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.

                                             Photo Courtesy; Google