Abdulmutallib Mukhtar
I found myself at Kwanar Mikiya, a popular community in one of the busy North-western cities, trying to catch up with a strange life among my age-mates and those children slightly above my tender age. As a boy of four years old, I thought my father would come and take me home in the evening like it usually happened when we went to the farm some two kilometres away. But even after the sunset prayer, I could not see the windy approach of my father; I could not also hear the sound he made while clearing his throat; a thing which usually announced his presence and made him recognisable. I realised that I was really meant to pick up from where my father left off as stated by the teacher. My father attended the same traditional Qur’anic school with him. And as a way of preserving the practice, my father deemed it necessary for me to learn the Holy Qur’an in the same way they did during their time.
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About 7:30pm, I saw the kids I met there with empty bowls ready to roam about and beg for food. They asked about my own bowl and I suddenly remembered the one my father bought for me a day before he sent me away. I joined those kids unwillingly as my stomach kept roaring in hunger. Just like any other kid, I found my way too, going from one house to another in search for food. I went to about twenty houses but yet carrying empty bowl while the hunger was becoming more impatient deep down my stomach. I was saved when I met a fellow kid from the same teacher who got a leftover that started turning sticky and smelly. The kindness of the kid was very impressive as he asked me to join him. I would have collapsed if a minute was added without me recharging my stomach through the cable of my oesophagus. I thought that was entirely all for the night even though with a stomach not fully satisfied, but my fellow kid told me that the teacher and the seniors would mercilessly whip me if I returned without bringing for them too, a bowl of food.
I found my way still penetrating through dozens of streets at Kwanar Mikiya, to beg food for my teacher and seniors while the night was eyeing me with lightening and thunder–a signal that told me the rain was coming soon. Within some minutes, the gallant cloud began firing the droplets of rain on the roofs, making a sound that reminded me of my mother, the time she used to call my attention on the health danger of playing in the rain. I got a place to stay for the rain to subside. But it was the kind of heavy rainfall that lingered for almost two hours. The place I hid was close to the gate of a particular house with bulbs and flowers all over; above the gate was a kind of roof that covered me from getting drenched.
One hour was gone and the rain still falling. I sat down and leaned against the gate with my new empty bowl before me. I began to doze off as the night got deeper and darker with punctuation of lightening and frightening thunderstorm. Finally, sleep gently stole me away.
Not so long later, the blaring horn of a car woke me up, sending shivers down my spine. Upon opening my eyes, I saw the headlights of the car flashing me. I quickly took my bowl away from the gate. The car driven in after a man, more of a gateman, slid the gate. Quickly, the door opened and the man rained cloud of insults on me. He warned me never to come close to his mansion let alone leaning or sleeping there. This man never considered my age and the circumstances I found myself. It was not my doing but that of my parents whom despite what they had been hearing and seeing about such system of learning, still forced me out of home (womb?) to a homeless life.
I returned after getting the food for my teacher. I thought I would be shown a place to sleep but I saw every kid taking his slate to recite the Holy Qur’an before sleeping under the watchful eyes of senior colleagues who whipped anyone that did not recite. I brought my slate out. A senior colleague collected and wrote something on it with a small tiny dried stick which served as a pen after putting it inside a bowl of dark thick water. He read and asked me to read after him.
After two hours of learning and recitation, we went to sleep. It was very much terrible to my eyes the place I was to sleep. A dirty, smelly, cold and rat-filled dilapidated building was the new home. The small room was containing ten kids, the other room too. The senior colleagues occupied another room. We slept off on torn off mats that were spread on grassy ground. The rooms had no ceiling. Lizards could be seen hanging on the top sides of the wall. Cockroaches, mosquitoes and begbugs were the real companions of the roommates. The room had a smell that could destroy the lungs if one stayed too long. That’s why some of us preferred to sleep outside the house if there was no rain. We were exposed to dangers of all kinds.
Fiction
Written by Abdul Mutallib Muktar
abdumutallib.muktar@gmail.com
