THEY CALL ME KAYAYO; MY NAME IS MARWAH

I don't know what dragged me into this big city filled with tall buildings and big cars. I was happy downtown with my family. I remember when we rode on donkeys to the farm every dawn. Now the only sounds I hear at dawn is the dragging of pans and teenagers like me shouting "The Bus Has Arrived"!!!

Was it the big barrels and shiny utensils Saratu returned home with after spending 2years in the city that attracted me here?, or my will to put a smile on my parents face  that got me into this regretful existence?.

My name is Marwah Abdullah. I am 14years old and hail from Kpalsi, a farming community in the Northern part of Ghana. I used to live there with my parents and my seven siblings. Life was as beautiful and refreshing as ever. I wasn't a fun of schooling, because I didn't see the essence of sitting in the classroom for hours; only to go back home with a book with couple of Alphabets in it to rewrite. I will rather follow my parents to the farm, kill and roast animals, prepare some white Tuo Zaafi, and come home full, and ready for bed.

I don't remember the last time I heard someone calling me Marwah; i miss how Madam Gloria will say "Maawah" instead of Marwah; all I hear now is Kayayooo, or for short kaaya which I hate the most because "kaaya" in the Hausa language means an unwanted load, but I have no option than to respond. Even though, sometimes I turn and I am not the one being called upon. I miss the "arh"  sound at the end of my name, Marwarh!!!. As mum will extend it for 3 seconds when mentioning my name before taking a breath.

Sometimes my neck  hurt and it feels like I will choke on my own veins and die. I carry things that are heavier than me, if you doubt this; enter Kejetia Market, you might not see me, but another being who happen to find herself in the same shoes as me. Yes! Another girl I mean, we are many and we keep increasing in number every passing day.

Back home when Mum wakes me up at 5am for prayers, I quietly sneak into the store room and sleep more, but here I am, without an alarm I wake up on my own as early as 3am, because that is when my market starts, that is when all the big cars come to town to offload deliveries, so they don't meet the traffic and the crowd.

I work from 3am to 9pm, sometimes longer than that. Thanks to KMA, the kejetia market closes at 6pm, and so I get the chance to rest my neck at least after 8pm.

My Days are not only tiresome but also painful, someone steps on my feet and look back at me expecting a sorry from me, if I don't say it, I get a wild eye, puffed at or an insult as a present for being stepped on. I am not calling for respect, I am only 14 and I don't expect respect from the 35year olds, all I need is equality and recognition as a human being. I don't know when my nature as a human being was changed to that of an animal in the perspective of men, at least I know when my name got changed.

I have regretted the day I made the decision on coming here, but I can't go back, because mum is expecting me to come home with a big barrel; filled with utensils and all other fancy things.

Salifu's mum tells Salifu to wait and marry me, because am in the city, and I will bring a lot of things, he needs not to spend a lot. I don't want to marry Salifu! I want to at least go to school now, sometimes i cry when i see 14year olds like me in the morning running to school with Bags that have some beautiful cartoons on them. I also miss repeating the Alphabets after Madam  Gloria.

Everyday I hear a lot of people on radio talking about girl child education and I ask myself, are we not girls too?, some of us seriously regret our decision of coming here for this work, and we wish one day the government will say all teenagers should leave the streets, and enforce it. Only then will girls like me get a justifiable reason to leave the streets. Maybe, when the government authorities sack me back to school; Mama will not get heartbroken about her big blue barrel.  The community will understand my situation, and not mock at me for coming home empty handed.

Where is all the free education going to? The humanitarian aid and many more aid programs I have seen on sign posts, where are they all channelled to? Sometimes I am forced to think the only thing they do is take pictures of us and post on social media. Pardon me if am wrong. God bless their good intentions and God stretch their arms towards girls like me.

I don't want to go through what Alisa went through before she met her sudden Death. I hope you are not suprised hearing this, it is very common among me and my friends. Some of us die of ailments and some of us get raped at night.
Many of us are pregnant, and don't know the Father's of their babies, because they didn't see their faces. Someone  needed a girl to satisfy his lust, and some of us unfortunately and fortunately for them appeared. Least did they know, those 120seconds would cause Alisa to commit suicide.

There is no one to tell our story, and there is equally no one to walk us through these dark times. If and only if the government will sack all of us below age out of the streets, maybe we would have been forced to at least get basic education, and be able to spell our names correctly, as well as calculate our monies accurately. And maybe if the society will not give their luggage to girls below age, we will have no job and we will go back home to get enrolled in school for the betterment of our lives and our country as a whole. As the adage goes,  "...if you educate a woman, you educate the whole the nation".

Life treat us all on different terms, but the aim of a person in life is to help others, and if you can't help any, at least do not hurt any.

God bless you for reading.
Kindly share on your walls.
Together, we can help  girls like Marwah get out of the streets and get enrolled in school.

Your sister,
Nuhu Alimatu Sadia.
Ummuabuuha.blogspot.com
Ummi.ug@gmail.com