all the feelings I felt get off my chest.

I am tired of being mocked by everyone. I’m tired of having no real friends to play with! Will I meet somebody who will like me? I shared my concerns, which, although childlike, still held deeper meanings and nuances.

You don’t need any friend to survive or to be happy. Be yourself. Surprisingly, she sounded very firm, as if shouting. Hey, you’ll need to remind yourself of this fact every day for the rest of your life!

My mom was talking to me as if I was a grown-up woman going through tough times.

Mommy, can you please share your story with me? I think there is more to you, and I want to know, I said, playfully tugging her clothes, half-expecting her to shrug me off when she felt I was becoming a pest.

Surprisingly, she left me alone and looked like she was thinking about what I had just said. Her eyebrows arched and then furrowed.

Mine? What do you want to know, darling? she asked.

I responded, Everything.

I think the mere thought of having to recall all she’d been through made her emotional, and before I could say Elvis, my mom had gotten emotional and had started crying. Having seen my mother cry so often, my baseline reaction (and feeling) toward her was empathy. What was wrong this time? At this juncture, she had totally stopped responding to me and was looking upward, in the direction of the sky.

And then I heard her voice, distinctly characterized by pain so deep it made me want to crawl into my skin.

When I was ten years old, my dad stopped working because he was ill. He was the only living relative I had. My mother died at childbirth, and my mother’s people were relentlessly against my father for supposedly ‘killing their daughter.’ They were so pained that they refused to stay in contact with either my father or their daughter’s only child—me. They said being around me increased their bitterness because if it weren’t for me and my father, my mother would still be alive. I had always wished I could change that scenario. I would wonder, What if I had never been born? Perhaps my own mother would have lived for longer, and none of these terrible things that ensued would have happened.

She looked wistful.

By this time, I was seated at her feet, carefully planted between her legs. I massaged her feet as if to encourage her to keep telling her story. She got the cue and picked up from where she left off before she started daydreaming about her life turning out better than it had already turned out.

"My father was a good man. Before he took ill, he ensured that I had everything I needed! I was his only child, the offspring of the woman he’d dearly loved, and if he couldn’t be with her, then I was the next person he could adore. I believed he saw me as an extension of my mother and had sworn to do right by me! Simply thinking of those days fills me with so much joy!

"We would eat together, sing together, and sometimes he would take me to the farm so I could get familiar with that environment as well. He would often tell me I had a great future and I should not worry about what anyone said to me about my mother’s death. He was the first man to inculcate confidence in me, and I can’t forget him for being the awesome man that he was!

"When he fell sick, everything changed. I got scared and upset because my papa could no longer make good on his promises to take care of me. Those days, his voice became so low that it was turning into a whisper. He lost so much weight that he looked like a skeleton. I was so scared! I overheard several times what the villagers were saying about our family. Many of them blamed my birth for the evil that had befallen my family. I was said to be bad luck. After all, it was when I was born that my mother took ill and died, and once again, my father was experiencing such ill health that he might also die. I started to blame myself too, and sometimes amidst tears, I would apologize to him for bringing sadness and gloom upon his home. My father would simply shake his head, motion me to come toward him, and with his soft smile, call me his princess. He said I could never do any wrong! And I believed him, for, in his eyes, I was the perfect example of the love a father had toward his daughter.

"Finally, the sickness broke my father. Now since he was unable to take care of me, he had to send me to live with an uncle, hoping that my uncle who had better resources would be able to take care of his precious daughter. Unbeknownst to him, my uncle’s household was not living in good times. In fact, he had five wives and twenty-one children, and altogether we were twenty-eight people sleeping in that house each night!

Although his house had four rooms, inclusive of the living room, it was still a chore fitting all of us into the rooms. The horrible stench emanating from the room where my ten cousins and I slept was so bad it kept me awake most nights. The smell, the heat, the lack of space! It was beyond terrible.

It was as though I could picture my mom sleeping in such a room, and I recoiled at the thought. No wonder she was okay with a man who beat her up from time to time but was able to give her a house to live in! It was suddenly beginning to make sense that my parents’ marriage was one of convenience, not true love. My mom had always known it, and it was finally dawning on me as well.

My mom continued the story. "Although my cousins were nice to me, living there was still very difficult. For instance, eating once a day was a herculean task, and many times, I would go to bed very hungry and in tears. My uncle’s wives had to prioritize giving their own children food, and I was left with anything left over. If luck smiled on me, I would find some food to eat, but on other days, it would be about praying and hoping the next day would be better for me. Besides, my aunties saw me entirely as another mouth to feed, an enemy who’d come into their household to take from my uncle what rightfully belonged to their own children! On unfortunate days, I would receive lots of beatings from them when they were angry about different situations. I did most of the work in the house, and when my uncle was not around, I was for all intents and purposes, the house girl!

In my mind, as a young girl, the only person I had as an ally, the one I could trust, was my uncle. Being a chief of the southern region of the village where he and his family lived, he was well respected by everyone. Each time he saw me, he ended up putting a smile on my face. He was just like a father to me! But all that was about to change. One evening, he called me into his room and started to touch me. It was until it was too late that I could decipher that my own uncle wanted to have his way with me! I will spare you the details.

As she got to this point, it was as though my mom was trying to swallow her words.

"I ran away from the house after this occurrence, unwilling to engage in a continuous illicit affair with my uncle, perhaps in exchange for him promising to protect me from his wives. And what if they got to know what he was doing to me? I was sure that none of them would support me. Instead, they would blame me over and over again. It was a lose-lose situation, and I needed to find some peace in the storm I was facing. I ran away from the house because I couldn’t imagine spending another night there. It was pointless to live like that, and despite the fact that I didn’t know in which direction I was headed, I just kept running toward an unknown destination. Those days were rough! There was nobody for me to go to, and I didn’t want to go to meet my father in our village. I was sure my uncle would come calling for me, and he might brainwash my father to let me leave with him again. Being helpless at the time, my father would have agreed. I mentally played out how the situation would have ended, and I would