A Fatherless Generation.....

The holiday is over and it’s time to face the New Year. Like most people, I am rearing to go but God has a strange way of detaining you especially when He has a message to pass across to you. I love to travel and many people have a thing against that. Sometimes I think it’s just plain jealousy and at other times I think it’s because they find it strange that one would waste money on a trip to nowhere. But in reality, every time I come back from such trips, there is always a lesson to be learnt. So traveling for me has become a way to discover some of God’s hidden secrets.

I spent my New Year holiday in the Eastern Cape; Port Elizabeth and a place called Alice to be precise. I enjoyed my time in PE, which by the way is a beautiful coastal city with cool breeze enough to make one feel like relocating. Then we went to Alice where we spent the rest of our holiday. While in Alice, I met this teenage boy with an improbable background. When he was a baby, the parents were poor and they abandoned him in the house. Left to die, he was discovered by an elderly lady two days after. Being very old and unable to take care of him, the gogo handed him over to her daughter to nurture. So this little boy grew up as the last child of this woman; my friend’s mother in-law. The intelligence of this young man is quite astounding. I learnt that he is also the best academically in his class.

One thing he said shocked me. We were driving down his street and we saw a guy probably in his early or mid twenties, sitting in the porch of his house smoking cigarette. The little boy said to us, “that is how people sit idle, thinking they are living while unfortunately life passes them by”. I was shocked because this boy is about fourteen or fifteen. On another occasion, wanting to engage his mind further, I asked him about HIV and its prevalence in a township like Alice. He said to me it was not too rampant but that there are certain spots that can be regarded as the epicenter of HIV in the township. He mentioned some shebeens and a pub in the town. Then when asked about the sexual lifestyles of young people around his age, he said some have sex but he knows that it’s just peer pressure and that they are stupid to fall for such a trick. I felt stupid myself. Stupid because I fell into the category of people he was referring to.

This interaction with this young man got me thinking about my first sexual encounter as a teenager. I was sixteen I think. I wish I knew what this young man knows at his age and I am almost very sure that I would have done things differently. I was already in boarding school then and came home on holidays. My friends started asking me if I had slept with a girl before and I said no. They all looked at me in amazement and made comments about me being naïve. They told me stories of their escapades and the need for me to do the same so that I could be considered as one of the big boys around. They even went as far as advising on which girl they knew I could lose my virginity to. I was told that all I had to do was invite her to my house for lunch but I was to make sure the lunch was served in the bedroom. She came and their plan worked. But what I was supposed to do with her, I had little or no idea. So your guess is as good as mine, it was over before it even started. So I lost my virginity; if men are still allowed to use that word, to a girl around the corner.

The feeling of guilt came rushing at me. I also later discovered that the girl in question had been around the block but because I was the last to sleep with her, I had the dubious honor of being called her boyfriend. I hated myself. In order not to be referred to as her boyfriend, I did everything possible to find another girl. And that cycle continued for a long time. If only I knew what this young boy knew at this age, I am sure that my life would have been less complicated. If only I had a father to guide me. If only I had a father that I could have turned to for directions. I did have a father, but one that I was too scared of to turn to for wisdom. Like the average African father, my father loved me but in ways that his strength would not allow him to show.

(To be Contd.)

Together, we can achieve more. Cheers