MOTHER

Chapter 1

PLATEAU;JOS
YELWAN SHANGDAN;
2008.

Is it a crime to be an orphan? Does life have to be these miserable and unfair just because one is an orphan? Rahama thought as painful sobs escaped her mouth, followed by series of hot tears, sometime I wish I could just die maybe it did be better for me, life without a father is hell not to talk of a mother let alone the two.
All my life I only wish of having my mother by my even if it is just for a day, but it seems the saying which says wishes aren't horses is true thought eight year old Rahama , according to the saying of relatives, my father passed away when I was one and the half years, some months later my mother also followed suit, my mother's elder sister, aunty safiyya whom I take as my mother but later on learnt from a relative that she is my maternal Aunty but still I don't care what ever she is to me all I know is I grew up knowing her as my mother that's it, she is to me and would forever be my mother no matter what, she will never stop  been my mother 
I am the last born amongs twenty , it was said that my father was a polygamous man he married seven wives, divorced three due to a reason known to him and them alone, although he had children with two of them, He was still married to four more wives before he died amongst which were my stepmothers whom people call hajiya Rahmatu, hajiyan wase, inna and my mother the last and most junior wife, my father raised twenty seven children, twenty of his own and seven which are his relatives or his wives siblings, I learnt that my father was a strict and no nonsense man, when he died I was a baby, and my mother got married to one of his friend in order to raise and train her child because as then people said she was too young to start raising a child alone , so she accepted the proposal, Even he had a wife already and people said she is very troublesome, my mother still took the risk just for her only child, while I was clocking two years she had another child with the man which was a boy,Abbah was his name, he was three months old when she died of seizure while others said her co-wife killed her because they had a little misunderstanding which lead to a serious argument and she told her that she would see, that she was going to make her regret ever getting married to her husband , a week later Abbah died of acute pneumonia, my mother's relatives came to take me away to my maternal grandfather who decided to raise me by himself through the help of his wife, but was later pleaded with by my mother's elder sister and other her other siblings to allow her take me since she have been married for eight years but all her children use to come out stillborn or die at infancy so because of that she have no child of her own, he felt pity for and decided to give me to her, people said they have never seen her as happy as she was that day, she promised to put all in all of best efforts for the well being of her new found happiness, Aunty safiyya is married to a buzu man as the Hausa people call them, from Niger he's not rich neither is he poor but runs a well to do busy while Aunty safiyya is kanuri by tribe meaning my mother is a kanuri woman from maiduguri, but her grandfather migrated to plateau a small town called wase and started a family with his fulani wife.
Aunty safiyya and her husban, uncle Adamu resides in a town yelwa not so far from langtang, where my father's house is, Aunty safiyya whom i call mama is a petty trader becouse the people of yelwa are mostly farmers, traders and merchants
Growing up as a child the only family I know is mama, her husband uncle Adamu whom I call baba and his late wife's twin son who's name is hassan, I use to call him ya hassan because all I ever thought was that he was my only sibling and my  guardian angel not knowing that we aren't related in any way, but the type of bond which we share one would think we are siblings, nevertheless we are I guess

At the age of nine, if you should ask Rahama what the name of her parent are, she would tell you she doesn't know their names, but you can call them mama and baba, she's  those type of children that are very inquisitive and also eager to learn new things.

"Mama, gaskiya yau ni ba zan kaiwa Aunty salaha abinci ba, saboda duk lokacin da naje gidan ta sai ta Mun zagi kuma ta dauki kulan abincin ta wurgar gefe daya saikace kashi ne aciki " (mama, honestly speaking, today am not talk ng food to aunty salaha, because anytime I take food to her , she must just find a reason to insult me , and still fling the food flask of food aside as if it shit that's inside  ) complained Rahama.

"Keh Rahamatu" wai why is it that anytime I send you, and you don't want to go you must look for an unreasonable excuse to use? , blurted out surprised mama,
"Ahah mama wallahi bahaka bane duk lokacin da kaimata abinci KO sako sai ta Kirani  banza sunaye " kuma in kinagani kaman karya nake, ki biyo ni a baya ki gani wa idon ki "(No mama it's like that, by Allah anytime you send me to take food for her,  she must just find a reason to insult me  or call bad names, and if you think i'm lying to you then cone after me and see for yourself  ) explained little Rahama