13/06/2025
YUMIWA: THE LAZY PLAYGIRL
PART 1
Once upon a time in Ijutu village, there was a girl named Yumiwa. She was nine years old — slim, tall, chocolate and cheerful-looking, with a spirit too confident for her age.
One late evening, her mother Ankau had walked round the whole village, wrapper swaying and mouth muttering, looking for her. She found her eventually in Iomba, a neighboring village, playing Kanda with the other children like her future was tight to play.
“Yumiwa! You will not kill me before my time!” Ankau shouted, her voice cracking through the trees. Yumiwa sprang to her feet and ran behind a palm tree. Her mother frowned, eyes darkened. “You better come out from there before I mad for you,” she snapped, retying her wrapper with angry fingers and stepping forward.
“Good evening, ma,” Duyu, Yumiwa’s friend, greeted with a small wave. “You're the one spoiling my daughter, abi? You and that your useless brother,” Ankau fired back without even looking at her. She grabbed Yumiwa by the ear and dragged her out like she was pulling a stubborn goat from market.
“Why can't you be like Boya and Galida?” Ankau scolded as they walked. “As soon as you come back from school — fiam! — you're off to play. When other children are doing homework and being useful to their parents, you're jumping up and down like frog. I go flog that nonsense commot from your body today!”
Yumiwa didn’t resist. She never did. She was used to it by now; All the dragging, the scolding, the whipping. But each time she was flogged, she cried as if it were her first day on earth. Loud. With shaking shoulders and tears that refused to dry. And as always, Ankau would end up petting her to stop. The neighbors would murmur again, "This woman too soft. She go beat her pikin finish, come begin pamper am like egg."
Read on...