Chapter 1 ~ Freedom

Three Years Later

Life is an adventure, a merry go round.

Life is a quest, find the treasure and become rich but what if you find the treasure and let it go, what do you do?

Have you ever felt like you were in a tiny space and wanted to be free?

Have you ever felt like your parent are the worse and you wish you never had them? Have you ever dreamt you lived your life like the way your friends did but weren't given the chance to live so?

Has it occurred to you that going to the university was the way out of the cage to live free like a bird and be your own boss?

This was how it was for Isere, and she couldn't wait to step  out of her parents house and be the woman she's dreamt of. The woman who had life going with the very best things with her.

Isere stared at her mother as she packed different set of long skirts, long  gowns and long sleeve tops into her box with scarfs. She hated how they had planned her life ahead when they obviously won't be there.

What sickened her the most was how they criticized how other girls and boys dressed whenever she followed them out. They called themselves pastors but were very judgmental.

After the incident that had happened three years ago, they always monitored her, the father even took it upon him to drop her in school and take her back home.

They brought lesson a teacher for her and made sure she went for every church program held on weekdays. It was like she was a prisoner in her own house.

After closing the box and dropping it on the floor, her mother sat down on the bed, patting the other side for her to sit. She sighed as she knew where the conversation would lead to.

Three years ago, after that incident, Isere mother had dragged her into room to check if she was still a virgin, using an egg to signify that, after putting the egg to see if it's fit into her vagina easily.

Her mother sighed at ease when she discovered she was still a virgin but there was no kind of word and preaching she did not hear that day.

She sat down feeling uncomfortable, she looked at her fingers as she played with them. "Isere! Isere! Isere!" Her mother called her name, pulling her ear with one hands. "Meh chi nie ro i," (I will not repeat myself) Her mother spoke in their native dialet.

"You see this your fine skin that is doing Totori, you better don't let the devil use you," Her mother spat out.

(Your light skin that tickles you as if you are the finest, that should not make you allow the devil to possess you)

"If you see any man, run away! You are still young and boys shouldn't be in your list. Don't stand with a boy for too long, after you are done with your studies, then your father and I will decide what's next for you," her mother ranted.

Isere stomach churned from the words spoken by her mother, if this was what they called an advice, then advice shouldn't be given. How could she say she should run away from boys, and beside, would they be there to see her? She thought.

She decided to act numb whilst her mother spoke, her parents were the worse, they suck at advising.

"I have told you my own, if you like, open you body ehn for men and see if any man would want to marry a girl that different boys have seen her body?" That was the last thing she heard from her mother before she left her room.

She hissed as soon as the mother walked out, she wasn't allowed but with the small time she spent with her friends, she watched movies and TV series from their phone and saw the relationship between mother's to daughter and father's to daughter.

She had never had a comfortable moment with her parents as all she does during holidays and weekends was sleep, wash plates, sweep and clean the house, take her bath, cook food most times, read her Bible and note books, sleep, then by evening get prepared for her lesson teacher. It was a very hectic and most times her brain screamed for break.

She loved the fact she was intelligent but she hated how she was forced to do so many things. While children at her age would smile and tease their parents, she couldn't, she wasn't allowed to sit down in the living room while they sat down and they call that discipline? It was all trash to her.

She wept, never for once has her mother given her a good advice or the teachings of life, when she started her period; the only thing her mother taught her was her to wear sanitary pad and the only words she told her were; if any man touch you, run away or you would get pregnant.

If you see a boy, don't stand too long or you'd get pregnant. Then she wondered, what of her father? He was a man too, would she get pregnant?

She was so naive as she started her monthly period at age eleven. It was her friends who had told her the basics and how uncomfortable it would be for her the first year. The teachings she needed to know from her mother, she never knew them from her but from friends.

She remembered that day she had asked her mother about what having sex meant and the reply she got.

" ISERE KATHERINE OSAGBAI!" her mother had screamed her name and the next thing her mother did was pray. "Blood of Jesus, blood of Jesus, blood of Jesus, no weapon fashioned against my daughter and family shall prosper."

"Isere, sex?! Is that what they are teaching you in school?!" He mother asked raising her voice and sending fear on a naive twelve year old Isere.

Isere began to cry, "mummy, it wasn't like that..." She stuttered.

"Isere, who told you the word sex?" The mother asking, wrapping her wrapper around her waist well.

"It...it..." Isere stuttered.

"Let this be the first and the last time, you say such words, you hear me?!" Her mother warned pulling her ear.

It was during social studies class when they had taught the topic abstinence, that she knew about it after asking numerous questions. The entire class erupted in laughter when she had boldly corrected the teacher not to say the word sex.

She couldn't wait to finally leave home!

Glossary:

~ OTUO: a language spoken by some people in Edo state in Nigeria.