The pearl writes...

Hello, I'm Franny.  A French citizen but not from France. I am from two small French Islands close to Madagascar. I was born on an island where the population is 90% Muslim, and 10% is mostly foreigners. My dad is from this island and he is Muslim but he is of French and African descent. My mom is from the other Island where all religions are celebrated and Christians can be invited to join the Eï d dinner or the Kamoul banquet. She is catholic, she went to my dad's island for a work opportunity and she lived there longer than me. They had me and broke up when I was 2years old because he was not mature enough to be a dad. He didn't really understand what my mother was expecting from him, you see my dad has 17 siblings because his dad was polygamous and his understanding of being a father is way different than my mom's because of their different backgrounds. I was raised by my mom and I used to visit my dad and his family although this was to change w hen I was 8 years ...

Maybe as you were reading through the first parts of this story you were beginning to feel drowsy because of the pity party tone assumed by the writer. Feel not condemned because that is actually how I felt often. In my teenagehood and during my campus life, I had identified a father figure. I considered him as a father. He catered for part of my high school education and opened his doors for me. I had come so close to experiencing a functional family. Then life happened! (For the sake of this story I will gloss over the details of what really happened and maybe, later on, I will give you the full account). The thing with looking up to someone so much and letting them assume a role of importance in your life is that when they hurt you, they really hurt you! I was familiar with the verse that the power of life and death lies in the tongue but never had I actually experienced the fullness of this power yet; at least the negative side of it. My father figure would one day say very hurtfu...

Well, it was until my mum got born again and we joined a certain local church. Suddenly the scales on my eyes started falling off. I started noticing other families, functional families with both parents present. Once a friend asked me, “Why doesn’t your dad come to church with you?”. I was a child, in primary school but I suddenly felt ashamed. I had never had to confront my reality before. I had actually never thought of him as a necessity in my life. It had never bothered me that I ‘had no father’. Without a second thought I responded, “he died in a plane crash…” then went on and on about how small I was to actually feel the pain of losing him when my friend ashamedly muttered a “‘sorry, I didn’t know.” I was a child but I had finally found an escape in death. Escape from the shame of being from a single-family. I was too young and too naïve to think that one can easily escape their reality. Growing older would make me realise how deceived I was! I dreaded particularly moments whe...

I do not understand how someone you have never met can affect your life so much. Someone who is a complete stranger. I mean, it makes sense to say that you bumped into someone and you cannot stop thinking about them, but to say you cannot stop thinking of a stranger, someone you have never met, someone whose name you do not know, then that’s absurd. But it’s actually not. Especially when this person is the reason for your existence. You know that he is a real person because you are a real person but that’s as far as it goes. That’s a reality you have to deal with every day and being the only reality that you have known from your childhood then it’s not such a hard reality to believe. It becomes a part of you. It’s normal. Or is it? It is  21 st June, another one of those mornings you wake up and every social media platform is full of pictures of a hero: everyone hailing their father for being a king, a provider, an awesome person…another one of those mornings you wake up and won...