I Am an African Child

By Jeanne Muhimundu
Jeanne Muhimundu's stories

Welcome! Please stick around

You’ve entered a polity of literature: We’re here to support your writing. The eight Reader/Advisor/Editors (RAEs) at The GOAT PoL work on eighty to a hundred stories at any given time, and each one is unique. Writing is a slow unpredictable process—the process that we support is ambitious. It’s hard work and it will take time.

 

Writing pays terribly. It takes so long! Writers at The GOAT PoL might get just pennies-per-hour by the time they’re done. You’ll earn more working for the Amazon MechanicalTurk (AMT). Don’t expect fast money.

 

The story you send is the starting place for a guided writing process that can take days, weeks, or even months. Please DON’T send writing that bores you. You should be deeply interested in the story you send. Be sure the story interests you enough to stick around, work hard on it, and complete it.

 

A note on artificial intelligence (AI): AI can be useful, but it cannot write an interesting story alone. You are a much more interesting writer than AI. If you use AI, tell your RAE about it. Please don’t send us boring stories written only by AI. Send us your writing, and tell your RAE how you made it.

 

 

By clicking “close” I confirm that I am ready to stick around and work by writing and reading at The GOAT PoL.

I am an African child.
My path unfolded from who you were, for I’m the custodian of the stories of old
My dream was drilled into the seedbed that spawned a million beings in a million years
My aspiration was born in the conviction of belonging that bolstered our society
Do not trade my future for your thirst to bruise my innocence

I am an African child.
Do not trade my motherhood for my hopes in childhood
Bear to fortify the fragility in me, for who is fit to mother an infant in my age
Adorn me with a dove heart smile that shines beyond the horizon of my homestead
Adopt millions of me who are toddling, kinless, in twisted untidy streets

I am an African child.
Dine my African soul with love, food, water, and safety
Dress my mind with ideas and knowledge, for I must blow the trumpet of victory
Dance with me while we celebrate the texture of the land rich in our customs
I’m an African child, I’m the cradle of humankind, I’m the golden child of guiltless heart

4 December, 2022