The Housemaid

Episode 1

ADAEZE NARRATES…

Life has been unfair to me right from the start.
Born into a family of ten: 3boys and 5girls plus mum and dad, survival had been a struggle.
My father was a palm wine tapper and my mum was a petty trader who dealt in foodstuffs.

We lived in a remote village somewhere in the South-eastern part of Nigeria.
My father’s palm wine tapping didn’t earn him much and even after combining with the proceeds of my mum’s petty trading, my parents still couldn’t afford 3square meals to sustain the family.

I was the first child; followed by a male then females before the two last males.

I never went to school even for a day. None of us did.

Then disaster struck.
My father went for his usual palm wine tapping business and never came back.
On dispersal of a search party, it turned out that he fell from the palm tree and died on the spot.

This sudden death of my dad launched my family into more terrible hardship and my mum couldn’t cope.

Things grew worse after my dad’s burial and it became necessary for my mum to send us out to live with different people in the city.
At that time I was 15years old and my immediate younger brother was 13.
It was my late father’s sister that brought up the suggestion to my mother and my mother quickly bought the idea and soon had me introduced to my madam.
In a matter of days, the whole arrangement was concluded and I followed my madam back to the city of Enugu.

The first few days, I was treated well maybe because it was my first day of arrival.
I was shown around the house, taught how to use some of the appliances, I was also shown the little room that was to be my room and also the small mattress that was to be my mattress.

Then I settled in my new home with hope that things would move fine and my madam won’t have any reason to send me home prematurely…