Adventures of Kiara & Lania- No.1

An African Spirit saved my life.


It was the beginning of September and Kiara was sitting on a rock watching her parents trying to communicate to a recently found village called the “Nkonsos”. Kiaras younger sister was sitting beside her teasing a hopeless lizard that was trying to escape Lanias fingers. It was a very hot day and the villages had started worrying because it was a bad sign for very hot weather to come so early and for it to start before October, which meant there was a possibility for Zambia to have a draught.


Africa was very different to many places. It was beautiful. Though it was always hot and dry the villages from Africa always were happy when the slightest bit of rain fell to their ground. The slightest bit of rain meant a lot of things to Africa. It meant there would be a possibility of a good season of rain to water their crops, so many children and adults would get fed and many people would be happy. It also meant wild life would be able to feed as well and to also live a life many wished they could live. You see Africa was very different because it had a very easy way of living. It had the beauty of cultures and the beauty of wild life.

Kiara and her sister Lania had lived in Africa their whole lives. Their parents Clive and Lilly fell in love with each other in college, in England. They got married and decided to travel the world. They did and as soon as they set foot in Africa they immediately fell in love with everything about it. While they were in Africa for a while they decide to take up their careers they had been planning.

My mother was a photographer and an artist and took every opportunity she could to capture Africa in the spotlight. My father trying to open a lodge and show other people (and also to remind himself) the memories and beauties of Africa. Since we had recently started travelling Zambia my father decided that he wanted to start his Lodge here. My mother gave birth to me in Botswana and gave birth to Lania in Egypt. Lania and I have been home schooled our whole lives. I’m fourteen and Lania is twelve. Our mother gave birth to us at a very young age. She was twenty when she had me and my father was twenty-five.

The reason why I’m telling you this is because I want to share my life-story to share what really did happen to me in one of my adventures.

Back to the beginning, I was sitting on the rock while Lania was playing with the lizard. My father was talking to the chief of the village “Nkonsos”. We had only discovered the village yesterday while we were driving through the plains. The village appeared to be very traditional and welcomed us with open arms. They allowed us to sleep in the chief’s hut while the chief insisted to sleep under the stars because him and a few of his eighteen sons were hunting for lions.

I looked up to my parents, my mother had a horrified expression on and the chief was talking very fast, my dad was staring at the ground with his index finger stroking his chin, he had the look I had grown to know. It was his look of deep thought and stress. This was a very bad sign.

Our faithful servant whose name was Mbele was translating the language the chief was speaking into English. Mbele had been with us for as long as I can remember. He was about thirty now and travelled with my parents to help them around Africa. I had known him all my life and to us he was like family. He was born in Uganda and was a chief’s son. The chief gave Mbele to my parents to protect them and to guide them around Africa.

“He says the lions are getting very protective and are circling the village. It is mating season and they chose the water hole which is about two kilometres from here.” Said Mbele as he pointed to the east side of the village. The chief continued to talk in his language, which was called Bemba. Mbele was listening with concentration.

“He says a lioness came to the village last night and killed one of the goats, but next time they will kill something more worth it’s while.” Said Mbele. The chief started pointing around him and started talking even faster and with a lot of panic in his voice.
“The villages are very frightened and are thinking of moving.” Said Mbele.
“Ask him how long until they start moving.” Said my dad. Mbele started to talk in Bemba to the chief and the chief replied.
“He doesn’t know but if the pride comes to the village again, which he thinks they will then the villages will be moving in a couple of days.” Said Mbele. My mother looked at my dad.
“Clive, its dangerous here, the girls.” She said and my mother and father looked at Lania and I. Lania hadn’t heard any part of the conversation and started to lie on the rock getting ready to tan. We were both very brown from the sun and we both had long brown hair with big hazel eyes. We mostly took after our mother because our father had dirty blond hair with dark blue eyes.

“Okay, we’ll risk the stay one more night maybe two.” Clive said.
“But what about the pontoon?” Mbele asked. “It may not travel until the rainy season has began, the water level is too low.”
“Oh, Clive what now?” said Lilly.
“Lilly, look we will stay tonight. Tomorrow Mbele and I will drive down to the pontoon and see if it’s travelling.” He said. My mother stepped closer to my dad, she whispered very softly but I could still hear her and Lania decided to listen too.
“Clive if something happened to the girls!” she whispered loudly.
“Nothing is going to happen to us, alright?” He said back and my mother walked back to our huts.
“Kiara, Lania! Bath now!” she said as we both ran hurriedly after her.


It was about six o’clock and the sun had already set. Lania and I had bathed and we were sitting around the village fire waiting for the ceremonial dinner. My father was trying to communicate with the chief and my mother was talking to Mbele. Lania and I always didn’t know what to do. We couldn’t speak to anyone but each other; it was always irritating when we couldn’t understand the language they were communicating in.
I looked towards a small hut; a lady was emerging from it carrying a basket of fruit on her head. She stopped and looked straight at me her face seemed haunted and her eyes looked as if they lost all colour and then she waved at me, she looked away and walked into the darkness of the bush.

“Did you see that lady with the fruit?” I asked Lania.
“No where did she come from?”
“That small hut there.” I said and pointed to the hut.
“Dad what’s in that hut?” asked Lania as she pointed to the small hut.
“It’s the village cellar, they keep their food there to protect it from the wild animals.” He said.

Lania started to play with her lighter, it was pink and she always carried it around with her everywhere. I watched her light the flame and then put it out over and over again. It was always fascinating to watch a flame; you could watch it for hours.

Finally after the meal it was time to go to bed. Their parents decide to stay up for a couple of hours while Lania and I went back to the chief’s hut.

We climbed into our bed. It was a soft double mattress on the floor that we had to share. I hated sleeping with Lania; she always stole the blankets and used to kick a lot in her sleep. We kicked the blankets off because it was too hot to sleep with them on. I lay awake awhile, there was a soft cool breeze and although the water hole was quite a distance away I could easily hear the croaks of the frogs. They sounded as if they were right by my ear. I started thinking about the conversation that afternoon about the pride of lions. They weren’t far from here. In fact they were the exact same difference away as the frogs. My eyes kept on looking towards the entrance of the hut. There was no door so it would be easier for a lion to sneak into the room, but the chief had a villager outside the hut. He was ordered to look after the hut.

My eyes started to feel heavy and in no time I fell into a dream, I could still hear the calm drum beats from the villages and all of a sudden I heard screams and running, I heard roars and then someone shaking me woke me up.

“Kiara! Kiara!” It was Lania, she was leaning over me and started to pull me to my feet I had heard a roar. It was so fierce and commanding. I didn’t have to click to realise what was going on. The roar had belonged to a lion and the lions were no longer by the water hole, they were in the village. Our village. I allowed Lania to pull me up and then grabbed her hand. We snuck towards the entrance and glanced outside.

A scream filled our ears followed by a cry for help. There were villages running about, a few huts had caught a blaze. It was very dark and the golden light from the fire was illuminating the corners of huts and the outlines of trees and shadows. The shadows belonged to villages and to lions. A lioness was on the rooftop of the opposite hut she had something gripped in her mouth, it looked like a lamb or a small goat.

“Kiara, what do we do?” Asked Lania. The grip of her hand was very tight but the worse feeling in the world was the exact question she had asked me. What do we do? Where were our parents? They could be in danger. The guard was no longer by the hut; it was just Lania and I.
“Take a deep breath Lania and calm down, Do you hear me? We can’t panic it’s the worse thing to do!” She started crying so I firmly grabbed her by the shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. Her face was half in shadow and the rest was lit by the colour of the flames.
“We can’t stay here, that fire is burning quickly!” I said and let go of her shoulders.
“But Kiara, the lions!”
“Wait, at dinner that lady with the fruit, she came from beneath that hut, didn’t she?” Kiara asked as she pointed to a small hut a distance away.
“Yes, dad said that they keep a cellar there for all the food.” Lania said.
“Lania, we have to go there!”
“No! We should find mom and dad!” she said stamping her foot.
“Lania, mom and dad could be in trouble, we have to save ourselves and the cellar is the only place we can hide where the lions won’t find us!” Lania had started to cry.

“Kiara, look! That child!” in between her sobs she had pointed to a little village child. The little girl was no older then four years old and was crouched down hiding behind a small bush. She was crying and hugging herself.
“Come on, if you see anymore children tell me, we’ll take as many people as we can!” Kiara pulled Lania towards the little girl. I looked at both sides waiting for any four-legged shadows to pounce out at us.

Thankfully we reached the little girl without having to meet any. She immediately held out her arms towards us and Lania rushed towards her and picked her up. I looked behind us at the small hut with the cellar in it. It stood alone and was dark and gave the impression of coldness, people were shouting all around us and there was still the continued cry for help. Then I felt something soft brush against my leg.

“Ahhh!” I screamed and ran towards Lania, “Lion!”
Lania stopped me.
“Calm down Kiara.” I turned around; it was only a small baby goat. It was scared and was shaking. It still had the string that was used to tie it up around its neck. There was another roar that filled our ears. I didn’t need to think twice, so I grabbed Lanias hand and the string of the goat and started to run towards the cellar. As we reached it I opened the small door on the floor and pulled the goat towards it.
“Lania where’s your lighter?” she pulled the small pink lighter out of her pyjama pocket and gave it to me. I ripped a piece of material from my pyjamas and tied it around a stick, and then I lit it.

“ Kiara, there’s children in that hut!” she screamed. I turned around and saw children in the hut that was on fire.
“Lania, get inside and don’t come out for anything! I promise I’ll come back!” I gave the burning material to Lania and waited for her and the little girl to get inside with the goat following.

After I closed the door I ran towards the hut. There was a woman holding a baby boy. I recognized her to be the lady with the fruit that was at dinner she had the same haunted face and the same colourless eyes. She was standing at the window holding her baby out towards me; the rest of her house was trapped with flames. I held my breath and took the baby, then I held my free hand out towards her but the hay thatching of the roof gave way. I tried to grab her hand but she pushed the baby and I away and we fell on the hard floor. When I looked up the roof had fallen over the window and I couldn’t see her at all, I didn’t think she survived because now the whole hut was on fire. If she hadn’t of pushed me away then I would have been beneath the burning roof. I heard another roar and gasped, my lungs were clogged up with smoke and my eyes became blurry, I could hardly see. I tried to get up to my feet but my head felt drowsy and my whole body felt like it weighed a ton. I held the baby tighter and wrapped the cloth he was wrapped up in over his head, the image of the burning hut was spinning and I felt like all the energy that I had in me was gone. I couldn’t move and just lay on the ground feeling lifeless.

The next thing I knew I was being pulled up from the ground I felt wetness and as I opened my eyes I saw Lania throw another bucket of water over me. She picked up the baby and then pulled me up and put my arm around her shoulder. She carried the baby and me towards the cellar and as soon as she opened the door she dropped me on the floor of hay and closed the cellar door.

“Kiara! Here drink this!” I allowed her to feed me some type of disgusting liquid. It was potato water, a type of drink used by the villages as medicine to wake up the unconscious. I felt weak but recovered and could smell the difference in the air; it not longer smelt of smoke.

“Thank you for not listening to me!” I said she started to put water on the baby’s face. The baby was fine, and showed no trouble of breathing.
“What do you mean?”
“I told you not to leave the cellar for anything but you did! If you did listen to me then I don’t know how I would of survived!” I said and she hugged me. The little girl was asleep and the goat was lying beside her. I was exhausted and after a while I soon fell asleep. When I woke up it was morning, I looked around and everyone was still asleep. I woke up Lania. She picked up the little girl and I held the baby and pulled the string of the goat. We all climbed out the cellar hole and walked outside.


Our eyes squinted as the brightness of the sun beat against our eyes. The sky was a clear blue and the village was clearer to distinguished, many huts had burnt down and smoke was rising from them. Amongst the burnt huts was the chief’s hut. I looked at Lania we both had tears in our eyes. Villages were still putting out the dying down fires with buckets of water.
The villages had started to notice we were there and started shouting towards the centre of the village. A lady ran up to us and took the baby boy out of my arms and then took the little girl out of Lanias arms. The goat tugged free and ran towards the remains of a vegetable garden. But then Lania started running ahead and I saw whom she was running to.

“Kiara, Lania!” My parents were running towards us and I started to run towards them.
As I felt my father in my arms I didn’t want to let go!
“Where were you girls, we thought you burnt down in the chiefs hut?” my father said and kissed me.
“Kiara took us to hide in the cellar.” Lania said and pointed to the direction of the small hut.
“What do you mean we?” My mom asked.
“The two children Kiara saved, Mom Kiara saved their lives!”
“But Lania saved mine!” I said, “Where were you two?”
“The lions had your father and I cornered in that hut over there, Mbele saved our lives he risked his own for ours.” My father said.
“And the lions?” I asked.
“ The pride left the water hole and are heading east.” The chief had joined us followed by Mbele.
“Glad to see you are the little heroines, the lady over there thanks you for saving her baby Kiara.” Said Mbele.
“Her baby? But it’s not hers it’s the fruit ladies baby that was at the ceremony last night, she died in the fire she gave the baby to me to save.” I said confused.
I turned to see where the baby was; the lady that had taken her from me was hugging the baby tightly. Mbele was speaking to the chief very quickly but the chief was shaking his head and looking at the ground.

“The chief says that the lady you saw was no fruit lady, it was his first wife, Naleen that had died in a fire years ago.” Said Mbele, “He says many have seen her ghost and she died in that very hut you saved the baby from.”
“But she saved my life.” I said and the chief smiled and walked away.
“Wow, saved by a ghost!” Said Lania but I couldn’t speak I was too confused. I was just happy I survived.

Every time I remember the lady I don’t think of her as a ghost I think of her as a spirit, a spirit that saved my life from the roof giving way and for her bringing my attention to that little hut, that little hut that had a cellar. A cellar that saved me and my sisters life one day.


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Thanks
Milkyway