Amina did not want to go to school that morning.
She had not said that since she was nine.
She sat at the kitchen table in uniform but without her shoes tied. Nuru’s phone lay in front of her, screen dark.
Salma put down a cup of tea.
“How far has the video spread?”
“Class group. Form Three group. Church youth group. Even Zawadi sent it to me from a cousin who does not attend our school.”
“Have you opened it again?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“It is not good.”
Salma sat down.
“I mean you do not have to keep watching it.”
Amina looked at her angrily.
“But people keep watching me.”
Nuru stood silently in the kitchen. Since the previous night she had been asking the page that posted the video to remove it, but it was still online.
The thumbnail used an image of Amina standing in front of a tent on the second day after the demolition. It appeared to have been taken from a parent-briefing recording. Across it were the words:
**CHILD WITNESS REVEALS SECRET OF DEMOLISHED SCHOOL**
Inside the clip, the presenter called her “a student alleged to be a key witness” before playing seven seconds of Amina saying:
“I saw lights and a machine at the back.”
The next part—where Amina said she had not seen who gave the order and had not seen the operator’s face—was missing.
“You will not be forced to go today,” Salma said.
Amina frowned harder.
“That is what they want.”
“Who?”
“People who want me to be the child of the case. If I stay home, they still decided my day.”
Salma wanted to say, *You are a child. You do not have to defeat everything.*
But Amina had lost a classroom, a notebook, privacy, and now her face was traveling through strangers’ phones.
“What do you want?” Salma asked.
“I want to go do chemistry.”
“And the video?” Nuru asked.
“I want them to remove it.”
“We will follow up.”
Amina shook her head.
“Not ‘we will follow up.’ I want to say something myself.”
Salma paused.
“Where?”
“On the school page. Or the parents group. I do not want an interview.”
“You will not do a live interview.”
“I did not ask for one.”
“And I do not want your statement turned into another evidence argument.”
“Salma.”
“What?”
“I want to say they must not use my face. That is not evidence.”
Nuru sat down slowly.
“She is right.”
Salma felt her resistance loosen.
“Fine. But you write it. No one gives you words.”
Amina tied her first shoe.
“I already knew that.”
At school, the clip had already done its work.
When students saw Amina get out of the minibus from the vocational hall, two called her “witness.” One held a pen toward her like a microphone.
Amina stopped.
“Do not do that.”
The boy laughed.
“It is a joke.”
“Not to me.”
She walked away.
Ten minutes later, the boy went to Teacher Jengo himself and apologized after two classmates told him he had gone too far.
Salma learned that only later.
At the time, she was in the office with Rukia.
“The page is not responding,” Rukia said. “I sent them a DM, an email, and their business number.”
“Source clip?”
“Parent briefing recording.”
“Who recorded it?”
“Many people.”
“Did the school release it?”
“No.”
“Then our statement should be clear: student footage was used out of context and without her permission for a promotional headline.”
“Is calling her a ‘key witness’ inaccurate?” Rukia asked.
Salma looked at her.
“Rukia.”
“I am only asking.”
“Amina is not an asset of the case.”
“I did not say she was.”
“But everyone wants her testimony as a weapon. One side will say the child saw it. The other will say the child knows nothing. She wants to do chemistry.”
Rukia was quiet.
“I was wrong too,” she said eventually.
“Where?”
“When I wanted the screenshot released quickly. And on parent-briefing day, I told Amina to sit in front because I thought if people saw children, they would understand how serious this was.”
“Did you ask her?”
“No.”
Salma did not say *I told you so.*
Rukia had already heard it.
At midday, Amina entered the library with seven other students. They had written something on a sheet torn from an exercise book.
“We want this to be the students’ statement,” she said.
“Who wrote it?” Salma asked.
“All of us.”
“Teachers edited it?”
“No.”
“Parents?”
“No.”
“Then let me read it.”
Amina handed it over.
It was short:
**We are students of Upendo Ridge. We want our school to be safe and our lessons to continue. We do not want our photographs, videos, names, or words used to advertise anyone’s side in the land dispute without our permission and, where required, that of our guardians. If a student gives information about what they saw, that information should not be turned into a poster, headline, or campaign. We are not evidence to display; we are students.**
There was space for signatures underneath.
“Do not sign yet,” Salma said.
Amina’s face changed.
“Why?”
“Because some of you are minors and the statement will be public. I want you to have the option to support it without your names being published.”
Amina thought about it.
“That is fair.”
“And no student should be pressured to sign.”
“Yes.”
“And this line—‘our permission and, where required, that of our guardians’—who wrote it?”
“Neema. Her mother is a paralegal.”
Salma smiled.
“Tell her I noticed.”
They produced a final version in two parts: the statement itself, and a private support sheet that would not be published. The school would post the statement as a collective student position after the headteacher and safeguarding contact reviewed it, without children’s names.
“And mine?” Amina asked.
“Your personal statement?”
“Yes.”
“Have you written it?”
Amina showed her the phone:
**I am Amina, a Form Two student. The video circulating online has used me as a ‘key witness’ without my permission and cut out the part where I said what I did not see. I do not want my image or words used to suggest that I support either side of an adult dispute. The information I gave about what I remember is with the people verifying it. I will not give interviews about it. I want to go back to being a student.**
Salma read it twice.
“Are you sure you want your name?”
“My face is already in the video.”
“That does not mean you must add your name.”
Amina thought.
“Then the school page can say ‘the student shown in the clip,’ and use my statement without my surname.”
“Good.”
“Do not edit ‘I want to go back to being a student.’”
“I will not.”
When Rukia saw the statement, she said, “This will make that page look very bad.”
Amina looked at her.
“That is not my goal.”
Rukia fell silent.
“My goal is for them to stop,” Amina added.
“Fair.”
The school posted the statement at 2:20 p.m.
There was no photograph of Amina.
No photograph of rubble.
No name of Doto, Juma, or Nuru.
Only text.
Thirty minutes later, the page changed its headline. An hour later, the clip was removed.
No one celebrated.
Copies had already circulated.
But something had changed.
When a radio station called asking for “a short interview with the child witness,” Rukia said:
“No. The school does not provide students as commentators on the dispute.”
Salma heard her and said nothing.
After classes, students gathered beneath the veranda and read their collective statement. There was no speech. Amina did not stand in front.
Neema read it.
“...we are not evidence to display; we are students.”
The children applauded once, not very loudly.
Teacher Jengo said, “Now that you have finished being activists, tomorrow there is mathematics.”
The group groaned.
“That is the real oppression,” Amina said.
Everyone laughed.
Salma felt something loosen inside her.
For days, everything about Amina had begun to orbit the demolition: her notebook, her statement, what she saw, what she did not see.
Now she was a child complaining about mathematics again.
That evening, Salma and Amina walked home because the last minibus was full of teachers and equipment.
“You were angry when I wanted to write the statement,” Amina said.
“I was not angry.”
“You had the ‘I do not want this’ face.”
“I was afraid people would use another statement of yours again.”
“And I was afraid you would protect me so much that I could not say anything.”
Salma walked several steps before answering.
“That is fair.”
Amina kicked a small stone toward the roadside.
“Not everything I say is testimony.”
“I know.”
“And not everything has to go into your notebook.”
Salma looked at her.
“Now you have gone too far.”
Amina laughed.
When they reached home, Nuru had a message from Kenga.
There would be a continuity budget meeting the next day.
The transport fund had only three days left. The vocational hall was still available, but the temporary arrangement would expire after one more week. The reconstruction assessment was not complete.
Kenga had written:
**We need a continuity mechanism that does not depend every day on who is angry, who has money, or who wants to win an argument.**
Amina read over Nuru’s shoulder.
“What is a mechanism?”
Nuru said, “A way adults say ‘system’ so they can look organized.”
Salma took the phone.
“Tomorrow we will find out whether they actually are.”
Amina went to her room.
A minute later, static from her radio began again, followed by a faint piece of music she had finally managed to tune in.
No headline.
No witness.
Just a student repairing her project.
---