Bob Danierla - Habiba, My Habiba - Exclusive Excerpt

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Habiba, My Habiba by  Bob Danierla

Habiba, My Habiba is set against the horror of the AIDS epidemic in Africa. This is a personalized account of a young man who set out to earn money in a distant city in order to get married.

But in due course he is distracted from his efforts to earn money and takes up with several loose women.

He falls in love with one of them, who has a heart-rending story of her own to tell. These star-crossed lovers, finally having found each other, come face to face with a bleak future exasperated by their lack of money or resources.

Even as they struggle with the practical problems of trying to earn a decent living, and traveling to another country for work, they are faced with the ultimate problem, AIDS, which they called simply “the syndrome.”

It is a tragic Romeo and Juliet story with a modern twist that focuses on this modern scourge.

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Exclusive Excerpt


Dear Janie,

How can I ever forget how it was then, when we parted? That was about seven years ago. You can visualize how much has changed since then. You cannot quite place me Janie if I tell you I have lived in the world in just seven years. Now I have the courage to remember you are at home expecting me back any day. But then what is the use now, Janie, what really is the use?

Can you remember it was a Saturday night breaking in to the Sunday of that November 86? I can't remember what exact date it really was, Janie, but I am quite sure you would have reminded me had I been talking directly now to you. I can remember the cold night air that blew our faces as we talked. How hard I struggled to inform you how I felt about you, as the deafening high life music thundered behind us in the village beer parlor. I remember too it took you a whole five minutes to understand what my lips quivered to express in the cold night. I can as well remember distinctly your soft, voice propose we take a walk down River-bank, in the mist of the sleeping River-bank settlement and the boisterous river creatures, whose noise was, as rowdy as the drunken beer parlor gramophone. Then as we approached the soft sandy beach, I felt you hold me unexpectedly and brought me nearer to you. Our lips met and you devoured them with a hunger that amazed me, quenching your thirst with the drawling juice that streamed from my mouth. Lord, how my heartbeat amplified and my body so young trembled in trepidation, for that which lay further on.

Suddenly we were hot and panting like dogs in a hot mating season. How knowledgeably you played your tongue in my mouth. You were only seventeen then, Janie, you were just a child, yet a wholly blossomed woman. To envisage I was only twenty-one then, Holy Jesus! But then that was all the intimacy we ever had. It was only two months later that we agreed to get married. Then out of the blue the curse came upon our village. Do you still bear in mind that Sunday afternoon, we saw uncle Jerry tumble out of that prostitute's window? The one who was married to brother Jethro your elder brother? I can recollect she was called Angela. I remember you gripping my arm and exclaiming animatedly, "What treachery, Ferdi! What treachery. How come Uncle Jerry is coming out of brother's house in that manner?" "Sh", I said, "Don't let him see us". Do you consider what we were doing ourselves Janie? Your nipples had grown large with anticipation. Your hands were in my flytrap and my member had grown dangerously giddy and hard up making me so uncomfortable that I cried out in pain. We were lying on the hot sunny river beach. Yet what betrayal it really was then, Janie, to see Uncle Jerry coming out of that prostitute's window. That window you described was your brother's. That was exactly the time, Janie. The time everything began going wide of the mark.

Uncle Jerry rapidly was taken ill. They said he was suffering from tuberculosis. He grew lean and was often getting exhausted. He was in illness for three long months. He died of that outrageous disease that everyone thought was tuberculosis, yet everyone was prepared to shrug shoulders with indifference when asked what really had him. How long did it take Angela, Janie? I mean Uncle Jerry's woman. Hers was swift and precise. She died giving birth to what people could murmur only in the night and in the dark corners of the day or behind closed doors was Uncle Jerry's child! I remember your brother had a brawl with that college teacher, the one who said your brother's wife had given birth to another man's child, a child your brother was divulging his filthy teeth in public was his'.

That reminds me of yet another thing, Janie. I remember your brother’s teeth were reddish dirty. Cola nuts, wasn't it? What beats my mind is that, your mouth was so perfect. So sugary and so hygienic that it never smelt. I come to remember now that sweet chilly night again! True enough that is utterly another account altogether.

How long did it take your brother to give up the ghost? I heard from the traders who came this way he followed the "tradition" untimely enough. Just a few months after I left, I was also told, like I predicted that the village is blazing like wild fire on grass houses with Uncle Jerry and Angela's curse. What a compassion for Shangkwa. The village we treasured so much.

Perhaps Janie, you would be wondering what I am rattling about, when your heart is yearning and crying out for my long absence. I will soon enlighten you Janie. I will soon tell you, by the time this epistle comes to a close...

----------Amazon Purchase Links----------


Habiba My Habiba
Death of the Oracle

----------About the Author----------

Bob Danierla is an author and songwriter. Completed elementary and secondary education in Cameroon and university education in Nigeria. He returned to Cameroon and worked in various capacities both in Education and industry before moving to the United States. He lives with his wife and two children in the city of Alexandria Virginia. Habiba, My Habiba is Bob Danierla’s second novel, Death of the Oracle being his first.


http://www.bobdanierla.com

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