So this morning, on my way to work I boarded a bus and a woman with two small kids, aged between 5 and 3 but looked way smaller, without being a soothsayer I could tell their unusually small stature was due to malnourishment.
So the elder one, a girl, stood in the bus beside me because there was no space for her to sit considering the giant sizes of the other female passengers seated on our roll, why the younger one, a boy, sat on the mum's laps and played with the mum's clothes.
The girl was obviously bored and tired due to the traffic and intense heat we were facing, I wanted to ask her to sit on my laps so I could lap her, but hey, this is Nigeria and so I imagined the perverse minds and reactions I might get for that Innocent gesture, if it was the boy I wouldn't have thought twice, but since it was a girl, I didn't want the feminists in the bus to rise up and lynch me, so I looked at the mother's face and saw anger and poverty it didn't do much to encourage any form of communication, so guys, I respected myself.
And so, to keep herself busy, the child began peeling the torn material of the drivers seat, as we were seated just behind the driver, that act was corrected with an unexpected and resounding slap from the mum. I felt it.
I froze, out of both shock and surprise. She acted like she was used to it because she didn't cry, she simply stopped and bent her head down. I looked at the mum and she kept a straight face, if I wasn't sitting beside her, I swear I would have thought I imagined the slap.
After a while, the childhood in the child came up again, and so this time around, it was my bag she started twirling round her small fingers, she looked at me and I smiled, she didn't smile with her mouth, I knew she was still recovering from the slap, not physical now but emotionally, for in her eyes I could see the smile and glister her lips couldn't express, that was all the permission she needed and so with confidence, she rolled the leathers hook around her fingers once more, and busied herself with my bag.
It was a knock this time around, it landed with such force even the Yoruba conductor shouted, Chineke!
I couldn't take it and so I turned and warned the mother, I told her I would punch slap her wrinkled face if she touched that child again. She was shocked, she didn't experriit.
"Madam!" I said, "Oh if dem born you well touch her again, I go punch slap your face you no go use face come down from this bus. Wetin happen, you wan kill her?"
"Wetin concern you, na your pikin?" She had the audacity to ask, with fear and anger.
"Madam," I repeated. "If dem born you well, touch her again then I go show you say inside this bus, na our pikin."
Madam na Nigeria be this o, every pikin na the community or society born am because in your absence na we dey help you raise am, whether you like am or not. So no dey beat pikin like that, you hear. I get three from three different girls and since them born them I never touch anyone. The conductor replied with their rough conductor voice and accent.
Everybody in the bus started talking, some supported me, the rest of the animals didn't but sided with her. Saying all sort of rubbish like, if you allow the child play with a strangers bag, she might steal or beg.
For goodness sakes, a child is a child, if the child didn't leave home a thief, she or he won't return one neither will such a child turn into a thief in the 30 mins or 1 hour drive home depending on the traffic situation. Goddammit why do you people think like this?
Of course this explanation fell on deaf ears, some of the poor and old women were on her side, supporting her.
If a child is wrong, beat her, don't pet her, flog and cane the child so they won't spoil. They ranted with stained and smelling mouth odour.
So I asked any of them to touch her again and see magic, of course they didn't infact the child then drew closer to the mum.
I was so upset and in that moment the child became scared of me for talking and looking at her mother with anger and pain and so in her child mind, she went to her mum in a bid to protect, support and hide because surprisingly, she was even scared of me and moved closer to the mum I was defending her from.
I smiled at that Innocent child, showing love and solidarity in her own way and understanding for a mother who didn't know anything about motherhood beyond fucking and giving birth to multiple kids.
For if only we could be like that child, so trusting, free, happy and clean, without evil intentions and malice.
She didn't hate the mum for beating her, she didn't hate her for starving her, she didn't hate her for bringing her to this world to suffer and stay hungry, she loved her despite it all.
If kids understood the mechanisms and systematics of suicide, they will commit suicide.
For me, It is better to be malnourished and happy than malnourished and depressed.
I am hungry, let me beg and play, it takes my mind away from the hunger, let me run wild with my peers, what am I doing locked inside with you lazy bunch.
If I am hungry atleast let me be happy in my hunger.
The child cries inside, unable to express this feeling, for how can a child express such to a parent blind and ignorant to this level of comprehension and understanding.
A parent whose only vision is to eat, sleep and fuck and prove to the world that they are fertile.
I reacted because I don't always subscribe to the mind your business attitude all the time, sometimes I do but when life and nature demands you talk, talk don't shut up.
A wise man said evil triumphs when good men do nothing.
Not in my time
Not in my generation
And definitely not in my story.
All this things didn't happen but indeed there was a woman with two kids, and yes, the girl actually played with my bag but nothing happened to her, I was just imagining all of this from the point the mum gave the boy she was actually carrying a light knock on his head that even made him smile sheepishly when he pulled the half torn material of the drivers seat.
So yeah some part happened but not the whole.
Bottom line.
Don't always turn the other cheek when you see an adult physically abuse a child if you can help it.
So many videos going viral now about house maids, madams and nannies maltreating and abusing children.
Don't wait to just watch and like or comment.
Do something.
Because either way you are doing something whether you like it or not. So do something good instead of something bad which is nothing.
A friend once said "no comment is a comment" So I say, no action is still an action, no response is still a response, no decision is still a decision therefore, not doing something is still something but something worse.
Lend a helping hand
That gesture might be what is needed to save a life
What an irony that even nature nurtures more than humans, whereas it is our duty to nurture instead we torture.
Everyone is a parent so bring out the parent in you when necessary even before life makes you one.
Kingdavid Chinaeke Ofunne
Authorpreneur
www.ofunneceo.blogspot.com
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