For the first ten days, we
nourished on disbelief. We
said, ‘this could not be
happening.’ Though we woke-
up every next morning to see
their ugly faces, we slept again
each night in denial, hoping
that when we woke, we will be
in our beds – at home. We
pinched ourselves… it did not
work; we hardly believed it
would. As we moved and
responded to their orders
those first days, we were
sometimes stubborn, some of
us got hit. This was because
we still believed we were
valuable, humans who could
not be subjected to such a
harsh reality.
The next ten days was our
rude awakening. We realized
this was no dream. We had
gotten used to our captors’
names and faces. The forest as
a new home was becoming
familiar to us. This was real. We
were abductees, forceful
guests of the terrorists’ lair. We
realized these days that we
were not by any chance the
first abductees of Boko Haram
– there were girls here,
abducted years ago. Mothers,
who’d had kids in these camps.
Young men, abducted and
forced to fight for Boko Haram.
We realized that things will
never be the same again. We
started to settle. We realized
we had to be nice. And when
some of us died – from snake
bites, from rape and infections,
and being shot, we realized
our destiny did not have the
pleasant stories of life in it, the
sweet ending tales, but that
ours was to be a story written
with pain and blood. In these
days we cried. We thought of
home and saw our parents
shriveling away. We felt them
die. We knew they were dying.
Lord have mercy on them.
By the third ten days we had
begun to adapt. With cold
hearts, we teased ourselves.
‘You are his wife, I will be his
wife,’ we played. There was no
fighting here. Though we
wished to die and that death
would give us peace as it had
given some of our more
fortunate classmates, a
primordial instinct of survival
kept most of us from giving up.
Some of us cut ourselves,
attempting suicide. We
watched as their failed
attempts left them worse off
for it; their wounds treated
with what they had of
bandages and antibiotics and
new wounds made in their
backs with the cane, for trying
to take their lives. In these days
we had a new inkling of hope…
we had heard a rumor that the
Americans had come. We kept
looking to the skies, hopeful of
some stealth copters flying in
and some Navy Seals picking
out our captors and leading
what was left of us to freedom
– for whatever that would be
worth.
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By the fourth ten days, our
hopes of rescue dissipated into
the reality of our new chores. It
was a life of little food and
much work. This is not the type
of work we would like to write
about. Cooking and cleaning
for the camps was the best
part of it. At night, swallowing
tears, we warmed their beds.
We will never get used to this
life. This is not the kind of life
you wish on your worst
enemies. This was not what
many of us saved our virginity
for. This was not what our
parents taught us chastity for.
This was hell. Where was our
rescue? Does the world know
we are here? We hated the
world. We could not
understand why the world
would leave us here?
Something must have
happened. Have they forgotten
us? Perhaps a catastrophe had
wiped out all of humanity...
because we could just not
imagine how nothing had yet
happened to free us from this.
People could simply not just be
living their day-to-day lives in
Nigeria and across the world,
abandoning us schoolgirls to
this life with these beasts. All
we had was God. All we have
was God. We prayed God took
us to Him.
By the fifth ten days, we started
to smile. It was uncanny.
Something had started to
change. Was it resignation, or
perhaps desperation? Some of
us had not seen their periods.
Some of us had decided to
make the best of our situation,
of our series of sexual
partners. By these ten days, we
had accepted our fate. We
were going to make the best of
our new heartless lives. By this
time, some of us had made
alliances with our captors,
some of us had even set-up
others among us, elevating
themselves, getting less work
and stable partners while
working against others of us.
We understood. We lived with
beasts, this was a beasts’
world. We forgave them, we
forgave ourselves. We were no
longer chaste. We prayed. Yes,
we prayed. Every day we
prayed. While we worked,
while we served them, we had
found a way to resign to silent
corners within our hearts
where there was peace and
serenity. Rooms of prayer
within. There was solace in
those corners of us, and we
had developed a superhuman
ability to resign into these
peaceful corners at the same
time as we discussed, made
laughter, ate and were violated.
We had developed