Family Tales

Craig Adderley

When my father was still alive, he was a man of honor and a man who people always love being around. He had his first wife who happened to be the mother of his first son, my elder brother. My dad was a businessman who always moved from one town to the other and from one village to the other. He never stops toiling around the four corners of each town he gets to. This made everyone love him and got to know him to the fullest. No one around the four corners does not speak well of him.

He has one habit that everyone knows about. He loved women. Get me right, he was a humanizer. Being the type who loved moving around villages and towns just to sell his product, he also got women in each of the villages he got to. Women were not his problem because he had enough money to cater to them.

He got married to my mum with pride, that is he paid her bride price. It was not a joke but a reality. He also paid the bride price of the first wife. He got to another village and married another woman. He did not pay her bride price but just brought her to the house. After some months, she got pregnant and gave birth to a boy. His boy became the third child. We were now three boys.

The first wife gave birth to a boy before he got married to the third wife.

After some years, my.

Dad again brought in another woman who he later married, making a total of four women. What a great man like my dad. He was a fighter for women. The fourth wife gave birth to a girl, making a total of five children.

After some years of marrying four wives, he married again the fifth woman. The fifth wife gave birth to a boy. We were now five boys and a girl.

He got married to his sixth wife and had a girl, making a total of seven children.

My dad had altogether nine children (three girls and six able men). He had some farmlands which he left for us but one way or the other was kept by the last wife. The last wife was his favorite and he always treated her just like a queen leaving others behind.

My dad also had a chemist's shop but one way or the other got exhausted from drugs. This means we got nothing left.

The only land we were aware of was again taken by the last wife as she said my dad had given her the land.

We got enough lands as inherited lands and we have not sat as a family to go round the lands.

My dad left us with clothes which according to culture must be shared. This is one of the things we inherited from my dad. All the children sat as one good family and in the end shared the properties of my late dad. Everyone was so happy taking part in the leftovers my dad had.

The last woman must be married out to either one of the children or one of the family members. We were all gathered as one great family and the eldest in my family asked all of us, the children, the one who wants to have the last wife as his wife, but no one agreed. After all that has been said and done, no child agreed to have her as his wife, and then she was asked to choose out of the family members which she did choose. She was later given to the man she liked.

It is good to be good…..