I feel tired as I walk towards the well to fetch some water. As
I sit down on the stone bench to rest for a while, I see little girls running to
school. They are all set to begin their day of learning and I am envious of
them. It was my dream too to go to school and quench my thirst in the fountain
of knowledge, but then I wasn’t destined for it. Things weren’t the same when I
was a little girl, not that I am too old now. My parents wouldn’t let me go to
school. It wasn’t that we didn’t have enough resources. We did have more than
what most of the others had but my family was a conservative one.
My lack of
education has always troubled me and it is the cause of all my troubles now. My
parents got me married to a man more than twice my age when I was just 16. The
man made me put my thumb impression on a piece of paper and I didn’t know what
it was for. I did what he said as I was told to obey him. After a few months,
when he found out that I was pregnant, he disappeared overnight. All the
efforts made to trace him were in vain. He had taken all my money and valuables
with him. The property that was mine was now his as he’d made me put my thumb
impression on those papers. Since he left me, the people around me treated me
like an outcast. I had nowhere to go until I managed to come to this village
and found some work to do to fill my stomach. How different my life would have
been if I’d only gone to school. I wouldn’t have had to go through this torture
of being thrown out of my own village living on nothing but a few morsels of
food every day. I look like I’m made of just bones but I keep myself alive only
because of my child who is yet to see this world. A fly keeps buzzing in front
of my eyes and I come out of my trance. I’ve made up my mind now- my child whether
a girl or a boy will go to school no matter what.
This post is written for Midweek Wordle #7 at A Prompt each day and for Day 15 of Ultimate Blog Challenge.