Baba used to beat us with a whip and a cane for the most trivial reasons.
A broken tea cup, an unfinished plate of food.
Whenever I complained to mama, she’d tell me it was my fault I annoyed baba!
So I grew up thinking this was normal.
Fathers hit their daughters to discipline them.
When the teacher noticed the bruises on me and my sister, she asked to see mama and baba. Baba didn’t go. Mama did. “He was just a little angry. That’s why he hit them. You know how children are, always jumping all over the place”, she said to the teacher.
There’s this one time I just can’t forget: my sister tore a page out of the middle of her notebook instead of from the end. Baba grabbed her, beat her, and choked her until she fainted.
I kept screaming so that he’d stop.
And mama just stood there.
Silent.
Watching.
Whip and Cane
2017