I cry when I think of 2009, when an incident happened that made home feel less of a home for me. On a beautiful Sunday me and my family were chilling outside just after church. The weather was cool and no show of rain was evident. As the night approached we started feeling a coldness as if we were inside a mortuary fridge. Things started changing as if we had heard of the passing of a family member. My dad was with his younger brother and on his return later we noticed that he himself was cold. The things he said did not make sense, it was as if he was already in heaven as he was instructing each one of us on how to live should anything happen to him. All of the sudden that coldness resurfaced but we did not pay attention as we were all ears to my father.

Later that day something bad happened rather unexpectedly. The lights were going on and off like something done purposely, but we were not aware what was wrong. My dad started having seizures and that’s when we knew something was wrong. It went for about two hours and being in a rural area it was hard to take him to hospital. Unfortunately he died from the seizures.

Just a year after that, the home he had left for us was tarnished by natural disasters that destroyed everything. There was nothing left but just us, and we knew very well that it was the end of us as we were still in school and no one was working at that time. We were then forced to build a shack just so we could have a place to stay. That’s when it felt like I had no home, and the community were talking about our pain. But in all that, I have learnt that if the soul is fine, nothing matters.

Sometimes when I’m with my so-called friends they make a mockery of my situation. Oh hell did that hurt, it was as if salt was rubbed in a fresh wound. To them it was just a thing, but to us living in that situation, it was more than a thing. We would be laughed at even by elder people, advising that we look for jobs to build what was destroyed. But the mother we have saw beyond this, and made sure that we go to school. Sometimes a community can build you or destroy you.

You just have to believe in yourself