GENERATION X

SIXTH SHRINE

    Living in hell would be easy if yous were born there and same goes for heaven. But the hell experience would only describe half of of what the people on the Northern side of the land simply because they loved their relative, spouse or anyone they were related to and that's why they followed them there. Their actions proved that love is indeed blind, the conditions they were living in was unbearable but they learnt to cope up with everything, sometimes going for days without a drop of water, every season they lose their livestock be it during the rainy season or the drought season. They left their cosy beds to come and sleep in rags, where animals never died of thirst or drought. Sometimes they went to bed hungry just for love, just so you know none of them was forced to go there and no one would ask them if they ever went back to their communities but all in all they chose to be there and it's not that they saw their loved one's all day and couldn't even touch them. It was during midday when the sun was so hot that the castaway's could come closer to their loved ones and the normal people could not cross over into the the castaway land because the temperature there would kill them.
         A normal person would literally melt into liquid when they step into the  other side, and since many have tried going in there but couldn't make the second step the ones who remained decided not to cross. This was the first community to have intermarriages since they had no otherwise when they wanted to procreate. The children who grew up in the harsh conditions took it as normal for they never had anything better than what they have, the community mostly never talks about the other places or community. Thry even came up with a language that only them could comprehend although it was based on all the languages of the land except for the central community language because they've never sent anyone into exile. Anyone who stepped foot amongst them never felt like walking away because the community was full of love, there were no rules for everyone knew what they wanted there and no one thought they were going to stay there for long but they ended up being buried there.
   Children used to die at a young age every drought season and the source of water to quench their thirst was far away and it wasn't a walking distance. It got to a point where that was a norm untill one day they decided to trap the rain water during the rainy season, they were surprised that water accumulated to form a dam within the first week of the rainy season. They had dug a small dam thinking that it won't even fill half of it, so they dug some more dams when it wasn't raining and within days the dams too were filled to the brim. They cursed themselves for letting their children die all those years back while they could have done something like this to help them during drought season. Even though their children were passing their numbers still kept on rising due to lack of something else to do.
  They came up with ways of passing time aside from procreation, they mixed the form of entertainment from their background. Music wasn't used in  celebration but in chanting by the rain makers to bring rain when needed but in this community they danced each and every night for the freedom that they have and to forget their troubles. Each day they stamped on the grass and the growing vegetation, making the land hard and impermeable by water. So when it rains the water would direct itself down to the dams and the dams  are full it stagnates and become a breeding ground for mosquitoes, frogs and other small insects and animals. There was a time the dams burst due to the density of the water, it caused tremor around the place and in the process diverting a river into the lake. Surprisingly all these happened during the night, they only felt the tremor and didn't bother to check it out. In the morning when they woke up they didn't find the dams it was one large mass of water and surprisingly fish were jumping out of the lake, the river not only brought fresh water but fish too and that's when they all decided to build a shrine to thank their ancestor for seeing they were suffering and intervening to help.
    This was the first shrine that built in the presence of people and people knew its origin, amongst them there were no elders, medicine men, witches,wizards and rain makers. After they were done with building the shrine they all sat down and began to contemplate the responsibilities that came with a shrine. It would mean that they will come up with rules to govern them and that would be against what they had planned for.
   Every child in this community chose their own because it was believed that the sins of the person they name their child after, would follow them and that's why when a child was born he or she was given up to three months to live if they survived till that time then a naming celebration was held. Naming a child was pretty important and all the relatives who lived in the community attend and came with a list of names. The ceremony began with eating then later in the evening the child or children were brought forward to and the naming began, a relative would say a name before the child if the child smiles or laughs then the said name would be bestowed upon the child, the ceremony would even take days because most of the mentioned names were of the cast aways they loved and the children it's like the ancestors guided them and couldn't accept a cursed relative name often they came up with new names out of the blue to make the child laugh.