I N T H E C L U R B, W E A L L F A M

After my sister and I moved to Dakar, my parent’s marriage obviously suffered.

One day, my dad and his younger sister, my aunt, woke up and found that almost half the house had been emptied.

I mean almost everything.

My aunt was staying with my parent’s at the time, so she helped my dad get things for the house, spoons, forks, appliances, everything that needed to be replaced.

That definitely drew the wedge even further, and not long after their divorce procedure began.

Now, divorces can be ugly, but this one was downright evil.

Two families were pitted against each other, everyone that shouldn’t be involved, heavily invested, and before you know it, a potentially curable infection became life threatening.

It wasn’t life or death, but each party wanted the other party to feast, swords drawn, and no compassion given.

Horrible things were said about one another, for example, my mom’s side of the family claimed that my mother had more diplomas than my dad (true?) and that he was good for nothing.

My dad’s side of the family, I mean, are prideful so insults weren’t the problem. This was a power thing: how dare you defy my son’s claim that your daughter was an inadequate mother and wife?

If my dad said so, then that was the truth.

When I was young, I would defend my mom against them.

I would feel the pain of having my mother berated in my face, flinch, and passively disagree.

She sent toys, she called, and was understandably deeply disturbed by wtf was going on.

As I grew up though, I started to understand where the naysayers were coming from.

She was not innocent.