FAVELA

We know the big boys run the town; they make the city roar and come alive. The blue disco lights decorate the streets with songs blasting from very old speakers. Cars are parked outside, some borrowed, some stolen. The ones with real owners are struggling to keep their parts together with broken rear view mirrors, almost flat tires and faded paints that won't let you identify their real color. Smokes from cigarettes are swimming in the air, empty bottles of champagne, whiskey and vodka are on the plastic tables. Eyes are blazing like fire, minds are traveling far from sanity.

See them trying to stand and at the same time, they fall. There are no children around but the young boys who were influenced are not young boys anymore. They know more than you do.The ladies? These ones have lost themselves in moments of pleasure. Life to them is drugs, sex, moans, orgasm and money. Nothing more, nothing less. Their skimpy dresses won't make a scarf for a Sunday outfit, yet they walk about in it. Looking at them, you will start to wonder why they had bothered to even put on any garment of clothing. Their breasts are mostly in full view of public eyes, this is how the weak men who claim to be strong fall into their seductive display of body parts that are no longer private.

Their best customers are the married men. Ah! Those ones have enough money to spend on them, so they are their targeted audience. This is a bar in the ghetto, welcome to the ghetto. Stone throws away is a small room standing on it's own in a face me, I face you setting. Sikel is a single mother, deserted by family and stigmatized by friends who promised to always be there. The young man, one of the big boys in the ghetto had denied the pregnancy, so she did little jobs and her wages was a means of living from hand to mouth. Though it wasn't enough to cater for herself and her growing daughter, at least they had something.

The city is alive and bubbling tonight being a Friday. She was home now, and happy that she had gotten some more money for their up keep. The little candle was the only light that dared to compete with the thick darkness.There was a knock on the door. She had no friends who came to visit, or maybe their neighbors are trying to be friendly now or could it be Bami, the guy who was fond of her little girl and sometimes helped out when he could? The knock was quite gentle and urgent. She stood up, raising her daughter's head that was resting on her thighs, to peep through the window. She could barely make out the faces, she was still skeptical if she was to open the door or not when the door was forced open.

She was face to face with some of the big boys, though these ones didn't look familiar. She opened her mouth to scream because it was never a good sign for the big boys to visit in the night. They had guns and knives in their hands. Her screams? She gulped them as the force of the gag burned her lips. Seven years old Pami was made to take off her pants, spread her legs wide open and be an altar for worship by men who had no control over their sexual urge. She struggled, she threw her arms in the air, soon she had lost strength. What strength does a six year old girl possess to fight off a muscular man? The money was taken, Pami's mother was not left alone either.She was a toy for all three men. When one tore her bra and pulled her nipples with his teeth so hard that she let out a scream audible to herself alone, the others watched. When another tore her pant and spilled his sperm all over her face, the others laughed.

The bar wasn't enough, her room was made their next party hall. A trigger was pulled, Sikel was shot in the head, Pami moved to help her mother and took the first bullet from her own father, a father she had not known, one her mother had failed to recognize cause it was night. They wouldn't stop and fired the second shot. Sikel and her six years old daughter were together in a bloody hug of eternal rest from life in the ghetto. The big boys enjoyed the flow of blood and took off to their next party hall.

Do not tell me the devil is in hell, he lives amongst men and lives in the most unluckiest of men.

™Joy Okwori