Her Last Text: (In Memory of Garissa Victims)

On 2^nd April 2015, terrorists killed 147 students at Garissa University College. Kenya mourns them. This poem is my attempt to understand this sad episode.

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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, 2^nd 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