Tales of an Albino [Episode 1]

It was an extremely cold night in Ikot Itam village. As I lay in the chilling condition on the floor, I could recollect every word Mama said when she narrated the story surrounding my birth. Like a flashback in a movie, her words kept being replayed in my head.

“It started one fateful day,” Mama begun narrating as tears formed in her eyes.

“Barren woman! Barren woman!!,” I heard your father spat with abject hatred. He called me ‘barren’ because of my inability to conceive

“My husband”, I replied cordially.

My life knew neither peace nor happiness. I never smiled for a day. It was always a morning of catastrophe and night of battering. Your father had spread mendacious stories that I was a witch who had eaten all the babies in her womb. All the people in our village laughed and mocked me. Anywhere I went people avoided me as if I had leprosy. Some were even bold enough to call me names, they spat on my face when I passed by. I had neither a friend nor companion no one to talk to. I was like a rejected fish thrown out of water.

I wasn’t alone in the boat because any woman in the village who couldn’t conceive was considered a witch, and those who could not bear a son were considered women of low fortune, and were deprived the right to speak in the Ikot Itam village meetings.

Male children they said brought strength to the community and women who gave birth to them were treated with special care. Male children were believed to live longer than the female ones; they said female children were weak in nature.

The cry of a new born baby boy in a family was marked with celebration but that of a girl child was marked with scorn. Sometimes, I wondered where men expected their wives to come from if women stopped bearing female children. I wondered where men expected male children to come from if not from a woman’s womb. The tortures on womanhood became rampant, leaving most women in great depression.

One day your father banged at my door, calling at me with his usual cruelty, I ran to him, disheveled by the dingy corner he gave me in the compound. He wouldn’t let me sleep in his room - he said I was a man and two men couldn’t share a bed. Whenever he felt horny, he came to my corner. My sex life with him was never a good one, he hurts me - something I will call rape and my inner tear meant nothing to him.

I went around with frumps while he moved in flamboyant wears.

“My darling barren wife” he teased mockingly that morning. “There is someone waiting outside to examine you”.

My heart raced - I was frightened because I knew whoever your father had brought to check me would be a savage. Nevertheless, I followed him with my legs shaking like a lamb led to the slaughter.

There was a voodoo priest sitting at the entrance of the capacious compound. He wore a long torn robe made of cowries. His eyes were deep and dark in their sockets, his moustache offensively dirty, and his hairs were frizzed and untidy. He looked evil. When he saw me, he started blabbing some incantations as if the cowries he littered on the floor were humans.

“Woman!” he said to me after some minutes, “You have eaten all your children; there is not a single child in your womb”.

I fell flat to the floor, rolling and wailing at the disgrace of being pronounced barren by a juju priest. Not that I believed in fetishism but his declaration mounted on me heavily and reminded me of my inability. I stood up to face your father - to plead with him not to believe the man but he jeered at me, while I fought hard to regain my composure, I lost balance and fell with a crash on the muddy floor. He unleashed his fists on me, with no mercy.

15 years elapsed yet no cry of a baby in the house then I had become a total slave to my husband; a slave for sex, a slave for all of the agricultural labor – I worked on the farm, processed our food and performed all other domestic works in the home.

Then one bright morning in mid April, 1990, I woke throwing up all I had eaten the previous night, my head ached and my voice seemed to have been lost in my stomach - I was weak but would treat my strange ailment secretly I assured myself. My illness refused to go and rather than been hidden, it became very visible through my bulge belly. News of my pregnancy speed like wildfire; I cried day and night refusing to believe I could ever carry a baby in my womb, I praised God for wiping away my tears , vindicating my decency and proving I wasn't a witch.

I would then share your father’s bed, eat with him, cook his meals and dress from his wardrobe. For that period of eight months. I was satisfied with life because not only did your father shower me with care and love, his people - the villagers treated me right. But then something happened, something that would wreck my new found happiness. Like a sudden outburst of fire on a roof, the hope of being happy forever shattered when I heard your first cry.