On 2nd April 2015, terrorists killed
147 students at Garissa University College. Kenya mourns them. This poem is my
attempt to understand this sad episode.
**
This was her last
text:
"Please babe,
they are getting to us. Everyone in Nancy’s cube has been shot dead. Please
pray for us. They are coming here; we are next. How’s the situation outside?
Kenya Defence Forces are not here yet. Please tell them we are being killed;
let them come to our rescue. Babe, in case I never see you again, just know I
love you and will always love you. Bye babe and pray for us. I’m with Milly too…May
God help us.”
(Translated by Nekesa Wanjala)
Desperation, plea for
help, outpouring of love
And faith—faith in
God
That He will help her
From her killers.
Akinyi left that text
to us
And is now dead
She is one of the 147—
147 whose heads were
shattered by terrorists’ bullets
At Garissa.
Akinyi was a student
at Garissa University College
With her hopes and
dreams
Her parents must have
invested in her
To give her a better
life
But Thursday, 2nd
April 2015
Was a Dark Thursday
Akinyi was shot at—and
died.
A painful death.
The announcement came:
Dry statistics—147 DEAD
AT GARISSA UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE
In other words, it
has happened
They are dead, we can’t undead them.
How do you tell a
parent that her daughter—
Safely tucked in
school—died violently
By a gun, in school?
How do you explain to
her
That her jewel is no
more
And that her body is
lying lifeless
At Chiromo Mortuary?
How?
And how do you, as a
parent, read her last text
When she still
breathed, hearing gun-shots
In the next cube, her
colleagues screaming
And the next minute
the boom boom of a gun
And the chilling
silence of death.
What can prepare you
for this moment
The moment when your
daughter was crying out for help
But you weren’t there
The searing guilt,
the scorched conscience
Of a moment you
abdicated your parental duty
As your daughter
called out for help
But you were far away
The moment when the
terrorist stood in front of
Your daughter, pointed
the muzzle of the gun at her,
As she pleaded for
help, crying out that her life be spared
The trigger pulled,
the bullet jetting
Yet you weren’t there
to stand in front of her
And be shot at, and
not her
The moment when you
should have faced her killers
And ask them what sin
your daughter had committed
To die by the gun
The moment you would
have been in that room with your daughter
And faced death
together
Rather than this
unbearable pain and helplessness
The moment you would
whisper, though both of you be in the throes of death,
That you love her and
die hugging her
But this text, you
can’t even respond
To reassure her that
she will be safe and that you are praying for her
You can’t respond and
tell her that you love her
You can’t even ask
for clarification
You can’t do
something, something to save her,
Something to keep her
alive
It is a text with a
finality, a resignation to fate or God,
A helpless text, a
text which will haunt you
A text that will
always remind you of the moment your daughter
For the first time,
cried out for help, and you weren’t there
Questions will
linger:
What
if you hadn’t taken her to Garissa University College?
What
if you had received the text earlier and prayed for her, would God have saved
her?
What
if you were there with the killers, would you have wrestled their guns and bit
their hands so as to spare your daughter’s life?
What
if she escaped, would she be alive?
What
if RECCE Squad killed the terrorists earlier, would she have survived?
What
if she hid in a wardrobe?
What
if she smeared herself in blood to mock death?
Did
Milly die too?
A thousand what-ifs,
yet your adorable Akinyi
Is dead. Lifeless.
Akinyi who the other
day was laughing
Perhaps planning to
visit for the Easter
Akinyi who encouraged
you to sacrifice a little longer
For her education
With a promise of a
good job
So that you may be
relieved
That Akinyi, your
loving daughter Akinyi,
Is no more
And in her place is
this text
And lingering
questions
What prepared you for
this?
How do you dig your
daughter’s grave?
What strength do you
summon
To look at her
shattered brain?
What amount of hate,
you will wonder,
Will drive any man to
kill your jewel
In so ruthless a
manner?
What deep-seated
religious extremism will
Be lodged in a man’s
heart as to shoot your daughter?
Why your gentle,
graceful, genial daughter?
You will remember
your village squabbles
A chicken thief summoned
under a tree and fined
A fight over land
boundary
A quarrel over an
unpaid debt
A public beating of
an adulterer
A cross-examination
of a witch
A baraza for a boy
who has impregnated a girl
In all these, there
was a reason for disgruntlement
And if people fought,
it was for a reason
But this!
Someone just shoots
your daughter at school
She didn’t steal a
book
She wasn’t in a love
triangle
She didn’t steal
someone’s money
She fought no one,
she quarrelled no one
She was your peaceful
daughter
Studying in school
Yet she has been shot….
in the head!
And you ask yourself
questions
Whether what evil eye
in the village is not happy with your daughter
Or perhaps who cursed
you
Or who you wronged
and is sending you this affliction
But you don’t
remember any such
For you are a
peaceful person.
So, why was your
daughter shot?
And you are told that
the Alshabaab
Killed her because
of ‘religious extremism’
(an amorphous phrase
you can’t surmise)
or because ‘Kenya
invaded Somalia’
You still ask but why
your daughter
And you are told that
these terrorists
Kill any Kenyan to
send a message to Kenya
And you struggle to
understand all this
How any person would
kill your daughter
To send a message to
Kenya
As if your daughter
was Uhuru to send troops to Somalia
But you will be
shocked at how one, under religion,
Would kill your
daughter
If one prayed to a
rock, who bothered him?
If one worshipped the
sun, who bothered him?
Who troubled those
who hid in a dungeon, bespectacled with goggles,
Waiting for the end
of the world?
Don’t we have witches
who still dance naked, bumping on our doors?
Don’t our people
commune with the ancestors
And speaking to a
mountain, can tell who killed our loved ones?
But who has bothered
them?
Who has killed them?
Haven’t we, in our
tolerance, allowed them to worship whoever they worship?
So, what changed, you
will ask,
That your daughter
was killed?
Looking at your
daughter’s shattered head
Her eyes never
recognizable
Her face, a horror to
watch,
A face which the
other day lit with love
And smiles and warmth
and brilliance
A face which, despite
the hard rural life, kept you
Happy
A face which gave you
courage to face tomorrow
But now, a mangled
flesh, paler than death
Horrid than horrid
can ever be
And you will still
ask yourself,
Akinyi, what wrong
did you do to these religious extremists?
When you prayed, did
you lift your Bible a little higher?
Did you mock them?
Did you mock their God?
Did you challenge
them? Did you anger them?
How Akinyi?
But Akinyi wouldn’t
respond
But your head would
spin at all this
This senseless
killing, this violent death
Of your daughter.
No rational
explanation will make sense to you
And it would be
better that it remains as such
Because your life hadn’t
prepared you for
A time when heartless
people will descend upon your
Unarmed daughter
And just kill her, just like that
Never thinking of how
much she meant to you
The memories you hold
of her
And hopes you had on
her.
Amid your sorrow, you
will stumble upon the Bible Verse
Psalm 127:1
Unless the LORD
builds the house, its builders labor in vain.
UNLESS THE LORD
WATCHES OVER THE CITY, THE WATCHMEN STAND GUARD IN VAIN.
C) Salem Lorot 2015
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