This place as
being our home for years and we have known peace, tranquillity and serenity. We
magnified it as the best place to be born and we pride ourselves in its
elegant. We tease ourselves that we will rebirth the joy we had as children
when we are old and not only tell the stories to our children but that they
will also live it and since the grasses are green, we believe it will forever
remain green. We jostle, hustle and bustle but that makes our lives happier and
we always look forward to the daily moonlight gathering when we sit in circles
under the moonlight to discuss as family. We have freedom of religion, worship,
education and life. Joyfully, we grew up and slowly like the sand of the sea,
our home ebb away. The future we hope for was taken away from us. Whatever
happens to our home?
During our
moonlight family gathering they came. They came stealthily on us. They rape our
daughters and left them destitute. They cut down the young that stood to fight.
The children were taken away in captive. The elderly were wounded and molested.
The young parents watched their children scathed from them, the old parents
buried their teenagers amidst tears while the raped daughters gave birth to
bastard. They came in the mid night, under the guise of friendship and
religion, they stole in during the wee hours of the night, they came in numbers
with guns and ammunitions and they came softly and pounded on us. They killed
both our dreams and our dreamers.
Now there is
commotion in our home. The centre can no longer hold water, ‘they left sorrow,
tears and blood.’ We only live in remembrance but mourn in reality.
We remembered
the days we could confidently walk in the night, play in the wee hours of the
night and still be secure. We could forget to lock the door of the house and
still be secured. We could freely go about our work, religion and nobody
harasses you but …
The dying cries
of the men still resounds in my ears, the pain of the parents that lost their
children is so much that some ended up committing suicide. The lives of our
kindred were stopped in the afternoon. Their sun was set at noon. The children
of the daughters that were raped rolled our street as fugitives. Whatever
become of our home? They came in the dead of the night and destroyed the place
we called home. They came in the wee hours of the night and stole away our
innocent.
Now I looked
back and take a reminiscence of all the souls that had been murdered on the
street, I could have been part of them, they were our friends, they were our
brothers, they were the ones we knew but thanks be to God that we are still
alive to plead for our home.