Halima looks up at her mother. Her eyes wet with tears as she lies on the sisal strands tied to a four-legged frame. She tries to open her dry cracked mouth to say something but the searing pain makes it impossible.
She is trying to tell the one secret she has been keeping but the pain won’t let her. She tries again but the pain is too much for her to bear. The pain is like hot chilly pepper in her mouth, forcing her to open wide and stick her tongue out like a panting dog.
The light from the hole on the muddy wall reveals her emaciated frame. Her once beautiful face is now bony and her eyes are sunken. Her skinny body is evidence that the victory over poverty if not found through education comes at a great cost.
Halima remembers everything like it was yesterday. Her determination and drive to see her family out of poverty. It wasn’t easy. Was it worth it? No one understood like she did.

Where had it all gone wrong? Why were the gods punishing her? No answers were forthcoming. All she could do was go through it over and over again in her mind.
A mixture of silver and orange rays dominated the eastern horizon as she left on that day. It was like a dazzling beauty of diamonds. The beautiful sun gradually disappeared and a cold breeze flashed through the atmosphere. Indeed it was a new day. Birds sang their sweet melodious songs as they honoured the sun.
Halima peeped through the window of the moving vehicle. She wanted to get a last glimpse of home because she did not know when would return. The vehicle was moving fast. All the calmness that had been there in the bus was now gone and it was as loud as a market place.

The women spoke at the top of their voices and the men were no different. There was no gentleness in the way they spoke. They talked about politics, praising and criticising their leaders, especially those in parliament. Some talked about how the price of basic goods had skyrocketed.
Halima tried to listen but it made her eardrums hurt. She found them all too loud. She was used to the way her mother would tell her ogre stories. It was all she knew.

She remembered the pungent choking smell coming out of the man standing opposite her seat, as he opened his rotting mouth to speak to the conductor. She remembered the man very well. It was the late Mr Mwaringa, the head teacher of her former school. She remembered how he would punish students.
His way of dressing spoke volumes about him. He was shaggy and completely messed up like a mixture of beans and maize. His eyes were as red as crimson. His hair stood stiff like steel wire. The worst of it all was his disgusting dirty shirt. His trousers would hang loose from his waist revealing his underwear. They said he was a graduate but no one could prove it.
Halima’s mind quickly raced back to those encounters she had had with him and the anger boiled in her. She remembered him taking advantage of her and depriving her of her innocence. She felt like slapping him on his face was scared about what would people say.

She had been keeping the assault to herself and not even her parents knew about it. This was because she was not the only one who had gone through the same torture.
Perhaps he was the one who had given her the deadly disease. But, there had been other men in the city. Who could it be?

She was now lost in her thoughts as she tried to find out who her killer was. Tears begin rolling down her cheeks. She begins to kick and groan in pain. Her mother moves closer to her and comforts her.

Her daughter has been doing this for the past six months, a year after leaving home for the city. The doctors said she was better off at home than in the hospital.
Her parents asked the doctors why they were forcing them to take her home in her sick condition but none of them would give them an answer. All they would say is that there was no cure for the disease Halima had, something Mr and Mrs Wepekulu did not believe at all. They had never believed in the white man’s medicine and so they chose to take her to papa, the great witch doctor from the village caves.
Papa tried his best to appease the gods but in vain. He even cut each of them severally with the same knife and spoke in gibberish to the gods. But, their blood nor speaking in godly languages could heal Halima.

Halima remembered it all but she was now bedridden with not a lot of time left.

She puts her left thin limb on the edge of the bed made of a frame and sisal strands, trying to support herself to sit upright. Her mother rushes to help her and soon she is sat on worn out blankets on the floor with her back against the brown muddy wall of their house.

Thoughts of her downfall filled her mind. Halima’s mind races back to her first journey to the city. She remembered what her father had told her the previous night. She was going to the city with a mission to accomplish. They were poor and she was tired. Tired of the pain that poverty had inflicted on her family.
“My daughter your mother and I are getting old. Our backs can no longer bend to toil the small piece of land we have. The little we have is not enough to meet our needs. You are the only lamp in this house. It is from the light you will shine that we are going to be able to see,” her father had told her.

At first life in the city was different from what she was used to in the village. She stayed with her aunt Azena, who was a fishmonger. Halima would help her aunt prepare the fish. She would remove their scales and cut open their bellies to clean them.

After a week her aunt got her a job washing clothes. Soon Halima had a regular job mopping floors in big houses and washing clothes and utensils. She became popular with many because of her good work.

She would go home tired every day. Thoughts of helping her parents would rejuvenate her each morning and she would try and work harder to earn more.

After two months, she was able to send some money home to the delight of her parents. Although Halima was making good money it was not enough. This was because she had to meet her own basic needs, help her aunt pay the rent and still save a little to send to her parents.

She needed to do something extra, but she wasn’t trained for a better paying job. Some of her friends seemed to have made it big and so she decided to ask them how they were making so much money. She didn’t like the answer but the temptation of making big money was irresistible.

They told her she could make at least Ksh5,000 a day if she did what they did. Halima’s desperation saw her fall into temptation.

The painful memories become too much and Halima points for a glass of water. Her mother hands over the glass of water and she slowly sips. Halima nods into a deep sleep never to wake up again.