Arts
Lillian shares her story
LITERARY SERIES BY DR. ASHRAF SSEMWOGERERE
LILLIAN
EPISODE 1.
Lillian was very smart girl in he time, and she didn’t look her age. You could think she was in her late thirties or early 40s. Her smile accompanied by the dimples on her cheeks. It must have killed boys and men during her hey days. All in all she is still – Beautiful.
“Ashraf, my name is Lillian; I am 57 years and working as an executive officer in one of the ministries.
“Munange Ashraf, the year was 1975; and I was in one of the prestigious secondary girls’ schools for my HSC. We used to have inter-school seminars where we had disco dances after.
“In one of these dances, I danced with this guy, Walter, who captured my mind into intimacy. We squeezed each other for the whole dance. In our discussion, as we squeezed at zero distance, (Lillian laughs) – that is how we used to call it – we realized that we almost came from the same area.
“He came from Bunga and I was from Muyenga. This made us to visit each other frequently during holidays. We were both bright and our combinations similar.
“In the third term of my S5, I realized that I was pregnant but the fact that I had been appointed a head prefect, I managed to dodge the terms medical check-ups. I tied my tummy so tightly that nobody could see my bulging stomach. And I remained active as a head girl. The other advantage I had as a head girl was having my own room. I would fasten my tummy during day and relax it at night and lock my room, always.
“During holidays, I decided to tell Walter about it so that we would find a way of aborting it. To my surprise, Walter wanted the baby. I had not seen a boy of his age accepting responsibility of getting a girl under pregnancy. He never supported my idea of abortion.
“He was very cleaver in handling the situation. He threatened me with death if I ever aborted, because in their clan, whoever did that, just died in the process. I also dropped the idea, I really feared death.
“The term began and I acted the same way. However, I was becoming a bit weak and sleepy. I decided to confine my secret to one of my friends, called Penelope. (Bambi, Penelope died in a fatal accident in 1998.)
“I told her my problem and she advised me to start attending the antenatal clinic. She directed me to a traditional birth attendant from her village. We managed to get a pass out and visited the lady, deep there in Kyaggwe forests.
“My dad used to give me a lot of money, almost three times the school tuition; he was big in the country.
“To cut the long story short, during the holidays of seond term I felt the labour pains and just disappeared from home. I went to the attendant where I delivered a baby girl, but an Albino. My God….
Our story continues in the next issue. Allah, bless you all.
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