Ruth walked briskly from her brown corrugated shack, her eyes misty, a heavy fog laying upon them. Unable to see, or very well understand much of all that stood tall around her, the familiar array of similar corrugated shacks and cloth lines upon cloth lines seemed too alien to her on that bright yellow day. Her arms outstretched, as though blind, she looked to make her way through on the brown dusty road that ran through the entire shanty town, twisting and turning, winding it’s way past the flowing sewage water, the numerous children playing around half-naked, the gossiping nomadic hairstylists, the marabou storks fishing through discarded baby diapers for a meal, and finally, birthing itself onto the big main silver road, it’s potholes gapping, a reflection of the farmished young mouths of Kiso shanty town.
Her heart was broken, no amount of shouts or pleas could heal her. “Why do you walk aimlessly like a headless chicken?” Samuel had just walked out of her shack, zipping up his flyer as he did so. He made for her, grabbed her extended arm, and made as though to lead her back inside. She immediately attempted to wriggle her arm out from under him, twisting with such fury that she nearly fell to the ground. Samuel, known around for his instant anger, grabbed her chin and shoved her to the ground. Ruth screamed as he did, her eyes opening and closing, each time a new image presenting itself. Open, ‘clear blue sky’, close. Open ‘his hands shuffling me down’, close. Open, ‘him on top of me, wrestling me, defying me right there and then, my braids entangled in the brown of the ground, the little pools of stagnant water turning the soil to mud, hardening my hair’, close. How hard it is, to be an unmarried woman, living in the shanties between the two main cities in Uganda. How hard it is, to be birthed from lost hopes and dreams, barely living, barely holding on, as the extravant displays of wealth dazzle you, if only, from across the opposite ridge.
She didn’t open her eyes, for a long while, her body, as though limp, remained motionless for a majority of that day. The near naked children had kept on kicking their made-of-polythene-and-banana-fibre makeshift football, and the dust had risen high above their heads, covering Ruth’s stripped body, her shoes still perfectly matching the red lipstick she had so carefully layered and relayered upon her lips. Ruth had really wanted to make an impression at her new job that day, months of job hunting and asking her elder brother, Isaac, for a bit of money had really worn her down. Her life had always been one of middle ups and serious lows – as though the world was intent on piling her with blows at every turn she seemed to take, making her curse her life whenever it failed her. And fail her it did, her father dying too soon, her mother remarrying and effectively abandoning her to the patronage of Isaac, never re-emerging into her life, even to offer the bare minimum. Only having left high-school a year ago, with hopes of fulfilling her dreams by moving to the big city. All her aunts had left the remote countryside in which she had been raised, creating a path that Ruth had hoped to imitate one day. All those brave and strong women, she had thought, charting a pathway for themselves and their future generations. I hope that will be me someday. None of her aunts who had left for the big city had ever returned, as though enchanted by the ways of the people there.
Life seemed to slowly pass Ruth by, the insects biting into her skin, unmoving, untwitching, oblivious to everything around her, her body, as though a carcass, showing close to minute signs of life or the struggle for it. The day drinkers passed her by, sneering and kicking at her limp hands as they staggered on their way, cursing at her for being a hindrance on their now obstructed path. Ruth didn’t move, her mind permanently shut from the head blow she had been dealt, as Samuel had forcefully floored her on the rough terrain of that dark brown road. It is only as the sun had begun to set, and more respectable people had begun to return to their homes among the many greys and rusty shanties in Kiso town, that attention was given to the young lass unmoving beside the great brown road. The sun, as it set, extended a warm glow across her still face, the only kindness that had given itself to her all that lonesome day. They slowly trickled round her, till, very soon, an excited crowd had suddenly sprouted. The children, laughing as they did, tried to squeeze their way through, to catch a glimpse at what had suddenly roused the interest of the adults. A nearby traffic officer was briskly fetched, and, in turn, promptly asked for an ambulance to be dispatched to Ruth’s immediate location. The women of the town had rushed to gather bits of clothes, to cover up, as much as they could, the bits and parts of Ruth that had been laid bare, a further humiliation to her person, before the whole of Kiso shanty town.
Ruth was lifted up and onto the backs of the paramedics, the great brown road that passed by her shack too eroded and misaligned to allow the ambulance to inch any closer down hill, and the topography of where she lived too steep to allow her to be upheaved by a stretcher either. The paramedics each took their turn, making sure to jump over the deep open ridges of the road, praying that none of them would tumble backwards, a further misfortune on a rather unfortunate day. The sun’s escaping rays gently radiated from the ambulance's dark tinted windows that sat atop the hill, the mostly-white-and-blue-stripes appearing as though a saviour to the still young woman carried atop the paramedics’ backs. The crowds hadn’t dispersed, all stood round, as the swirling red lights of the ambulance brought them into and out of view. Some of the children ran along the sides of the road, laughing as they did. The older boys made crude remarks about Ruth’s torn dress and nearly exposed body, her shoes now a minute detail from where she had been shouldered. They ran along and screamed with excitement, calling all nearby boys to witness the spectacle. The young girls stood huddled together, clasping each other, and secretly praying they never have to endure such a fate. The paramedics finally managed to reach the ambulance, the sweat freely flowing from their temples.
