Kanin Ajali Part 1 Complete Hausa Novel

The marriage between our families was arranged by our parents to strengthen family ties. My father and my mother are children of a sister and a brother, so Umma is actually our grandmother from both sides.

However, this did not make my mother receive any special favor from Umma, despite the close relationship between them. Umma was a strict and sharp-tongued woman who kept a very close watch on her. She treated almost all of my father’s wives this way—no one ever had an easy time with her. She always believed she knew best.

All the men in the family had a modern education, but the women did not get that opportunity because their father believed girls should not attend Western school. He did not allow them to study; instead, he married them off early. That is why our parents later began sending us—the younger generation—to school.

Despite all Umma’s harshness, she tried to keep her children united. But her authority mostly extended to her sons and daughters and those married to them. As for us, her grandchildren, she was not the type of grandmother who played lovingly with us like others do in some homes.

I am the first child of my parents, and then there is my younger sister, whom my mother now carries around. Even with that, Umma did not show us much affection the way we see other grandmothers do with their grandchildren. Still, even at my young age, I could understand certain things. I noticed that Umma sometimes showed favoritism among her grandchildren, especially between the children of her daughters and us.

But it didn’t trouble me much, because my parents treated me with love, and even my father’s relatives showed us kindness. Wherever they went, they would take me and my little sister Shamsiya along.

There is quite a big age gap between me and Shamsiya. My mother had given birth to three boys who all died, and it was only with Shamsiya that a child survived. She is now three years old, and since then there has not been another child.

We resemble our mother in complexion. Our father is very fair-skinned, and Umma takes pride in that fairness, unlike us—her grandchildren—who are chocolate-colored, neither very dark nor very fair. We only inherited our parents’ noses and hair. Because we look somewhat different from what Umma prefers, she sometimes insults us in her anger.

Life in the village offers few modern opportunities. By Allah’s will, our mother lived there with us, managing under modest conditions while my father sent money to support her. Sometimes the money would pass through Umma’s hands, and she would give our mother only what she felt like giving—unless it reached Uncle Kabiru first. If he got it, he would secretly give it to our mother without Umma knowing. Sometimes he would even help us quietly when we needed something, without making a fuss.

You know how a mother struggles with the needs of a daughter from birth through childhood—it is not easy raising a girl. From baby wraps and clothing to underwear, personal items, hair care, and all the small things girls need, our mother handled everything for us as best as she could, trusting in God.

No one really understood the difficulties she was facing. People simply assumed that because our father lived in the city, we were always well provided for and neatly dressed.