Why my marriage failed
Part 10
By Henry
Vash and I were childhood
friends. Were meet during our scouts camp at Shanzu Teachers College. We were
in our upper classes at the primary school level. She is the one who taught me
types of knots. I was also good at first aid skills.
The scout camps during
school holidays made us good friends. We had a passion for caring for the environment.
Planting trees and cleaning the water collection points were some of the
lessons we started having the passion for the surroundings. We agreed that for us to be
environmentalists, we need to excel in our studies.
Every camp meeting when we
meet, we shared our school academic performance. What’s shocking is that we
used to get the same marks apart from going to different schools. We passed our
primary exams and joined secondary school. We were still active members of the
scout team.
At secondary school, we
developed a passion for education. This was through one of the scout camp meeting
subjects on self-esteem and life skills. This subject made us start getting
more information on earlier childhood education. Being teachers is what we
wanted to be.
We qualified and got
admission at the university and specialized in early childhood development
education. During long holidays, we got a chance at our former primary school
to teach preschool. We loved that.
During these long holidays,
we could visit each other’s homes and formalized our friendship with our parents.
After graduation, we got
attached to a government school in the North-Eastern part of Kenya, Garissa Primary
School. Before leaving to our work station, we did a traditional wedding. We
got the blessing of the elders and our parents. We maintained our cultures
despite our academic level in society.
After three years of
marriage, my wife got pregnant. This was the joy of our parents. We shared the
doctor’s news with them. They reminded us of the kind of food to eat, kind of
house chores, and places to avoid.
We followed also the
doctor’s advice, mostly clinic visit dates. I remember we were also given a
net at the government health centre. It would protect mother and child from
getting malaria.
We were well prepared for
her delivery. She started complaining of labour pain, I ordered a taxi. It
took us to the health facility. At the health facility, we were referred to Garissa
County Referral Hospital. She was admitted and I was told to be patient as doctors are doing some checkups
on her.
A few minutes later, she was
taken to the theatre and I was called to sign some documents for her surgery. That
was the only option to save her life and the unborn. I signed the papers.
‘Congratulations, your
wife has delivered triplets, two boys and a girl…’ The doctor said I didn’t
respond to this news.
My culture is against any
person who gives birth to twins or triplets. They believe it’s a sign of a bad
omen. The solution to this is killing the children and the mother or killing
the husband. It was my culture, it was Vash culture also.
I went to her ward; she
looked at me and started crying. She was crying because of our culture. I did
get the energy to control myself. I cried too!
‘My dear, don’t tell your
parents about this, please. Let me go far with these children. I can’t stand the
wrath of society. Just go, I will find myself out.’
I tried to stop her, but
her tone was high till the doctors ordered me to leave the hospital. I was told
to visit her after 6 hours. I went to a nearby hotel to wait for that time to
elapse.
When I went to her ward,
the bed was neatly covered with hospital sheets. I tried to enquire about her
whereabouts and nobody in the hospital was willing to talk to me.
