[image error]What curious creatures! I chuckled watching the hermit crabs run as fast as their claws could take them to dodge the waves.  That reminds me of my own escapade from possible incarceration.   Freedom! What a beautiful feeling. I closed my eyes and threw my head back. I feel like stretching my arms and hugging this feeling that has been illusive for so long. I can feel the wind brushing my neck.  Opening my eyes, I let my gaze wonder along the Indian Ocean to the horizon. I am surprised that my first viewing of the sea would be this momentous. I am standing on the beach in Dar es Salaam., which actually means ‘Abode of Peace’.  I feel like my soul is lifted onto a different plane.  Yes, I feel peace.  Never being keen on religion before, I am baffled that the sea could possibly evoke a glimpse of the spiritual realm.

I come from a landlocked country, surrounded with high rugged mountains. The people are so proud of their land. They are proud of its antiquity. It is a land where the first humans walked the planet.  They say its history and culture dates back thousands of years.  Although I am proud of this culture, I feel it can also be a repressive burden. So, unlike my ancestors and my parents, who hold their history, religion and culture as the pillar of their lives, I essentially refuse to be similarly rooted.  I believe in change, movement, in fluidity.

My mother and her friends smacked their lips one too many times, and declare with resolution, ‘God will not give you beyond what you can bear!’  ‘Crap’, I thought, every time they said that.  I could see their shoulders bent from their cultural burdens.  Why on earth didn’t they shrug this load of norms off and walk away.  Move, run free!  I later learned that breaking free and starting afresh was not as easy as I assumed.

I clearly remember the first time I urged my mother to leave. My father had brought my half brother to our house for the first time, the bastard son my mother never knew existed.  The boy seemed about the same age as my younger brother. When my father cleared his voice and said.  ‘Kids, this is Leul.  He is your brother’, I turned to my mother and noted her shock.

Years later, whenever I remember this incident, ‘crestfallen’ is the nearest expression I could come up with to describe my mother’s expression that day.  She didn’t utter a word.  She simply got up and went to the bedroom but her expression said it all. I hated that strange boy for causing my mother so much pain.  I hated my father as well, but as usual I could never stay angry with him for long.

That was the first time I went into my parents’ bedroom and packed a bag for my mother, and left it on the bed.  I wanted her to leave instead of suffering like this. My mother never took my bait. ‘I will never let myself be weak and helpless like her’, I promised myself.

By the time I grew older, my grievances against my father were no longer on behalf of my mother, but myself. The year I turned fifteen years old was a particularly hard one.  The boys in my school were suddenly like vultures.  They all hung around me and seemed to want a part of me.

One Friday evening, my father scolded me and created the usual havoc about my coming back late after school. ‘Is that girl coming from school just now’? I heard him shouting.  I winced at the thought of my mother receiving the brunt of my disobedience.  Whenever my father got angry with me he stopped addressing me by name.  He talked about me using the third person, taking out his anger at being challenged on my mother as well as me.  As I pass through the corridor, I saw my mother sitting hunched, quietly finishing her stitching.  I sat on my bed cross-legged and sulked. I had only gone to my friend’s house to watch a video.  I felt a finality settling in my heart.  Then, suddenly I calmed right down. That was it.  ‘Tomorrow would be the day I leave’, I whispered to myself.  My mother has enough burdens already.  I loathed being the cause of more strife in her already difficult existence.

My father, like most men in leadership roles in our country , assumed that he knows the best for the family, as they do for the people they govern. Well, times have changed.  My parents and their ancestors may have fought for the sovereignty of their country.  My generation and I however, are fighting for freedom to speak and choose directions in our lives for ourselves.

When my mother went out shopping the next morning, I rummaged through her drawers and took fifty birr.  I knew this was just enough for a day outing in the city.  My plan was not to return home.  That means I would have to find a means to sustain myself.  I hurriedly wrote a note to tell my parents not to look for me.  ‘Just so you know, I am not running away with a man’, I added as an afterthought, and left the note on their bed.

I grabbed the bag I packed the night before and left home. The bus to Addis Ababa had only five people inside.  The driver opened the front seat door for me and told me it would fill in a couple of minutes. A couple of minutes stretched to an hour.

‘Sorry you had to wait long’, the driver apologized as he pulled the bus out of the station. ‘It is ok, I am not in a hurry’.  I looked out at the road as the crowd of people, horse drawn carts and pack animals started to thin out as we got to the main motor road to Addis Ababa. I briefly thought I saw our neighbour pass by, and slid down and ducked to hide.

I felt the driver giving me that long, searching look again.  I couldn’t be bothered to turn to him or to explain.  I straightened up and continued staring out at the scenes on the road.  Fast cars packed with families sped towards Nazareth, perhaps eager to get to Soderehot-spring resorts and chill out.

I subtly nodded in satisfaction.  I have arrived at that place – a state of mind, where nothing seems to matter.  No worries, no anger, no anticipation, no planning.  I have taken a bold step to leave home. I have no idea how life would turn out in Addis Ababa.  I was happy for fate to take over.

‘So what awaits you in Addis Ababa?’ the driver asked as if he was following my muse.  I took a good look at him and decided to be honest with him.  ‘I don’t know’.

He chuckled by the unexpected reply, and sucked his breath.  ‘Well it is a big city for a young girl who doesn’t know her way, don’t you think’? He sounded earnest, no sneering intended. I looked at him again.  He was young himself, may be in his early twenties.  I noted earlier that he was short. To make up for his height he was wearing a trendy Ramseycombat boots with chunky heels.

‘I’m Mesfin by the way’ he offered his right hand out. I told him my name and shook his hand, smiling at his formality.  His cleanly shaven face looked earnest.  He had kind but intense eyes.  Mesfin went on to describe the quirks of the capital city.  He had a humorous way of describing the hardships of living in an overcrowded city.

‘The city is like a huge magnet.  People migrate to the capital from all over the country.  The rich come to indulge in the comforts the city offers. The poor come in the hope of earning a living.’  He talked about how rich some of the beggars were.  ‘They stash almost all the cash given to them as alms by religious people. They stuff it under their mattresses until death.  Money for them is the end, not a means to comfort.’

As we got near La garein Addis Ababa,traffic got heavier.  Mesfin stopped talking and concentrated more on dodging pedestrians and honking cars. People were rushing around like ants. Others were patiently queuing for taxi or bus.  Mesfin pulled at the bus stop and cut the engine.  As people in the bus prepared to leave, I nervously shuffled in my sit, and made a vague motion of preparing to leave as well.  My body was stiff from anxiety and my face must also have shown concern.

‘Look, you don’t have to leave now.  Stay with me while I do one more shuttle back to Nazreth and then you can stay with me in Addis, until you figure out what you want to do’ he proposed. I let out a long breath of relief, and I nodded my agreement.

That evening I found myself back in the same town I was so eager to leave. Mesfin claimed that he was tired and it was not safe to drive back to Addis in the dark.   Instead of going home, I found myself in a small hotel with a man I had only met that afternoon.

He went into the room and stretched out on the bed with a long sigh. I dropped my bag on the side table and went to the large window.  I lifted the heavy curtains a bit and looked into an inner courtyard.  It was a rectangular court lit with bright electric bulbs. Colourful fairy lights were laced on hedges by the fence. As I dropped the curtains back, Mesfin sprang up from the bed and declared, ‘You must be famished.  Let’s go and eat dinner’.

When we got back to the room, he patiently waited until I finished jotting the day’s events in my diary and peeled back the bedcover.  He sighed and snuggled to my side.

I cleared my throat and said.  ‘Mesfin, I need my space.  Can you please stay on your side?’  ‘Wha…what do you mean?’ he stammered.

‘Well, you and I just met today.  I appreciate you trying to help me but that doesn’t mean you have a right to touch me’.

‘In that case, what are you doing in my bed?’

‘I obviously don’t want you to spend extra money for an extra room.  So, it makes sense that we share this bed’. He chuckled, and sat up cross-legged facing me.  ‘Are you serious’?  ‘Ah-ha’, I calmly confirmed.

‘Look at you… look at you, looking cool and pleased as the donkey who had thrown her owner off her back’.  He sneered.

Lifting my eyebrows high with disbelief, ‘Really? Are you claiming that you own me just because you bought me dinner and let me share your room?’.  I sprang out of bed and went over to the side table to grab my bag.  I thirty birr from the zip pocket and threw it at his face.  I slipped my sandals and as I grabbed my jacket, he stammered ‘what… what are you doing?’

‘What does it look like? I’m leaving.  You don’t own me’.

‘I know, I know’, he whispered, and started walking towards me.  I quickly grabbed one of his heavy boots and raised it above my head threateningly. It had a steel applique at the front.  I assumed it would do real damage.  Don’t come any closer to me’, I warned. He raised his hands, as a reconciliatory gesture.  ‘Laila, you misunderstood me.  I didn’t mean that I owned you.’

‘But you did me a favour and you expect me to pay you back in kind’?

‘Not really… not really, it is not like that either’.

‘What is it then’?

‘You are a very beautiful young woman, Laila.  I am a lonely young man with a healthy sexual appetite.  You can’t expect me not to want to touch you while we’re sleeping in the same bed.  That is insane’.

‘I understand’, I nodded my head as if it occurred to me just then. But, it was true.  The fact is, it just didn’t occur to me before.  I dropped the boot down.

‘Well, I have to leave now’, I said turning to the door.

‘Wait… wait!’, he growled with exasperation.  ‘It is almost midnight.  Don’t you have any sense of danger?  On what planet did your parents raise you?’ I noticed Mesfin had a habit of repeating words when he was nervous.

I found his exasperation comical, and smiled.  He also smiled and pulled me back to the bed.  ‘Look, I promise I won’t touch you.  Let’s just go to sleep.  I am exhausted.’  He turned the light out and true to his word, five minutes later I could hear from his long, easy breathing that he was asleep.

The next morning Mesfin woke up early in the morning, and started to get dressed.  As I struggle to prop myself up, he said ‘Go back to sleep.  I am going to work half day today, and I will come back here for lunch. Then, I will take the afternoon off and take you to my place’.

I fell right back to sleep.  I slept most of the morning and only got up around 11.30.  I showered and changed and inspected myself in the full size mirror.

At 172cm, I was taller than Mesfin even when he was wearing his chunky boots.  I have a pale complexion.  When I was younger, Baba used to tease me, ‘Your complexion is your saving grace! But, you’re still no beauty…a dog wouldn’t lick you even if someone sprinkled salt on you’ ha ha ha, he would laugh –  an Amharic expression to mean ‘you are unattractive’.

‘Good try Baba’, I thought.  It was his way of making sure that I don’t get conceited about my looks. I guess it worked.  To this day, I don’t care much about my looks. Sometimes, I wonder why men found me so desirable.

I took out a kohl, and boldly lined my eyes, joining the line at the outer corner on my eyes to make my eyes look like more almond shaped.  I brushed out my shoulder length hair and tightly coiled it with a high bun.  My neck looked longer this way.  I liked what I saw.  My reflection reminded me of the ancient Egyptians.

I used a wet tissue to remove the kohl, and went out to the courtyard to have a café latte. Mesfin was back before I even finished my drink.  ‘Tadias,what’s up?  Were you bored?  He asked.

‘No, I am fine.  The time went by really fast’.

‘Well, not for me’ he whined. He clapped his hands for the waiter’s attention and ordered lunch.

When we got to Addis Ababa, Mesfin handed the bus keys to another driver and we took a communal mini-van taxi to his place.  The tarmac road ended where the taxi dropped us.  We walked down a small alley road for about five minutes. On both sides of the alley were houses crammed close together.  Some were separated by old semi-corroded tin fencing; others had no space to be fenced.

Once inside, I was surprised to see an empty plot of land filled with grass. At the right corner were two small white washed rooms.  ‘The owner demolished the main house a couple of months ago’, Mesfin explained.  Although the window was open, the room felt dark and dingy.

I didn’t want to get in.  I hovered at the door, taking note of the new PVC floor mat.  The fresh looking bed sheet neatly tucked around the bed; and the two suitcases at the corner of the bed.  Everything seems neat but the room still had some kind of dreariness.

‘Come in…. come in, Laila.  I know it is not much but make yourself at home’.  I dropped my bag at the corner and perched at end of the bed. He leaned down next to the side table and grabbed a cold coca cola from a cool box.  He deftly opened it without asking and offered it to me.

He rubbed his hands and said, ‘I have to go over to my boss’s house to pick up something.  It won’t take more than an hour.  Why don’t you take your shoes off and relax… relax’.  With that he was out of the door before I could say anything.  Then I heard the click.  He had locked me in.

I had a terrible foreboding that things were going to go downhill. Truly enough, half an hour later an Arab looking man unlocked the door and came in. He said, his sister was looking for a young woman to look after her two young children in Beirut.  If I worked for two years there, I could have enough money to come back and start a small business here.

What I wanted was freedom, not money.  Ironically, I had landed myself in a worse condition.  What has Mesfin done?  Could he have just sold me to an Arab?  I couldn’t quite comprehend what had happened, neither could I see a way out.

(Excerpt from my work in progress – Part Three: Laila).