WE ARE BORN HELPLESS!

9 months after the act by both father and mother, the mother has to deliver the long awaited blessing. The whole city should have observed that she was pregnant already. There would be numerous gossips. When it’s the first child, they would say it’s too early; when it’s the last child, they would say it’s too late. But can the mother answer all of these question?

No. She would leave everything for God. Perhaps the words of that wise man that said “The secret to failing is listening to everybody” is vindicated in these times. The mother cannot live without a child. Africa has taught girls that children are the very first pride of their marriage. So any woman that does not give birth is called February.

In order to escape this demagogue, some women have decided to give birth out of wedlock hence the legalization of teenage pregnancy.

Every girl at the age of 15 is reminded that she is old enough to be married, just by observing her chest. Soon, she is told that all her Behaviours will follow her to marriage home.

Her world is beginning to take shape. She believes that she is a marriage material. Now, she has the legal ground to date or be in any kind of relationship.

Those unfortunate boys begin to fly around. Those set of boys who have beards, who are laboring to make a living, who are wearing borrowed shirts and stolen shoes, they appear in this unfortunate girl’s life.

She has never been told about how beautiful she was, her father never informed her that she was the apple of his eyes and her mother never told her that she was a princess.

This Gehazi Brother comes with such promises. He tells her all the sweet words that all the greatest poets of our history have used without knowing any of them. He rhymes his scopes. She listens to him. She enjoyed his speed. She noticed his perfume and his shoe.

Is he bad after all? Isn’t he better off than Miss Neighbor’s Boyfriend?

He comes for a visit again. This time with his two friends. He calls them Hommies. She likes his use of English. She likes the word “Hommies”. She didn’t know the meaning, she didn’t ask if he knew the meaning of the word either. Before he left, he dropped 5 Alive and a bread he said was special, made in Ostrich Bakery.

That was the best night ever. She was convinced beyond words that he truly loved her. She will forgive him for his time-to-time smoking. She would forgive him for rugged company. She did not observe that his trouser was down. Or she did not care. She did not observe that his hair was mostly unshaved. Or she did not care. She did not observe that he never spoke about children. Or she did not care. But this night, she knew that he loved her.

And this feeling in heart……. This throbbing? This sleeplessness? Is it not because she loved him?

Yes she does, she concludes. She loves him! He is the one for her.

He did not invite her, she went herself. She wanted to surprise him. She wanted to show him love. She planned for just 1 hour visit at the time when everyone is not at home. She would get the freedom she needed.

She was wrong, she wanted freedom for speech, he wanted freedom for sex. Unknown to her, condom were like dollar bills always in his wallets. He never ran short of them.

He had thought about this. Even if she had not come, he would have invited her. But she came herself? Was this not an answered prayer? Indeed it was, the devil had answered the prayer of Screwtape.

He convinced her, they did it. They did it again, and they did again. And again. And it became a responsibility.

Before they realized, a real responsibility was created. This time a responsibility in form of a fetus. She was pregnant. Impregnated by the man who “lo-ved” her. Again, her family reaffirmed their rejection of her. Now she was a mother in the making, rejected by her family and her supposed husband.

The fairy of this child is persistent, the child could not be aborted. He must be born. He is born.

Born to a 16 year old girl who has never known what it means to a mother for she was herself a child, born to a father who has rejected the child even before been born and to a family that did not show love to the mother herself, this child arrives unwelcomed, naked and with cries.

From the mistake of a family, the recklessness of a sagging boy and the defenselessness of girl, a child is born. An innocent child. Born into hopelessness and despair.

There are countless stories like this in Jenta. Children born without hope. Children which are product of hate and mistakes.

In the face of this, I dare to hope. I dare to believe. Each of those children carry promises. They carry the answers to problems. They carry the very future we’ve dreamed of.

Do not judge the future of a child by its fetus. Every child deserves a chance to live.

Support a child on the street today. It was not their choice. It was not their making. It is your choice to help or to ignore.

Buy a shoe for them. Get a biscuit for them. Get a shirt for them. Buy a book for them. Just do something for them.

#ThisJentaLifeSef