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Showing posts with the label Suffering

WHAT WE DON'T SEE

ELIYA   The apartments I live in are maintained by an old man who we refer to as 'Mzee' to mean 'elder'. No one knows his real name or where he comes from. What we do know is that Mzee comes very early in the morning to weed the compound, sweep the dried leaves and occasionally  trim the grass.  Mzee has a young son of about five years named Elias but the locals around call him 'Eliya'. Eliya's mother is a mad woman named Rita who lives under the staircase and talks to herself all day. The gossips say Mzee bewitched her. This trio is no stranger to poverty and the harsh word economy that has no time to think about them. During the few years I have lived here, I have grown fond of  Eliya. Eliya having been raised in a in very different family is by all means a different child. Eliya wears a tattered red t-shirt under his dirty orange jumper and a pair of greenish-brown shorts. Sometimes he has shoes on and other times he doesn't. Eliya plays with t...