Niyonga's Journey

Chapter 6

As we are forced out of where we were being held prisoner, the white men bring us on to land and line us up in front of a bunch of white people who have signs in their hands. First, they bring all of my villages men up on to the platform and then one man starts speaking to the group of people, I don't understand what he says, like always. He finishes talking and then turns to the men and strips them naked. A few men try to fight it but are punished with the white mans whip. They scream in pain and I cringe. The white man then goes to Umo, who was from my village and makes him open his mouth by grabbing his lips and holding them open. The man then points to Umo's mouth and then looks at the people in the crowd, it looks like he is describing Umo but of course, My people don't understand him. he then jabs Umo in the stomach and shouts at him. What did Umo do? After Umo came up from being hunched over in pain, The man jabs him again and then does a hand gesture telling Umo to turn around. So, Umo turns around and then the white man describes him more. He then makes Umo turn back around and grabs Umo's hands and shows the crowd. After he is finished with Umo, The man moves on and does the same thing he had done to Umo with all the other men. After the man is finished with them, He comes over to us, the woman and does the same procedure he did to the men. Some of the woman and girls scream when their clothes are ripped off, which resulted in whipping. The first one the man goes to is mama. Mama is standing there with a strong look on her face. She isn't afraid, She's always been such a strong woman and I wish to be like her. It's so hard to sit here, chained, watching your mother stand naked on a stand while some white man is poking and prodding at her. I just want to scream but I know that if I do, it could be bad. After the man was done talking, the people in the crowd started yelling again and then one man shouted over all of the crowd and I watched mama as she was carried away to the man. I immediately started to scream and cry as they took away my mama. Amara tried to hush me but it was too late... A cracking sound happened and then I was crippled with pain. It hit me hard and fast. I had been whipped.