“Mama! Mama!” That call became her signature tune, the sound that made her mother’s heart skip a beat every time she heard it. This is the story of Ella, the family’s messenger of doom. A role she never asked for, but one that somehow chose her, maybe because she is the eldest daughter in the family of Habbu. Ella is the fourth child out of eight. Before her are three brothers whom Habbu, their father, sent to the white man’s land, America, to study and make something of themselves. So when they left, Ella became the eldest at home, holding the fort for everyone else. She took care of her parents, her younger siblings, and in many ways, became the glue that kept the family running. With that came another role, that of the bearer of news. All news. But mostly, bad ones. The first message came like a thief in the night. A telegram from Nairobi. Her younger sister’s husband had died, barely two years into marriage, leaving behind two little children, one still breastfeeding. There were n...
I don’t always understand it, but I’ve come to accept that I see things before they happen. Sometimes, it comes in dreams, vivid, detailed, and impossible to shake. Other times, it’s just a knowing, a deep, undeniable sense that something is about to unfold. I used to find it strange. Now, I treat it with reverence. There was a time when I went a whole month unable to focus. The dead wouldn’t leave me alone. Every night, they came to me, not with fear, but with urgency. Faces I’d never seen, voices carrying messages that weren’t meant for me. They pleaded with me to find their loved ones and speak for them. It was overwhelming. I tried to carry on with normal life, but my spirit was somewhere else straddling two worlds. I’ve looked at people and simply known. I knew that something was coming, good, bad, life-changing. In the beginning, I’d be consumed by fear. But over time, I learned to pray. I realized that perhaps knowing wasn’t just for knowing’s sake. It was an invitation to inter...