There is an African adage that says that a child is not trained by his mother alone but by the entire village, the first time I heard this saying was when my husband came to collect the list for my bride price payment, then I saw that my entire village ranging from the youths, women and men group will be gifted a portion of my bride price apart from my parent, this was shocking to me because I've never even met talk less of knowing most of these villagers my whole life, it was a long time tradition, and there was nothing we could do to change It, we had to follow the same rule to be married traditionally and legally.
What that experience taught me was that irrespective of the birth parent of a child, it is important to be our brother's keeper and look out for those around us, this usually won't be a problem for people in the village and also the olden times as they take this aspect of life important, but the city life is different, I grew up in a neighborhood where everyone is expected to mind their business except for the normal morning pleasantries, good morning-good morning, and that was all, this is to avoid having issues with people as some people's character can make you have a bad day.
My introverted lifestyle didn't even help either as an adult, but even then there are situations we must come across and no matter how much you mind your business, you can't avoid standing up to the occasion and when it even involves a child, I'm throwing the minding my business attitude away for a while.
On this eventful day, I visited by younger sister's house so she could help me make my hair, when I arrived, she was preparing lunch, so I had to wait a while, while waiting, there suddenly was a power outage which made everywhere a bit calm, not until I started hearing the sound of someone beating a child from my guess and the cuss word she threw at the child, he must have wet the bed, I wanted to ignore, thinking it was a mother disciplining her older kid for bedwetting, but the beating extended beyond the period to be termed as discipline and my sister kept mumuring "that wicked woman has started again" meaning, this wasn't a first time, I decided to go plea with the woman to stop the beating, lo and behold, it was a little boy that shouldn't be more than four years, and she was using a belt on his bare skin, he already had marks from old beating and the fresh one all over his body, I got provoke on witnessing that sight and immediately drag the belt from the woman asking who she is to him, because obviously, a mother can't do such to her child, she started raining curses on me and told me to mind my business, the other neighbours started coming out of their apartment and told me that she was the little boy's step mother and that is how she has been treating the boy since his father got married to her, and everyone in the compound has had a disagreement with the woman over the same matter as she always end up abusing anyone that steps up to defend the little boy and as for the boy's father, he was under her spell as he only obeys and fears his wife.
I got provoked the more hearing this, then I threatened her that I was going to call child's welfare service on her and also call an uncle of mine who is an army officer to beat her up anytime she beats the little boy, I made sure to look straight into her eyeballs unwavering while telling her this, someone once told me, to get to someone's heart and pass your message strongly to them, look straight to their eyes without shaking, I think she got the message as I announced to everyone in the compound to let me know anytime she decides to repeat same act again, dropping my number with them, till my sister moved to a new apartment, we didn't witness her beating the boy gruesomely again, as everyone also stood up and threatened to make life miserable for her in the compound if she continued in her wicked ways.
