Nowhere in Africa

• Posted by: Francis Ocitti
• Created: October 19, 2015
• 0

Don’t tell me never to cry

For I do it to take the poison out of my system

Don’t tell me I have to try

to be me because I’ve all the while been doing it to the extreme

Still I fail because my trails still take me back to the memories

Memories of far-reaching difficulties

Memories of massive dead bodies

Recollections of dead family members and relatives

Memories of hurtful pains

Moments of flowing tears and unending sorrow

No comfortable brain

No one to lead so that we could follow

We had no direction;

We had no hope

All the while been in that tribulation;

With which it was difficult to cope

What could we have done?

On whose trunks could we have held?

How couldn’t we have gone;

if they all wanted us in hell?

The insurgency;

that gave us too much difficulties;

in our entire life journey;

and roped many to become casualties.

The sorrow cuts more painfully than canes

There was nothing we could to take away the pains

But only to conform to the afflictions that had already befallen us

Thinking that perhaps the almighty had already forsaken us

People lost their lives, people lost properties

But what could we have done to stop that? Nothing.

The rebels knew no mercy.

They killed without leniency

Wherever they go,

they were known of killing, looting, raping, pillaging, torching dwellings and so much more.

They never looked at us as human beings

Oh tears stained our faces

Education was no more

Medical services were no more

The plenty we had down home there was no more

The kraals which were full of livestock were razed down

Empty kraals and blazed abodes

Had to converge in the IDP camps;

which were well known of scarcities

We were subjected to all those

Sleeping in the bushes for fears of being burned inside our huts

Stings of mosquitoes were nothing and didn’t hurt

Children wandering on the streets and night commuters sleeping under verandas in town centers for fear of being killed

On taking a crack to flee the gruesome deaths

from the unwelcomed viciousness of the murderous,

Vehicles taking people away from the war zone

were shot and burned with the passengers in them

Planes carrying people away were shot and burned

People in great number died. We cried.

We cried because the trouble was painful beyond bearing

Our government, religious leaders and political leaders

Struggled to ensure the tribulation was brought to an end

At last; we didn’t only hear from tale or history;

that the war had come to a point of vanquish

But saw with our eyes, heard with our ears

and felt that we were finally at ease.

But again we came to know what it felt like

to live in the post conflict zone

Getting back to the life we had before was a tag of war

Going back to the original villages from which we came

They had all turned into bushes

Land disputes emerged

Landmines which were previously set during the war period

became another source of death and physical damages

Poor health services as well led to the death of some people.

The village folks again and again died

Children were left orphans, women left widows and men left widowers

But all away, we managed to live in the squalor till today

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