Diary of a Slave

Diary of a Slave (5)

Wow, a whole year since my last chapter. Been super busy, tho that's not really an excuse. Hopefully I won't be 50 by the time I finish this. Anyway...on to the chapter.

The woman, who I nicknamed Bun, started first by giving each of us new names. I got Bianca and we all had to take our master’s surname. Our master (Egghead)’s surname was Jones. So I became Bianca Jones and Bianca Jones I was for five long years. My new friend, whose real name I learnt was Kakra, was given the name Sasha. We became close friends pretty fast.

After she gave us our names, she told us to line up outside the old abandoned barn. We did so and then one by one we were called in. We had no idea what was happening in the barn because there was a back door and everyone who went in exited through the back door. We did however, hear howls of pain which did nothing to boost our confidence. I was right before Sasha and I told her “Brace yourself, whatever it is, it’s not going to be good.” She nodded and went in, hoping it wouldn’t be too bad. After a while, I heard screams from the barn. It was Sasha! Oh my god, what were those animals doing to her? Yes, animals. Ironic wasn’t it, when we were the ones being treated like animals.

“Next!” yelled a voice from the barn. I went inside and got the shock of my life. Egghead was holding a branding iron, like the ones they used to brand animals with initials on them. I backed away but one of the senior slaves caught hold of my arm. I thrashed and struggled but to no avail. It took two slaves to hold me still. I flinched when Egghead brought the branding iron near. When it touched my skin I couldn’t help but yelp. The burning pain was incredibly painful. I felt like my whole arm was on fire and I started shouting for help in my language. I wished I was dying, it would be better than this awful pain. After what seemed like an eternity, it was over. I was so relieved. I looked at the scar on my shoulder. It was bright red and swollen. The skin was broken and pus was oozing out from it. And the pain was excruciating, I can sometimes still feel the pain today. I tried to make out what they had branded on me but I couldn’t seem to make any head or tails of it. There was a stick with three lines from its right side and a weird curve from a line. I later learnt that it was letters that spelt EJ (our masters initials). We were being stamped as his property.

Our job was called house servants in training otherwise known as HSIT (convenient anagram). It was a pretty easy job but tiring. We had to wait on the guests in the farmhouse; it was like some sort of inn. We also had to help the cook, mop and sweep the floor, clean the windows and walls and a lot of other housework. We had a uniform to wear and we kids went barefooted. By the end of the first day, every bone in my body was aching and my feet were almost about to give way under me. Bun was very encouraging by saying “If your body aches today, don’t even think about the pain tomorrow morning at all it’ll be too hard to bear” as she showed us to our rooms. I shared a room with Sasha and another girl called Jessie. The beds were hard and we got no blankets or pillow. I felt like I was in prison. There were even bars on the windows. But I was too tired to complain and at least we had a bed, unlike the ships. I shuddered at the memory. As soon as I got into bed, I fell asleep.

When I woke up the next morning, my body ached everywhere. Bun was right. I felt like I hardly got any sleep. Looking out of my barred window, the sun wasn’t even up! God, I wanted to flop back in my hard bed. But I didn’t want to test the patience of my new owners, especially not that Egghead. Seeing that Sasha was already up, I wearily got up. We shared a communal bathroom with all the other female slaves. So there, I got to meet many people. There were some children even younger than me, and some women, so old that they had grey hair. Or maybe it was just the hardships of this life that made them age prematurely. The bathroom was, of course very crowded, and very smelly. They didn’t have proper sewerage systems and out ‘toilets’ were not more than little holes in the ground. I was quite disgusted but I had to use them, or wet myself.

Breakfast was a better affair. Apparently, it was the best meal of the day, where they fed us the most so we had enough energy to go through the day. We got fifteen minutes to eat a breakfast of cold porridge with nuts to give us the energy. I was happy, not having eaten much yesterday. We were only fed twice a day, breakfast at 4 in the morning and lunch at noon. No dinner. No tea. Not even a light snack.

There were some punishments they liked to give. If we stopped work during the day, we got beaten. If we did something wrong, i.e. mix brown eggs and white eggs, we were sent to the shack. The shack was a ‘supposed place of horrors’ but I never knew what actually happened there until I ended up there myself. And of course, the worst punishment we could face, which would happen if we overslept, or were late for anything, or talked back to our ‘masters’, or even accidently spilt something on a guest, we would be sentenced to labour in the fields. That was where the boys worked. No girl would enjoy that as this would mean 13 hours of hard work under the blazing sun. I was determined to avoid any of the punishments if I could, well, except the last one if I ever hoped of seeing Danladi again.

The workers’ had totally different quarters to us. They ate, slept and lived in an entirely different block to ours. If I was unlucky, I would never see him again. But I needed him. We had decided to escape together. Besides, I would feel guilty if I left him behind, not to mention unsafe. I was a girl, who could be taken advantage of and forced to do things against my will. He was a strong boy who I’m sure would become stronger with all this field work. And that’s why I decided we should stay here for a while. Anyway, if we were going to survive in this foreign land where people had white skin and funny-coloured eyes, we had to learn the basics – the language, how things worked, and how to ensure we would stay forever out of slavery. Until then, we had to maintain a low profile.

I learnt how to cook on that second day. In Africa, my mother had let me help her cook from young. So I knew how to handle fire. But here, they cook food differently. They use, not bowls of clay, but weird things made of metal. They have wooden handles and are shaped not like any bowl I’ve seen. It is less rounded and bigger at the bottom. Also, they cook it on this thing which makes fire. Bun calls it a ‘stove’. The word sounds alien in my mouth but I store it in my head. I’ve always been a fast learner of languages and I needed to learn this language called English.

I enjoyed kitchen duty actually. I preferred it to direct interaction with the guests. Although I didn’t really get to cook, I had to help the cook with some other girls. But not Sasha, she had been assigned to waitressing duty and cleaning when she wasn’t waitressing. The cook was really nice, she was this big, friendly woman known as Nan. She didn’t frighten me as she was had the same brown skin as me, and her eyes were brown and compassionate. She was like a second mother to all the girls. While chopping vegetables, she would tell us her life story.

“My momma came here to America in da year 1772. She was pregnant wif’ me at da time but nobody knew dat. Even after being on da ship for four months, it still din’t show, she was so starved. I had no idea how she survived, I had no idea how I survived, but by da Grace of God, we made it. An’ den when she was a slave gel at anoder farm, smaller and meaner dan dis one, when she had da baby, dey tru her out. But my momma, she was a strong woman, she walked until her legs gave out in da hot sun and finally Miss Lorna, she see my momma and she take her in to dis farm. Bless her soul, she’s a good one.”

She said the whole thing in American English, and although we didn’t understand, we got the gist of what happened, her voice was just so expressive. I memorized her speech and I now understand what happened. I also know that the Miss Lorna she speaks of is Bun. But at the time I didn’t know. All I knew was that she too had encountered hardships. So there we were on the second day of my new life, chopping vegetables in the kitchen, bonded by the difficulties we had faced and the expectations we had of a brighter future.

Next chapter will come out when I'm next free, who knows when that will be. I'm in the middle of important exams so probably not for a while. Well, we'll see. Maybe if i get some comments (and votes) encouraging me to write, the next chappie may come out sooner... Also, some new fans would be nice :)

Love, Natasha x