PART 12
“ MY FATHER’S FARMLAND”
©?Opeyemi Ojerinde Akintunde
Ola had seen herself in her room in the dream and a lady had brought her
baby clothes. Female baby clothes to be precise…
“ Take it, it is for your baby OluwaSunmibare” the lady had said
Ola had smiled and said…
“ Aww… thank you…” Ola had replied in the dream
Ola woke up voicing the name in her heart…
“ OluwaSunmibare…OluwaSunmibare” She repeatedly said in her heart. She
tried to translate the Yoruba name to English…
“ God has pushed me towards goodness”…
“Hmmm… A baby? Am I pregnant?… the pills…I used the pills the doctor
gave me for five days…, but hold on what’s the date?” Ola thought silently as
she looked for her phone…
“July 12th… Oh my God, I am 3 days late..” Ola thought in her heart…
“ God please don’t let me be pregnant, I am still dealing with the hurt of being
raped, please don’t add pregnancy… I am still trying to see how to feed my
siblings and I, please don’t add any other mouth… Who is going to pay for
the diapers, baby food, clothes… God please…”
Ola stood up and with firm determination, she told herself she wasn’t going
to go for a pregnancy test… She believed strongly she would see her period
soon…
“But what if I am really pregnant?” Ola reasoned quietly as she was packing
her clothes. The landlady had volunteered to help her pack her belongings to
the new house with her car
“ If I am pregnant, it will be too much for Oba and Ope to handle,” Ola
thought silently…
“ Then it is better I know my fate” Ola concluded in her heart
The pastor of the church Sukki had found himself had taken his case
seriously. He had made room for Sukki in the church store and he made it
compulsory despite his busy schedule to have daily Bible study with him.
The same night Ola had the dream about Someone giving her a female baby
cloth, Sukki also had found something intriguing and haunting to him from
the Bible when he was flipping through the Bible…
“Deuteronomy 22:28-29
“If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and
lies with her and they are discovered, then the man who lay with her shall
give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife
because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.”
His heart broke as he remembered the strawberry girl… In all his moments
of mischief, he had never raped a girl, the strawberry girl was his first, and
she was a v!rgin, unlike all the loose girls he had been sleeping with…
Sukki realized this verse showed that God was not happy with him for r@ping
the strawberry girl and the only way he thought he might be able to correct
his error was to marry this girl…, but Would she want to marry a man like
him…?
“I was a former rogue who had r@ped her, I had dropped out of university
because of cultism related issues…I am the son of a herbalist…” Sukki
thought as he sat on the soft mattress in the storeroom that had been
provided for him…
Ola sat at the medical centre shaking, she saw the look on the nurse’s face
when she handed over the result to her. Ola knew that look… the look of
condemnation…
As Ola opened the result her fear was confirmed. She was in deep soup. She
was pregnant…
Ola couldn’t help but cry out at the hospital, she burst into loud tears that
attracted people’s attention. She, however, received sly comments that
showed people had judged her wrongly…
“Look at her, you should have known this would be the result after enjoying
what is meant for adults,” said an elderly woman
“ She is just shedding fake tears before you say, Jack Robinson, she will go
for an abortion “A man also said
“ This generation lacks youths with the sense of morality…”
Ola wished she could scream out loud to defend herself… She rushed towards
one of the nurses and grabbed her pen and wrote boldly
“ I WAS R@PED BY ARMED ROBBERS”
Ola raised it up for everyone to see as she was crying profusely…
The atmosphere changed, there was silence everywhere, as those who had
condemned her felt ashamed…
God, who can question your ways…” A lady who had been silent all the while
burst out in tears as she knelt before God…
“ I dare not question you, you made a young dumb girl get pregnant after
rape, but I have been praying to you for 7 years for a child, and all I hear in
my Spirit is WAIT… I dare not question your ways but show me mercy too”
The woman kept crying and the nurses went close to console her…
The atmosphere was filled with “Hmmm…” from different quarters… and
Ola’s compassionate self suddenly felt pity for the woman.
If only she could swap wombs with this woman. If only the baby in her womb
could be transferred to the woman… Or should she bear the child and give
her/ him to the woman..?
Ola reasoned quietly as she kept tearing up and asking God why He was
allowing all these to happen to her…
Then she heard her conscience say to Her…
“ Skilled and Trusted Soldiers stay at the front of the squad at the Battlefront”
“ What did that mean?” Ola reasoned silently to herself as the woman came
close to give her a comforting hug…
Click 13 below to continue reading
