African Marriages and their disfunction.

My parents broke their marriage when I was 14 years old......

    I am Bachama from Adamawa state and it is customary to return the bride price paid over ones head in the case of a divorce and my mom did so before she left my father.

    My father was largely responsible for their divorce.... I was old enough to know some of their issues and met quite a few of my dad's girlfriends.

   I remember the day I found out, It was a cruel day in April of 1995,we had supposedly gone ahead of my mom to my dad's place in Iwopin for 2nd term holidays because "my mom had a meeting to attend" before joining us..... A week went by, 2 weeks and then a whole month and everytime we reminded our dad we wanted to spend some of our holiday with my mom, he had a way of shoving our request aside.

One day to resumption, we drove in to Maryland Lagos, where we lived at about 8pm through a heavy storm...... Got home, opened the door with his key which was strange, I remember thinking my mom was at the Shellengs' probably to avoid the boredom of staying alone on a Sunday..... We walked in to a cold house without my Mom's pictures and ornaments and my heart sank, I just knew. 

  I found a letter addressed to me by my mom, asking me to be of good behaviour and watch over my siblings, I can't remember how long I held on to that letter or how long I sobbed..... But my dad asked that we slept in their room, perhaps because he thought I would run away at night..... I cried all night, he would ask me to shut up everytime he heard me sobbing, "idieeet", he would say ....that day my life changed.........

To be continued!