Niyonga's Journey

Chapter 1

Chapter I

Hello, My name is Niyonga. I live in a small village in Kenya of only eighty people. As you can imagine... not much goes on here. It's eerily quiet sometimes but at other times it's filled with life!

Children running about while their mothers chase after them. And when there is an event, the whole village knows and celebrates it--Whatever it may be. In my village (like most villages in Africa), Family's usually consist of a mother, a father and children. But, you see, my family is different.

My father passed away when I was only the age of five and when my brother, Akuo, was only two. So it's just me, my mother and my brother. So we (like most family's) are very close.
Every morning I wake up to help my mother prepare breakfast for our family.

While I prepare breakfast with my mom, Akuo usually is out playing in the tall trees near the entrance to the village. Akuo likes to pretend that he and his friends are in some sort of military and that they are using the trees as cover from the enemy. But something was different today.

Akuo came back to our house before me and mother were finished with breakfast which never happens. When Akuo came into the house, he looked very worried.

"What's wrong, Child?" Mother asks.

"When me and Dizani were playing in the trees, we saw these men with white skin coming towards the village..."

Mother is surprised and a bit shocked when she hears this.

"How many m-" before mother can finish her sentence, screams erupt from outside. We all-Along with the rest of the village- rush outside to see what's going on.

Those white men that Akuo saw are attacking Kalani, who is the villages doctor.

"Fight back!" Mother-along with the rest of the village yells. They are beating Kalani with a whip that is used on horses and screaming at her in a language no one in our village understands. I press forward but mother grabs me.

"Stay right by me." She says to Akuo and I. Now the men are forcing Kalani into shackles and making her follow a man towards the river near our village that leads to the ocean.

One of the men steps into the center of the village and starts to speak. But nobody understands him. As everyone stands in aw after witnessing what just happened. The man speaks again. No one understands still. Then, he turns to the other men, gives them a command, then all hell breaks loose.