#BringBackOurGirls: 100 Days in captivity
By: Peregrino Brimah
2014-08-07 12:03
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 dual personalities. The beast with a
little piece of peace. It was during these ten
days that we realized we will never be the same
people again. It was these ten days that we
rather we were not rescued. These beasts did
not deserve to go home. There was nothing left
here to take home.
By the sixth ten days, we were angry. These
were the angry days. These were the bitter
days. By these ten days, something had
changed. We hated the world, we hated
ourselves. Some of us asked to be taken on
terror missions. Some of us wanted to go out
and kill. We had completely lost faith in
ourselves and in the world around us. Some of
us still had faith in God, but frankly, some of us
just did not any more. Our captors saw this in
us. They commented that we had become more
deadly than them. Our conversations were cold.
We laughed when they talked about their
campaigns of carnage. We discussed life with
them; we discussed their plans with them. We
discussed death with them.
The next ten days were the days of quiet. Were
we remorseful? Had we been acting-out earlier?
Things were spiraling. We were quite quiet.
Energy was gone. We hardly ate, we hardly
played. We hardly talked with one another.
Faces were heavy and long. We were not
getting anywhere. This life was full of pain. By
these seventh ten days, some of us had
confirmed we were pregnant. These were the
days when reality hit. These were the days
when we thought about the reality of birthing
for barbarians and the reality of death. Several
of us had died; we had come to know and be
friends-of-sorts with barbarians who had gone
out on missions and not come back alive. Life
suddenly seemed to be moving pretty fast.
These were the days when we aged. No longer
children, this unsolicited right-of-passage
transitioned us to adulthood. We would have to
be responsible. We were the mothers in these
camps; some of us were soon going to be
mothers anyhow. This was our new reality.
By the eighth ten days, we took charge. We
directed affairs and barked commands. The
camps listened. They knew by this time that we
were immune to their cane. They knew by this
time that we no longer feared death. We were
responsible women of the camp. We were the
mothers of the jungle. We worked together as
one family, but they were no longer the bosses
of us. They had come to respect us. We had
come to honor them duly. These men are
barbarians, but they were the only men in our
world. These men are barbarians, but the world
outside us had no men. None had come to
rescue us. We were in these same jungles of
Borno and none had come for us. The world
outside these camps seized to exist. What world
will leave its damsels in the jungles for 80
days? This was our life and we will make the
best or worst of it as we please.
By the ninth ten days, bellies could be seen
protruding with bulges of fetuses. There was
harmony in the camp. We had settled. We now
thought again of the world outside us. By the
ninth ten days, we spent a lot of time praying
for our parents. We spent a lot of time praying
for you. We felt empathy… no, pity actually for
you in the world outside. You see, our fate was
pretty simply laid out. We had done what we
could, considering our predicament. We had
been brave and fought the terrorists; some of
us were killed trying. We had negotiated with
them. Our destiny was determined, harsh, but
circumscribed. But how are you? How is your
world? Your world full of wickedness, corruption
and politics. How do you sleep at night? By
these ninth ten days, we wished not to return
to your wicked world – a world where you could
abandon your children in the forests with very
very bad men and were able to sleep at night,
able to go to work the next mooring, to eat,
drink, have sex, laugh and play, purchase
nonsenses: a world where you could do and did
nothing; a world where you could feel and felt
nothing; a world where you could choose and
chose nothing. You made these men. You made
this world. You created this terror and you left
it this way, afraid, unable or unwilling to do
anything about it. Boko Haram was your
reward. We felt empathy for you, who could live
with yourselves knowing what you had created
and that you failed for 90 days to come here
and fight or die fighting to rescue your children.
In these ten days we prayed for you and for
Boko Haram. We prayed for the world.
By the tenth ten days, we did the things normal
people do: we cooked, we tidied, we ate, we
slept, warmed beds and we prayed. We planned
our future, our next days, ten months and ten
years in these camps. We would want our lives
to be as comfortable as possible, so we have
to plan, hope you understand. Life was OK. We
prayed for our parents and friends and sent
word out to them to get rest; we are fine here.
They should take care of themselves, stay safe
and protect their health and the rest of the
family. ‘Do not kill yourselves worrying about
your daughters, we are fine.’ It all ends for you
and for us when death comes knocking, sooner
or later. Pray that when it does, you will be
pleased with the account of how you spent your
time here and what you did or did not do, and
pray that you will be admitted through the
Pearly gates. We wish you peace in your world.