1 1. Life during tender age

At two years of age I started realizing the world around me and the things that I did wereby some of them cross my mind even today. I remember most of the days with my mother.

It wasn't an easy kind of life since my mum was single and she came from a poor background but despite the challenges and the hardships she worked tirelessly on what she thought would enable her put a plate on the table. She always believed that a lazy person didn't belong to the society. Me and my siblings didn't give her hard time because of how she had raised us.

One day my mother left me and my younger brother and she went to look for sugar cane for sale. She locked us in a single rented room and when I believed she was far much gone I started doing funny things while my brother was still watching because he was very young to do anything. Because I was familiar with the taste of sugar and salt and my brother and I started licking it. Hours later my mum returned to the house and on opening the door she was terribly shocked by what she saw. The sugar and salt particles told it all. My mother just took some particles and tasted them, there was nothing to ask about.

To make the matter worse I had mixed the two. Without hesitation she took a newly bought broom and started flogging me mercilessly. It was such a beating that made me to sound as if I was being slaughtered. If I'm not wrong it took her almost five minutes until she just got tired and that's when she left me. That kind of displine shaped me nearly to whom I am today.

On several occasions me and my siblings would be be subjected to kind of curfew that made us to spend the day in a ten metre radius whereby crossing a certain marked point was the greatest mistake of the and it guaranteed the most severe punishment. Days past and we grew up slowly by slowly day by day and at the moment our brains had developed and we could differentiate between good and bad and that was the only thing that made my mother proud.

One day, my mom sent me to my grandma's place to go and tell my grandmother to fetch me green beans. It was two kilometer distance. This is one of the days that will stick in my mind for the days I'll be in this world. This is the day when the unexpected befell me. I just left the house and since we lived near the road, I spotted a car that was going down the road, I sped of and followed it. When we arrived at the junction the vehicle sped off and since I had no idea about how to cross the road I just increased my speed just to get closer to it. Little did I know that there was a speeding car that approached from my left side.

Within a fraction of a second I was knocked down and the worst part was that I landed with my head until it cracked. At the moment I didn't know what was happening. It was like a dream. My head was seriously bleeding and I didn't realize because what was in my mind was just to visit my grandmother apart from the beans I also knew that I would drink sour milk from her gourd. That was the excitement that had driven me crazy to an extent that I couldn't feel the injuries. I wish you were there to see how I reacted so that I could collect my basket which metres away but unfortunately I was unable to walk because my right leg was locked to an extent that I couldn't walk. No sooner had I realized What had happened than the police Land Rover arrived and took me to a local hospital. My mom received the breaking news shockingly and regreted sending me. I was treated and later I was taken to another hospital where I was injected and given medicine and discharged.

While at home my mother nursed my till I got better.