THE FIELD SHE DIDN’T OWN

By Mpundu Valerie

My mom always says I was born twice. The first time from her womb, the second time from her tears. She was 17. Form 3. Head girl material. The only child her parents were well pleased with until she got pregnant.

She had sowed and tried to reap in someone's field, unbeknownst to her, someone was already tending the same field. The field had a name. Thabo. When she told him, he just said, "I'm married. You should have known better." Just like that, the father became a ghost story.

Grandma and Grandpa couldn't bear the shame. Their little angel had become devilish overnight. They chased her away from the house that had milk and honey, and she ended up staying at a church, sleeping on a bench, raising her own school fees with a belly.

She told me she used to toil day and night, selling tomatoes at the market, washing people's clothes, while her own parents were eating chicken just 3 streets away.

She often felt like giving up. Sometimes she sat by the river and just stared at the water. Then I came. I didn't cry when I was born. I shined. Pale white. Rough, coarse hair. No melanin. Albino.

When my grandparents heard, their anger escalated. To them, the gods had punished her. Proof that she had stolen another woman's husband. A tomfoolery mistake made as a child, now written on a baby's skin for the whole village to see. The real suffering started after that.

She suffered and endured stares, gazes, names, and threats. They called me "sope", "ghost", "money". She was told I was intended for rituals. That my bones could make someone rich. She had to guard me jealously. She couldn't even leave me sleeping alone because of the myths surrounding my condition.

The troubles she went through, she has only told me half. The rest remains buried, suppressed within the deepest cores of her heart. Then lady luck smiled on her. A woman from the church, Mrs. Moyo, took us in. Paid her fees. Helped her finish school. My mom passed. Got a job as a teacher. Slowly, slowly, she built.

But she didn't know she was building a king. Fast forward to today. That child they said was a curse? That child they said was meant for rituals? He now makes sure the woman who guarded him jealously eats, breathes, and lives in luxury.

My mom no longer toils day and night. Her hands that used to wash other people's clothes now get manicures every Friday. The girl who was chased away from a house with milk and honey now has her own house with milk, honey, and a double-door fridge she doesn't know how to fully stock.

Here's the plot twist no one saw coming? Grandma and Grandpa now live with us. Yes. The same Grandma and Grandpa who chased her away for bringing shame. The same ones who said their little angel had become devilish.

They now live in the very luxury they said would never come from this child. Grandma now sits on a couch she didn't buy, watching a TV she didn't pay for, telling visitors, "My grandson is albino, but he shines like gold."

Grandpa, who once said "we want nothing to do with her," now wants everything to do with us. He asks for seconds at lunch in a house built by the pale white baby with rough, coarse hair he once called a punishment from the gods.

We live like that. All of us under one roof. Shame brought us full circle. The house that chased us now lives inside the house we built.

Thabo, who was married? He now sends Facebook requests. We leave him on seen. She sowed in the wrong field, yes. But she reaped me, and I made sure her reaping was worth every stare, every threat, every tear she ever shed, so much that even those who chased her now eat from it.

They called me "white gold" for rituals. Joke's on them I really did become white gold.

For her. For us.

A mother’s journey through rejection and triumph