A review of Yejide Kilanko’s Daughters who have walked this path.

Summary

Spirited and intelligent, Morayo grows up surrounded by school friends and family in busy, modern-day Ibadan, Nigeria. An adoring little sister, their traditional parents, and a host of aunties and cousins make Morayo’s home their own. So there’s nothing unusual about her charming but troubled cousin Bros T moving in with the family. At first Morayo and her sister are delighted, but in her innocence, nothing prepares Morayo for the shameful secret Bros T forces upon her.

Review

This novel follows the life of Morayo Ajayi whose life was cruelly altered when she was defiled by her cousin at a very young age. This book is more than the life of Morayo, it is a story most women can relate to. Yejide centres women in her stories, tells the story of each women and the essence of community and belonging.

I particularly love how Yejide managed to touch on important aspects of the lives of women and also talk about Albinism. Eniayo, Morayo’s sister was an ‘’afin’’, an ‘’albino’’.

While reading this book, I did not know that the heavy breathing and sound I was hearing was coming from me till I completed it.

In so many ways Morayo reminded me of 13 year old Nwabulu from Cheluchi’s Son of the House who was raped by her madam’s husband and could not speak about it. She also reminded me of Esi from Bisi Adjapong’s of Women and Frogs who had so many questions relating to love and sex but could not ask her step-mother or elder siblings for fear of being called a bad girl. Above all, Morayo reminded me of myself and many women out there whose voice have been muffled by shame.

And there is Auntie Morenike, Morayo’s cousin who provided Morayo with the support and community she needed to live through life without the shame, having been a victim of rape herself.

Morayo’s story is not foreign to me and women in general especially African women, it is one we are familiar with; the shame, the fear, the rape, the abuse , the silence. I do not know many women out there who have not been sexually harassed by men. So believe me when I say this book is very personal.

I was in uncontrollable tears by the time I finished reading because of the overwhelming sadness and heaviness it brought.

I felt Morayo’s pain as if it were my own. What am I saying? Of course Morayo’s pain is my own.

The threats from parents not to bring disgrace unto the family, the fear, the silence, the blame and the punishment. Morayo was barely 15 years when her own cousin started defiling her. First it was a brush here and a touch there, even at that age Morayo knew it was not proper behaviour but who was she to tell her mother. The same mother who dismissed her feelings with warnings and threats when she wanted to discuss the strange feelings, she was having for Kachi, her childhood friend.

It was nothing more than the shame and blame for Morayo and it was evident in how that incident changed her completely and led her unto a path she loathed so much but stayed because she hated herself.

All she wanted to do was scrub that shame off her, remove the blame, punish herself for her body responding to the act even though Auntie Morenike had already explained to her that her body’s reactions didn’t mean she wanted it. Regardless, she still blamed herself and saw herself as having failed her younger sister.

Even after she gathered the courage and informed her parents about it, they never spoke to her. They never hugged her or soothed her pain, she was even more depressed about the incident. She felt worthless and lifeless.

Morayo said she knew nobody wanted her, I mean who would want damaged goods.

That is exactly how I felt. Damaged and ruined. While reading this book my own shame kept whispering into my ears, “I told you, you are ruined. Nobody will want you, do you see Morayo “.

Even as I write this review, my body shakes and the voice in my head keeps reminding me that everyone will know how dirty I am. The shame will never leave me. It is not as if this incident was the first, but there was something about this incident that broke me.

Like Morayo, the evening I got home I went straight to the bathroom, I scrubbed myself, so hard I felt my skin sore but I didn’t care. The physical pain was nothing compared to the pain I felt when he held me unto the bed. It was nothing as compared to the feeling of being ruined. Clouded in shame.

I couldn’t speak about it, and the nightmares wouldn’t leave me. I will occasionally catch a whiff of his breathe here and there, his grunting and moans. Slowly I was shrinking into a person I did not recognize, my spirit was broken, she still is, I often wondered why me? Why women? Why did I have to carry this shame like a second skin. And everyday for a month after the incident, I would usually find myself whispering to myself ‘’I am ruined’’. I wasn’t 13 or 14 or 15. I was an adult who walked into the room by herself, who offered herself and lay there, mute and stunned while he took till I couldn’t take it anymore.

I constantly found myself asking, how can I wipe this shame of me?

For a while I tried convincing myself that it didn’t happen. I said oh I didn’t wait for him to have his fill before pushing him off me but then the burning pain reminded me that someone had been there, someone had taken from me and I felt the shame clothe me all over again.

For weeks I felt everyone knew what happened to me with the glances I was getting my way. I still carry the shame visibly like a hunchback.

We often blame ourselves for sexual abuse and harassment and rape and everything bad. No one listens nor believes us, only a few of us find a Morenike. In fact to ourselves we are both Morayos and Morenikes in one person. We are Morenikes to people who tell us their story and Morayos to ourselves.

Years later when Bros T returned and tried speaking to Morayo, I was so angry. He had moved on, had a family and thought everything was good and right in the world so came back to speak to Morayo. Somehow he thought the years had blurred the memories and healed the pain so he could just speak to her and then everything will be fine and they would start hugging and laughing again.

But it was only Bros T that moved on, Morayo never did even as a married woman, the trauma stayed with her, lived with her and in her, reminded her of the shame. Exactly how we are treated, discarded, our pains forgotten or even relegated to second place.

How dare Bros T apologise, how dare he follow her to her place of work and insist she be his personal banker. Some sins cannot be forgiven, the pain doesn’t just go away. The memories don’t just fade away, they remain there, triggered by appearances. We never really forget. Just because he, Bros T had moved on did not mean Morayo too had moved on. How do you move on from this, how do you move on from shame, from the cruel memories of force and threats. How do you do that?

The fact is that it never leaves us, the childhood touching and fondling, the almost rape incidents by people our families trusted, they never go away. Some nights when my demons visit with memories, I find myself reaching out for my phone and texting the man who took from me. I find myself sending messages like ‘’how do you sleep at night with the knowledge that you stole from me?’’ , ‘’how do you sleep at night, please teach me because the memory haunts me’’.

It never goes away, it didn’t go away, it is still there every time, that voice, whispering my shame to me, my unfortunate self. Telling me that I am worthless, damaged, ruined and just like Morayo said ‘’nobody would want me’’.

This book had me in stitches and left me an emotional mess. The themes border on traditions, community, love, rape, relationships, sisterhood, marriage. I particularly like the storytelling and intentional characters. The diction structure, written across 3 generations of strong women. Strong because they have had to live life strong or perish. The calm, the storm, the gentle but all of whom are warm.

The title aptly describes us, the victims, the Daughters who have walked this path, for so long we want to come home.