Chapter Six: Learning Fear, Learning Strength

The cycles of rain and drought did not teach gently. 
They taught early.

The cycles of rain and drought did not teach gently. They taught early. As a child in Kibogoji, fear did not arrive all at once. It grew slowly, season after season, the way cracks spread across dry ground. At first, it was small—watching the sky too closely, listening to elders talk about clouds that never came, noticing how voices changed when rain delayed itself. Fear lived in questions no one answered.

Will the rains come? 
Will the food last?

When drought settled in, fear learned how to stay. It moved into the body. You felt it when your stomach tightened before evening. You felt it when adults measured flour with care, when portions became smaller without explanation. You learned quickly that asking for more was dangerous—not because you would be punished, but because there was no more to give.

Hunger sharpened awareness.

You noticed everything. The sound of cooking pots—whether they rang loudly or sat quietly. The smell of food—whether it drifted far or stayed close. The way adults ate last, pretending they were not hungry. The way children were sent to sleep early so hunger would not have time to speak.

Fear made me cautious. 
Resilience made me resourceful.

I learned to read seasons before I could read words. The shape of clouds. The direction of wind. The way insects behaved before rain. I learned which fruits survived drought and which disappeared first. I learned how to stretch one meal across a whole day, how to drink water slowly so it felt like eating.

In drought years, play changed. Laughter became careful. Games shortened. Energy was guarded. We still ran, still played, but not recklessly. Every movement carried calculation. Childhood learned restraint.

But something else grew alongside fear.

Endurance.

You learned that a day without food did not end you. That sleep could come even with an empty stomach. That morning would arrive whether you were ready or not. You learned to wake up and walk anyway—to fetch water, to clear land, to follow instructions without complaint.

Fear taught me humility. 
Resilience taught me dignity.

I learned not to measure myself by what I owned, because ownership disappeared with drought. I learned not to depend on certainty, because certainty was seasonal. Instead, I learned to depend on people—on shared silence, shared labor, shared survival.

Adults did not explain resilience. They demonstrated it.

They worked fields even when the soil refused to answer. They shared food even when it hurt to do so. They made decisions slowly, carefully, knowing mistakes in hard years cost more. Watching them, I understood that strength was not loud. It was steady.

The cycles carved patience into me. 
They carved caution. 
They carved resolve.

Rain years taught me joy. 
Drought years taught me discipline.

Together, they shaped something lasting. A quiet toughness. An understanding that comfort is temporary, but survival is learned. That fear does not disappear—it becomes a companion you manage, not an enemy you defeat.

As a child, I did not have language for these lessons. 
But my body remembered them.

Even now, long after leaving Kibogoji, I still listen for the signs. I still respect seasons. I still know, deep inside, that abundance can leave without warning—and that when it does, you endure.

That is what Kibogoji carved into me.

Not despair. 
Not bitterness.

But the knowledge that I could survive hunger, fear, and uncertainty—and still wake up ready to live.

And that knowledge, once learned, never leaves you.

When rain did not come, the villagers went to the witch doctors to pray for rain. The witch doctors knew everything- from bringing rain to treating all human illness.

The worst drought came later. 
1983 to 1984.

By then, I was no longer new to Kibogoji. I understood its rhythms. I knew how to wait for rain and how to endure when it delayed. But those years were different. The rain did not simply arrive late—it almost did not arrive at all.

The land dried completely.

Rivers vanished into memory. Wells sank deeper and gave back less. Trees shed leaves early, as if conserving themselves. The earth hardened until even a hoe struggled to break it open. Fields stood empty, exposed, humiliated by the sun.

There was nothing to harvest. 
Nothing to sell. 
Nothing to exchange.

The village tightened.

Meals disappeared quietly. Once a day became rare. Some days, there was nothing but water. Children learned to sit still to preserve strength. Adults stopped pretending things would improve soon. Hope became cautious.

That was when people went again—more urgently—to the witch doctors.

This time, it was not ritual alone. It was desperation.

Prayers for rain multiplied. Sacrifices increased. Drums sounded longer into the night. The witch doctors spoke with authority, naming causes invisible to ordinary people—offenses committed, taboos broken, spirits angered. The drought was not just weather. It was punishment, imbalance, warning.

As a child, this drought carved fear deeper than hunger ever could.

Hunger could be endured. 
Uncertainty could not.

Every morning, I looked at the sky first. Every night, I listened for rain that never came. Sleep was shallow. Dreams were dry. The land that once felt demanding now felt threatening.

Yet even then, resilience took root.

People shared what little they had. Families combined meals. Children were fed first when possible. No one survived alone. That was not allowed. Survival became collective, enforced not by rule but by necessity.

I learned that strength does not look heroic during drought. 
It looks quiet. 
It looks tired. 
It looks like waking up anyway.

The 1983–84 drought stripped Kibogoji to its bones. It exposed fear, belief, endurance, and the thin line between faith and despair. And it left its mark on me.

Long after the rains finally returned, something in me stayed alert.

I never fully trusted abundance again. 
I learned that hunger can return without warning. 
That land can turn away. 
That survival is never guaranteed.

But I also learned this:

If you can live through hunger in Kibogoji, 
if you can sleep through empty nights and still rise, 
then fear no longer owns you.

It walks beside you—but it does not stop you.

That drought finished carving what the earlier seasons had begun. 
It left me cautious. 
It left me durable.

And it left me prepared for a world that would, again and again, demand endurance.