My Boy Child

This is a story based on the life of an everyday boy child, not raised in a loving and caring home. Whose life is in shackles and whose future was painted grey from birth through to an adulthood that hopes for a brighter and better future.

The boy child of the 21st century is faced with tremendous challenges. And unless properly guarded will be lost to society. All children are future leaders of tomorrow and guardians of the future, and the first aim of every family, and society, should be to raise healthy and productive individuals who are physically, psychologically, socially and mentally well developed.

This can be achieved through guidance and the education of the boy child who is the father of tomorrow. The negligence of issues affecting the boy-child is apparent and evident in most discourse and academic literature.

Access to education lies at the heart of development. Lack of educational access and securely acquired knowledge and skills are both a part of the definition of poverty and a means for diminution.

Quality education is influenced by several factors which include access to education, retention rates, dropout rates and adequacy of instructional resources (World Bank, 2005). The lack of access to secondary education is increasingly seen to constrain countries’ abilities to pursue effective growth and development strategies which are leading governments.

My life began at conception, my mother was impregnated by a man I never got to know and she gave birth to me on 12 December 1988 at the Windhoek State Hospital. She was very young when I was born and did not give me attention as she was going about her life.

My name is Khoetage (the name means ‘I am a person’). I am the third and only boy child amongst five children. I was born to a single mother and do not know where my father is, my two younger sisters share the same father but the rest of us have different fathers.

I grew up in a shack, playing soccer in the dusty streets of Katutura. Life was very unfair to me as most of us would say when things do not go well for us, because I did not have the childhood a normal child has. Not that I was abnormal but I did not have toys to play with, books to read or a television to watch. I had no adventurous life and had to make it fun and adventurous myself by playing with old and used tyres, getting trollies from shops and riding them on dangerous roads.

At home, my family struggled in poverty. My mother fought with the men she dated, her discipline of her children was physical and brutal. Her relationships struggled, and I began running away from home at nine years old.

In school I was called ‘incorrigible’, and was summoned many times to the principal’s office, a discipline problem. My mother was not home most of the time as she would go to work and only come home late at night. Then she would go drinking after work and there was no adult to shepherd us as my older sisters were too young to look after me and my other siblings.

The situation at home forced me to go out on the streets to make ends meet for my sisters and I. I would bunk school and zula ( look for money and food on the streets). Life was harsh out there but I had no choice. That is where I became more violent and the criminal activities started. I was faced with tremendous challenges and society lost me along the way.

There was no one to give me guidance and support and I had to struggle through school. I would have felt safer if there was someone to guide me while I was experimenting with my independence. As bright as I was with few to no resources, I was able to get to Grade 10 where my education ended and the streets called my name.

I became involved in drug trafficking, burglary, and robbery. My life was doomed and I, unfortunately, ended up in prison. Life in prison was hell and coming from a poor home there was no one to bail me out when I was sentenced, and I had to serve my punishment in prison.

Fransiska Isaacks is an aspiring fiction and short story writer. You can contact her at shereenisaacks@yahoo.com.

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