28/10/2024
ALICE'S SILENT TEARS
In a small, dusty village called Namutondo, in Chief Libumbu’s land of Mongu, there lives a young girl named Alice Siteba. At just eleven, Alice had already known happiness and security, living a peaceful life with her parents, who, though not rich, were well-to-do and made sure she was comfortable. Her father and mother provided for her and ensured she had what she needed, even if everything they owned was a bit old. She found joy in her little life, surrounded by love and simplicity.
But that peace shattered one evening, as her parents had a fight—a storm of words that Alice, in her young heart, couldn’t fully understand. She hid in her room as the angry voices filled their small home, pressing her hands over her ears to block out the hurtful words. But there was one sentence she couldn't escape: her mother, in a moment of anger, told her father that Alice wasn’t his child.
That one sentence set off a terrible chain of events. Hurt and furious, Alice’s father filed for divorce. The man who had always been her rock was suddenly slipping away from her life, and there was nothing Alice could do to stop it.
Just as Alice was grappling with the pain of her family tearing apart, tragedy struck again. Her father was traveling to Solwezi when a terrible accident occurred along the Solwezi-Chingola road. Fourteen people lost their lives that evening, and her father was one of them. Alice didn’t know how to process the news. The very man who had carried her on his shoulders, who had given her piggyback rides around their small yard, was suddenly gone forever. She clung to memories, but they were like sand slipping through her fingers.
As if this wasn’t enough, a year later, Alice lost her mother too. Her mother’s heart had seemed to break into pieces after the loss of her husband, guilt and sadness swallowing her whole until she became just a ghost of the woman Alice once knew. Her passing left Alice an orphan, too young to face the world alone, ye
