The Dream Bumper

Chapter 1

Summer break of late June, a time of activities: pool parties, grad parties, welcoming parties, masquarade showcase parties, farewell parties, the list goes on as a small country of The Gambia embodies a busy town of Darsillam. A town where Aisha Huma was born, brought up and now a teenager amongst the lots.

To many she was shy, evasive in engaging in chichats, not even tried to be a party-kind-of-girl. A bit curvy but not fat, five feet six inches tall, caramel skin colour, a very wild dark afro hair, brown orbs and a beautiful smile. In the midst of fountain of beauties in Darsillam, I found myself. A month to go before I turn nineteen, adulthood was near.

As for home, it cast to the edge of a fresh water lake, deeply seated within a thick forest of different trees, rains twice a year in successive seasons. Moving to the real home, two mirrored bungalows faced each other: one on both flanks. A big house tantamount to a big family of six, with both parents and three siblings. It was quite a family.

Like many eighteen to twenty somethings, party in summertime comes with some great advantages but other times, you might want to keep some secrets flushed down the gutters. What other great way is there to end teenage hood and start adulthood without having one helluva party with friends?

Two days after finishing final high school exams at Methodist Academy, the future was set, so was the desire to explore the unprecedented, take from veterans of partygoers, mixed the styles that so perfectly made sense in the mind, but the implementation was a total different story. But what are friends for? Especially one with a good gist of a talent in facial painting or was it 'makeup' Sai called it? Yes, that must be the right word because she was a fan of cosmetology for life.

"Sai, can you in the name of God stop plucking my eyebrows?" I yelled for the second time in succession, as my dearie eyebrows suffered the onslaught of Sai's tweezers. How could one feel sexy yet endure a tedious, agonising and incomprehensible act of eradicating facial hair, all but in the name of looking like a plucked daisy in an orchard? My word! Tame my hair instead. I so much wanted to cry out.

"I swear to God, you have to donate hair to bald men. Look at yourself in the mirror and tell me this is fair on those without?" She turned the chair and smirked at my reflection.

I had the urge to puke on her ragged shorts and red crop top. Sai had a shape of a model, tall, lean, long sexy face and a cute lip shape. I would die to have such kinds of lips. Mine looked like that of lips surgery gone wrong. At least, they were natural and I was proud.

Coming to the very reason of going to a summertime party that would most likely have the entire fraternity of Methodist Academy in the building, was a boy I had a crush on for two years now.

A secret, which no one knew yet, not even the boy.

"You can say the same for those of us with long hair. How can I have my hair entangled like a bird's nest all the time?" Sai giggled humorously, holding her hand against her stomach. I pouted at her ridiculousness.

Few moments later, we were all set and ready to storm Diamond Grand Hall in Kololi. Upon descending the stairs of Sai parents' house and out on the street to a board a taxi, the street lights at both sides of the road of Kanifing, subsumed by the bright light of the moon and, the stars looked like were dancing to the ambience of the night. The air warmth and sent a jolted chill down my spine as the anticipation was high, so was the desire to turn and run home.

There would be another time but I was tired of the long wait to get out of my comfort zone and explore what it felt like to be in a party and in the midst of friends having fun. I mean, there is always a first time for everything.