Yesterday my mum went to a relative's burial. She lived long and well, she was 95, so it was a celebration sort of and she even came back with gifts...and stories.
Sad stories of how everywhere was swarming with so many burials (Friday is usually 'burial day' here). Most of them were young people below the age of forty. It was sad. It was hardship that probably killed them, but it didn't bother me for long, it was far from home.
But today was very close to home, today I woke up to gunshots. Everyone was confused, we thought armed robbers had come.
The radio tells us it isn't so, that it is the army and the police shooting, trying to scare people who had come to trade in the biggest market in the city, trying to make them abandon their livelihood so a 'school' can be built by the governor.
There are many state owned schools but not all are up to code and they won't fix those, but they say they want to build more and they choose to demolish a market that was there since I was a little girl, maybe even before.
Even some of the houses close to the market were not left out of the carnage and so many people watched as they tore down their shops and destroyed their wares. Crushing their means of livelihood.
The gunshots continued, and pictures started pouring in from people at the scene.
People were on the street. Dead.
I won't post the pictures because they are too gruesome, but I will talk about one that made me very angry and very sad.
Amongst the dead people, was a boy, not older than twelve years.
He was shot in the head, as he tried to help his father remove his goods from their shop.
I do not know whether the bullet was a stray one or not, but a child is still dead. A child that would have been any thing. A doctor, a lawyer, even a trader like his dad.
He was snuffed out just like that.
In the picture, a girl, probably his sister is on the ground, her face and hands covered with blood, his blood, crying. I look at this and one thought runs through my head
WHAT IF IT HAD BEEN ONE OF MY OWN.
The sounds of gunfire goes on till evening time. It is quiet now, but I don't dare leave the house and neither do my siblings.
I have relatives that sell in that market and I fervently hope they didn't become victims.
Even as I type this, I'm scared and yet I'm angry. This government promised change, but I can't see it here. If they can trample on people like this, then humanity is really flawed.
There are still tears in my eyes, but I have to hope that somehow, some way, through someone or through me, change will come.
It has to.