Ara

I’ve walked up the same steps every day but what is the difference today? Is it the feeling of emptiness in my stomach, the guilt of utter ugliness that the world sees in me? I am Ara short for Arafa. To my class mates I am a ghost, unseen, yet they torment me with their stares. They don’t know the old wounds that they are opening up. I am 4 foot 1, with short curly hair; I am disgusted by my face. Scars ran down my face marked by an invisible creature that subdued me into its world. Forcing me to join its side filled with darkness.
“Arafa, what is the answer”, I stared at her, “Can.you.understand. me?” she asked. I am ashamed by her ignorance. Who does she think I am? She makes me feel as if I am uneducated. This is my first year in South Africa; I came from a small village in Shikunga, far northwest of Nairobi in Kenya, my family fled from the poverty. My country dying, my ancestors graves hid within the ground filled with her history, we had to adapt to the westernization of the new nation. Everyone different, they are unwelcoming; we are known to them as the “rotten ones”, that is what I have been told. We are the ones that are rotting their soil, ruining their blood, polluting their air, stealing their jobs, fucking their sisters.
“I do not think she understands”, I heard a girl sitting behind me say. The entire class filled with laughter. “These Kenyans” I heard one whisper to another. Tears filled my eyes, I can not let them win I told myself, air rushed quickly into my nostrils. I closed my eyes,heard the waves gush harshly onto the rocks, entered my world...reality hit. Empty tables and chairs stood lifeless. They are gone, but it’s not over.