I ALMOST ABRT MY ONLY CHILD

I Almost Aborted

My only child

A story by Simon Kahoko Mureu

I looked at the new born baby boy the nurse had handed to me and shed tears. I had tried to abort him three times yet he had been born healthy and strong. I named him Victor because he had overcome my attempts to abort him and Mutuku because he was born at nights and the nurse left the room I whispered to the boy that he was lucky and blessed.

I remembered how I conceived Victor. I was working at Mirema Drive Estate, Kasarani, when I met Johanna Mweu. I was new in the area. The place had very few people and the only people close to me were two elderly men who worked for my boss. I mostly felt lonely and in need of company.

To minimize my loneliness I took long walks in the evening afterward. My work was simple cooked for my boss, a white man who lived alone i could walk all the way to Thika Road, Zimmerman or Githurai and come in time for my supper.

I was employed in June 1982. In July, mew occupants came to a vacant house next to mine. One of the new comers was a young man who spoke Kikamba, my mother tongue. For sometimes, we lived as if none noticed the other though I could hear him sing Kikamba hits across the fence. We by-passed one another several in the evening as each took a walk.

The young man had a voice that comforted me. He would sing for hours without a break and at times I laughed alone at the way he mixed up tunes.

Then one day, as I was going to the shops, I found him standing in the middle of the path we used as a short cut to the dukas. He seemed to be concentrating on something. I greeted him and was about to pass by when he warned me.

“Don’t step on that snake”.

On the mention of word snake I stopped instantly. Right ahead of me was a snake it was black with yellow spots I had never seen a similar snake. Besides it were six baby snakes. Again I had never seen snakes accompanying an adult one.

“What kind of a snake is this one?” I curiously asked the young man.

“It is a Kali one,” he joked and laughed.

“I too have never seen another like it but nyoka ni nyoka, a snake is a snake and should

be avoided.”

We did not attempt to kill the snakes.

Instead we took a different route to duka. As we walked we introduced ourselves.

“I am Jane Mweni from Iveti,” I told him.

“ I am Johanna Mweu from Makueni,” he relied

From that day we start talking whenever we met. As time went and our closeness grew, Mweu began coming to my room. I did not pay back his visits he would sing for me. I would serve the meal and escort him to the gate. We began missing one another.

When December came our bosses left the country and allowed us to spend our time as we wished but only not to leave the compound. On the eve Christmas I was alone in our compound because the old co- workers had gone to look for local beer felt a strange sort of loneliness decided to check Mweu, I found him cooking chickensoup. He was surprised to see me. It was my first visit to his room and it was at night. He welcomed me in and we talked a lotabout Christmas and it’s accompanying merriment.

When soup was ready we took it and then leisure began sipping some sodas. Mweu switched on the record payer. The music got us into dancing around the roommate first we danced separately but after a while we held one another and danced in a slow motion. Suddenly, electricity failed.

As if mweu was afraid of darkness he held me very tightly around the waist. I tried to push him away but his grip was too tight felt him away him trying to kiss my mouth and turned away. Then I pushed him away violently. He slipped and we both fell onto the stool on which the record player was placed breaking it some of the records.

We struggled on the floor but Mweu did not let me go. I tried to scream but he slapped me hard on the face and placed his hand on my mouth. Finally he raped me violently without taking into consideration that I was a virgin. It was very painful.

When he was satisfied he released me and ordered me to go to my house. Before I left I took a stool and hit him on the head with all the force I could master, then I slipped away to my house. I thought I heard him groan but I wasn’t concerned. He had behaved like an animal to me.

Back in my room I thought of ringing muthaiga police station to report. But what would I say I was doing at a man’s house at night? I dropped the idea.

For many days that followed, I did not hear Mweu sing. I was happy because I hated the very voice that used to entertain me.

Then I was told by one of mweus work mates that he had been admitted to Kenyatta National Hospital with head injuries. Mweu’s work mate continued to claim that thieves had broken into mweus house stolen his goods and beat him. I knew it was a lie but I did not reveal the true. I pretended to sympathize. The only thing I wished was that Mweu would not die as I would have hated to kill a man.

Even as days went the shame I had suffered in the hands of Mweu’s did not leave me. Self-pity overwhelmed me but I did not share my feelings with anybody. Then in January. 1983, my boss returned from abroad and gave me a two weeks leave. At home I began feeling tired and vomited oftenly. I thought the change of climate was the cause but even when I reported back to duty tiredness and vomiting did not stop.

The time I came back from my leave I found Mweu’s boss moved away and a new mzungu had moved into the house. With the new mzungu came in a young man who worked for him. The name of the young man was Peter he was sociable and hard working . He cleared his master’s compound and planted vegetables. Soon we were buying form him. I became free with him and one day when I needed some money, I went to his house and asked him to lead me some.

“ I don’t lend money to pregnant girls.” He replied.

I denied I was pregnant.

“But even a child can know you are pregnant,” he replied.

Two days later as I was ironing my boss asked me whether I was pregnant. I cheated him I was not but I could tell he was not convinced. By then I had known a number of ladies in the area and I thought they would help me. The evening I visited a lady who operated a hair saloon at Zimmermann and disclosed to her that I was pregnant. She felt my belly and confirmed my fears.”you are about four months pregnant,” she said.

I was alarmed. I did not want to be a single mother.

The following weekend I traveled home to Iveti Hills to a girl I knew had aborted an year before to seek help. She said she could help if I paid a small fee. I paid and she put a straw into my private part and brew in air. She instructed me to wait for some hours and the child would come out. I waited but nothing happened. After one week I went to a lady at Githurai who put a plastic pipe into my private part and told me it would allow air to go in and destroy the fetus. After tow days nothing had happened. Then I tried an overdose of malariaquine. I went to three different dukas and from each fought four tablets which later swallowed.

After a few minutes I began sweating and vomiting, then I fainted. I must have shouted because some people from the neighboring plots who were having a fellowship rushed to my room. Thy looked for a car that took me to a city clinic.

At the clinic they gave me medicine that made me vomit all the Malariaquine I had swallowed. I kept vomiting and taking water for many hours. My stomach and head ached terribly. I was later taken home and I slept just before-dawn. The following day I was taken to the clinic again. When the nurses saw I wasn’t as serious as the previous day they mocked, abused and insulted me calling me a prostitute of the first order.

They warned me never to try abortion again. When finally recovered some believers led by Peter kept coming to my house and shared the gospel with me. I was convicted of my sins and accepted the Lord Jesus as my Lord and Savior and asked Him to forgive me. Believers nursed my young faith and gave me a lot of encouragement. In September 1983, I took a leave and went to Machakos general hospital where I gave birth to victor mutuku.

Three years later I met john, an evangelist from Nairobi. We loved once another and got married. It is Ten years now since we got married and we have not been blessed with a child. Now I realized I could have aborted the only child that God is likely to give me. I do not hate mutuku because he was conceived through rape, as I had feared. I thank God for saving mutuku’s life and giving me the joy of being a mother.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I’m a freelance writer in Nairobi-Kenya with my works published in South Africa, Kenya and in USA. I’m half-Blind.