TEARS OF REGRET
You Educate A Man; You Educate A Man. You Educate A Woman; You Educate A Generation
The excitement when a boy child and girl child clock the age of 10–13 . They seem the World is resolving around them, they are at adolescent stage that non of them pay attention to want their parents tell them.
A black tear that can not been seen from the tear glands, it is hidden in the eyelid covered with eye lashes. Yes, everything is beautifully showed with a tender smile.
Oh the girls and boys are super excited when the boy for example clocks 13 years, he magnetically with no thought of a 60 seconds leaves school.
Close to 10 years back; one of our neighbor’s son decided to stop schooling when the blackboard transcribed on with a white piece of stick darken at every moment he glanced, he eyes saw glittering objects due to fear to be in school and limited knowledge in understanding want was being educated in the large rectangular room ;he without hesitation paddled out of classroom back home and told his parents;
Seated in a circle with his other siblings, father’s seat put aside on a 3 legged round wood made stool with his food share. In the tradition of Badama who hail from the Eastern part of Uganda, Tororo district in particular, have their meals together as a family and the uniqueness is that they seat on a papyrus made mat in a circle, depends on the number of the heads in that household.
Father, who is the head of the home, always seats aside as if he watching over how his children are being distributed sauce by their mother, every child has to get equal share.
Ochwo, who knew that his life at school has ended moments he escaped from his classroom during the afternoon session, had to speak up for himself.
Mama,
Papa,
Whenever I see the blackboard; tears start flowing from my tear gland of my eyeballs , I don't see anything the teacher writes on the chalkboard. I don’t want to go back to school.
Just like that, he dropped out of school.
At the age of 13 , as a boy child, you are required to build a small squared grass thatched hut, smeared with cow dung on the floor and on the walls smeared with clay soil , black painting made from charcoal to design the hut, buy a mattress plus a light pair of bedsheets. This is always a great achievement for boys in Paya village, Tororo who later buy a small radio which contains a memory card and play music, this attracts girls of 10–12 years and will at some point in time start wrestling for the tycoon in the area.
As a result of this great achievement, the heart melts for a partner, the lonely nights, the hectivity in doing laundry ,you wish for a daughter of a woman to give a hand in help.
African society objects that there is a time when a girl child will have to leave her parents residence and go start her own home somewhere else whether peacefully or hostile community .
But does this society discord early child marriage? the question rings a bell in the heads of the elite.
Her innocence is broken at the age of 10 years, just like that. The natural demon in her body deceived her to the societal sharp tongue, she becomes the prey of drunkards whose minds are 27/7 in 365 days think of only liquor.
By the natural law of body growth, a girl child’s body develop very fast as if it is the monsoon wind, the chest ripen like an orange ready to be harvested, the buttocks start enlarging like a bouncing castle filled with air. When a mango ripens, it either a bat that eats first, or birds or a man climbs and picks it up or stones it down.
As the body grows, a girl who is 10 years and has dropped of school, thinks that she is ready for marriage, and because there is little education about the importance of educating a girl child in most of our rural society, their dreams die there and then.
Amidst the tall trees in Paya trading center with lock-up buildings, I climbed the tallest mvule tree which is close to 60 years old now located in the center of the village headquarter, watched over the society in the eve of 25th December, 2020. The marram roads taking you border centers, the feeder roads connecting to each zones and clans is as long as River Nile with narrowest curving shape, along the feeder road lays various small home steady's.
A small rectangular grass thatched house is the main house and a round grass thatched hut is the kitchen leaves a small happy family of a 11 year old girl and 13 years old boy who already have one year old baby.
From the Overview, they are deeply in love and extremely happy. The couple met way back in 2019, in the night village clubs, the Ochwo Martin proposed Aketch Rose who because of the beautiful hut Ochwo had , had already impressed Rose, and she knew that Martin was a serious man for her, and just like that, Rose followed Ochwo to his hut and that is how they got married.
Knowing that Rose is married, her parents started to demanding dowry from Martin’s family because their daughter has already given birth , and in my society, by the time you start being children with someone’s daughter, you ought to have paid dowry .
It’s okay to pay bride price as a token of appreciation for raising a girl child.
As Rose and Martin have a baby together, beauty lies in the hands of the beholder, as the saying goes, Martin in his one year marriage starts distancing himself from responsibilities, he barely provided for Rose and Ann Nyadoi, there small daughter, he stopped coming back home and whenever he came, he always smelt alcohol, he never ate the food Rose cooked.
The beauty Rose had, had faded in Martin’s hands, Martin wants to marry another fresh girl.
Rose in the moment, that flash of being rejected by her husband destroyed her the most, where can she relive it, she would try to gather more strength .She failed herself and to her family too. She never understood before why her parents told her to first stay in school; but she does understand now that early marriage is a tear of Regret. You must stay in school and read your books and at least get something to do. Marriage isn’t a bed of roses, there are thorns that will have to pierce your heart. Marriage isn’t a game , but a journey worthy walking one step at a time. So Rose has something new to work on, to watch for that flash of darkness and strive to be better.
The problem was never Martin, but hers. She expected smoothness in the marriage. To be better, my love, she must be able to walk alone. Then she can be who she needs to be, who you need her to be. Just know that Early marriage is illegal in Uganda, that her broken marriage was bound to happen that, a flash of fire to cover her own weakness and guilt.
You Educate A Man; You Educate A Man. You Educate A Woman; You Educate A Generation: Brigham Young
