Toyi War Experience Chapter 1

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Well as far I remember in my memory everything started at age 3 for me, I don’t remember my mother even though I remember the floor pattern & color where I 1st crawled.
We lived in a very poor neighborhood, Dad and Mom married under age; when they found out she was pregnant, Dad’s and Mother’s family spoke and got to an agreement that they should get married to make things right. Dad graduated from High school under an accountant technical carrier, and with lot of sacrifice got this little home where they could live.
My mother was very young and fully dragged by the 70’s scene and all the wonders she saw on TV, and the most important thing… Freedom.
Didn’t take her too long to realize that life was not easy and that all her dreams were being delayed by her idea of poverty… even though Dad had provided with a home and food was always sufficient to fulfill the hunger and we had cloth to dress, she ran away from home when I was 3, my brother was still being breast fed (btw 0-1 year old). War was not at full streinght yet for me, My granny (Dad’s Mom) offered her time to baby sit us during the day because Dad had to work to pay the home and supply for our needs, in the morning we rode the bus with him, he would drop us off at Granny’s house, at night he would pick us up to take us home to sleep.
Dad was used to get out from work around 5:30PM but that time was too late to catch the last bus because he had to go pick us up 1st, so we had to walk our way home, from my Granny’s house to ours (it was a 5 mile long way) and Dad had to carry my little brother on his arms and had me walk next to him, Dad says that after walking for a while I would start pulling his shirt asking to be picked up by then my brother was asleep on his arm, then he had to carry both of us for the rest of the way, the dangerous of this trip home was that buses were not running after 6PM because that was the time for the war Curfew to start. According to the curfew, anyone that was seen walking on the street could be at risk to get shot to death with no excuse… and we were basically violating the Curfew every single day, there was a constant fight BTW Granny and Dad every day before leaving her house and that was the great danger that he was exposed to.
2 years past on that paste, I was now 5; okay Dad was a soccer player on his spare time, he was a great Goalie to be more précised, oh just picture what a Dad would do with 2 kids under his care. Dad was used to sit us at the edge of the soccer field behind his Goal net to keep an eye on us while he played a game, I remember one day I got distracted and I went far and far from the noise of the game, I walked into the near forest and I realized that I was lost, I rushed trying to get back in a hurry, on my way back I tripped and fell on top of 2 burned bodies (well I didn’t know they were bodies at that instance) but I got up and shacked my hands one young girl that came looking for me (sent by my dad) saw me standing in front of the bodies and started screaming and crying, I got the idea that something was not right then, at the girl’s yell the entire crowd came and started talking about it, as my little comprehensive went back then I understood that 2 people had been set on fire while they were tied up together, when I looked back at the corpses I could then identify their nose, mouth, arms, legs and their expression got printed on my head up to today. Okay Daddy arrived at the scene holding my little brother and saw what was going on, he lift me and took us back home. At home he served dinner but my head was spinning quickly (As any kid I believe) 1st question… Dad why those person were burned? Did they do something wrong? Dad just silenced and I asked him again, Dad what did they do? And Dad said well no they didn’t do anything wrong. Then I said well but you have told me that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell, hell is fire and they were burned.
I started crying, Dad tell me if they are going to heaven, Dad said yes for sure they are in heaven, I went to a stage of sadness for those people… I cried them silently for few years after I knew my Dad was asleep, sometimes I heard him weeping but I never dared to ask him why.
Here a Picture of Dad leaving My Granny’s house at night time in plain Curfew