The midday sun is clearing a cloudy face the heavens had earlier on and the weekend is now wearing a bright smile. Just like yesterday...
Speaking of yesterday... Yesterday I sat among my tribe of resilient women. A tribe of some formerly imprisoned women.
The room held traumatic memories the minute I decided to take this photo. It was the ceiling of the hall that had been booked for the annual event.
It reminded me of my toes spread on such a pattern when I was serving my time. I slept on the topside of a metallic double-decker and I used to read or pass time with my feet up.
A woman who was sentenced to death row but ended up serving twenty-three years over land disputes locked all of us in a horrific trance of her missing out on her two grandchildren's entire lives and her adult children entire youth. She was arrested when they were only teens.
I rushed back to the past and dug up my slice of her twenty-three years in prison in form of my one and a half years-long sentence and watched her stroll up and down the limiting concrete aisles. She was wearing her navy blue smock as a sign of how trusted she was by an oppressing system. We all regarded her as Mama Teresa and she fondly called us her children. She was among the oldest women I found and left in prison.
I left when emotions ran high and sat under a shade outside. The dust looked so settled after a night of cleansing rain and the sun was shining. Before I could digest how rare hockey is here, I was swept by the suppressed memories of a place I experienced the worst kind of treatment while witnessing the greatest form of humanity and sisterhood.
When the shower started at 3 am and I heard the soft hummings of a different rendition of Bob Marley's redemption song, I knew Gee was in the shower. She was my age and hailed from the largest urban slum in EA not just here. She had five children then and was in for manslaughter.
One of her then three baby daddies had gotten overly abusive and a kitchen knife that had left his unsteady left grip found her right one and her fear and anger drove its deadly tip to thrust open a vein that wouldn't hold his intoxicated blood for long. He died in her arms and even after hating herself for it, it dragged her into alcoholism after her five-year-long sentence. She has seven children now.
I was heartbroken when I was taking this. I would like all of my people to win but I also know that I can't do it for them. I am not winning yet but I am doing my best not to sink back to some desperate place.
I had a squad during my time in and looking back, only a few of us are still standing. The rest have succumbed to the dismantling cycle of recidivism. Drug abuse and walking back toxic habitats for the scarcity of healthy options.
I want to celebrate my strides but it is so conflicting when I am witnessing half of my tribe drag behind. Wins are that complex too at times. Thinking of ways to get to the ones I can without draining myself too much because my empath is on an emotional breakdown.
Wish me luck 🍃🧡
wambuku w.