Sunburn

The dry, sun-baked, ground reverberated beneath my feet. I sat down in the shade of acacia tree: it's huge canopy giving me little protection from the sun. The going was hard for a girl like me. I had too much at stake to have to leave my family to go to work but on the other hand we needed some money. A mosquito buzzed around in front of me and settled on the bare skin of my cheek. My hand raised to my face. My skin was peeling in the immense heat showing the raw red skin that reminded me so much of my mother's hair. My own hair was black like that of my brothers and it fell down my forehead in waves with curled ends as if to add to it's appearance. Me and my mother shared many features. Our curly hair was one of them. Although mine was jet black and hers the colour of the sun they were similar by comparison. “Amali, Amali!” my brother cried, breaking me away from my thoughts. I got up from the mud step I was sitting on. My makeshift skirt was stiflingly hot in the scorching African sun. “What is it?” I called back walking slowly over to him. He was dressed in rags like most of the other children in the area and had his long black hair tied back with a length of cloth that he had torn from his shorts. “Mum is getting worse!” he sobbed “We need to go and get a doctor.” I looked at him in despair. This news struck terror in my heart. Our mother had been ill for two weeks now and every minute had turned into an hour as I sat next to her as she was confined to her bed. Not a bed as you know it but an old blanket covered in holes layed crudely on the ground. That was were she was now. My brother had been tending to her as I sat in the sun. Me and Bakari had thought long and hard on what to do if our mother,Chiwa, got worse. In the end we had settled on one thing. To pay for a doctor. We still had some money from when our mother had worked as a seamstress for an American company. The pay was poor but it was a high income for our family. Counting the money was a difficult matter for me as I had never been to school so my brother, Bakari, counted it. He had been to school a long time ago. Back when we slept in comfy beds, in a house that had air conditioning, and when we took food and money for granted. Before our Father died. Mother had since lost her job. So we had no money and we lost the house. We were forced to live on the streets without such luxury’s as shelter while the rats bit our toes and nibbled our food and thieves ran away with our blankets. The only money we had left which provided us with something to eat each day was about to be used to save our mother. And I was going to have to make the eight mile journey to the nearest town to get the medication.

It was a journey unlike any other. It was fifty degrees during the day and although my dark skin acted as a natural sun repellent it didn't stop me experiencing the excruciating pain as it started to crackle and burn in the mid-day heat. The walk would also have to be made barefoot as I had no shoes so my feet would blister and ache with every step I took. We had no fresh running water so the only liquid I would have with me would be from a puddle of dirty water at the back of our shelter that hadn't yet dried up.