Abstract
The narrative story is about a boy who has been in dilemmas in his life. He suffers from mistreatment of his father. When his father finally died, he felt relieved not knowing that was just another dilemma. He passed his final class eight examination and could not join high school.
There was once a boy called Nyamgondho in Karatina Village. He was the eldest child in their family. I had known his since class one because he had been my classmate. We shared so many stories together with him including family affairs. It was true that both of us came from the poor background families. This made us have one thing in common. What was surprising most people including the teachers was our excellent academic performance. We used to excel in examination, and in most cases, Nyamgondho would become number two after me. We went through primary school together, leading in every class year in, year out and that made the both of us to be famous in Karatina village.
In the year 2006, Nyamgondho lost his father. It was too painful for me to see a close friend of lose a father. I can still recall the days I used to see him and his father in other people’s home, doing domestic labor to make both ends meet. On weekends and the days that were free from school as holidays, they were always busy working in farms if not trimming and weeding flower gardens in their rich neighbor. Surprisingly enough, the death of Nyamgondho’s father was a relief to him. This was ironical to other people because losing a parent is painful and can make someone get the better side of the stress.
The father was a drunkard. This was the first relief to Nyamgondho. He was then safe from beatings, slaps, kicks and abuses he got from his father after a heavy consumption of alcohol. His father used to mistreat them so bad that even the villagers could tell the person crying whenever there was a scream in the village. Moreover, the mistreatment had made his mother escape from the family several times. We say make hay when the sun is hot and so the mother used to flee away whenever she realized that the husband is drunk. The only victim that would suffer after the escape of the mother was Nyamgondho. This made him hate his father. He would have run away too but to where? That was the biggest question he had. He knew his aunt’s place only and. He would have gone to his aunt, however; the aunt was always supporting his brother- the father of Nyamgondho. Nyamgondho was ever in dilemma.
The father would always come home drank, and the life at home become more and more difficult. The father would go up to the extent of selling the family properties to get money for alcohol. They had remained without a single chair leave alone the traditional chair that we call ‘mbero’. Sometimes he would take to his heels and come to our home where the situation was the same. However, of the same condition, he would find a place to put up as he planned to go back home the following days.
Nyamgondho had found peace after the death of his father. His mother had also returned home after stay away from home for more than ten years. In the year 2004, Nyamgondho did his final class eight exam and passed with flying colour. He got 414 marks out of 500 possible marks. Unfortunately, he was unable join high school due to lack of enough money to finance his school. Nyamgondho is still in dilemma waiting for any help that might come to enable join high school. He wished his father was alive!
