I never thought that I’d live long enough to tell my story to the world. I was sentenced to become hunted the day I was born.

People like me are often murdered because of the color of their skin. Because of their differences. But I'm still here, thanks to God. My name is Dulani and I am an albino.

* * *

My parents and I lived in a village in the southern part of Malawi. They were farmers, like the majority of people in our community. I was born the third child of my family and the only one with albinism.

Unlike other children, I didn’t have many friends. I was deeply hurt about it and often cursed the day I came into the world. I wondered many times if I would live this way for the rest of my life. And my biggest fear was that I would never find someone to love.

One of my rare playmates when I was a kid was Zikomo. He was a kind-hearted boy living in another village, just about a mile away from mine. He had a keen interest in football, just like me, but that wasn’t the only thing we had in common. Zikomo was an albino too.

Unlike me, however, my friend had accepted his condition much more easily. I never saw him cry about it, like I did sometimes. And I often heard him joke that children of our color were the most favored by God. But I knew we weren’t.

As far as I was concerned, I would only live a miserable and mostly lonely life. As long as the color of my skin remained the same.

Zikomo and I first met at primary school. We quickly shared a deep friendship. He was a true brother who always defended me when I was bullied by my classmates. Without his protection, I would have probably abandoned school.

Being the only albinos in our school sent us some hard times with the other children. We were stoned and rushed into fights and often came back home with bruises and wounds.

To our classmates, Zikomo and I were twin aliens. We had the same pale and fragile skin, the same light eyes with impaired vision and the same yellow hair. Our few differences were that he had an oblong face, stood taller than me, and was less inclined to anger.

When we got together to play football, we would often talk about how people treated us. I would confess to him how hard it was for me not to be able to have a normal life. And he would confide in me how he’d rather escape the hardships that seemed to be naturally attached to our albinism.

We believed that we would always be together. Neither of us anticipated that life would split us apart in the most traumatic way.

One night, Zikomo left my place after some math exercises he'd helped me with. He never made it home.

The following day, volunteering people gathered to search for him. And when three nights and days passed with Zikomo still nowhere to be found, we all braced ourselves for the worst. We all assumed that something terrible had happened.

I prayed that he would be alive somewhere and that we would be soon studying and playing together again.

* * *

On the sixth day after my friend’s disappearance, some shouts outside our hut woke me up. Many curious villagers had gathered around the person shouting. It was Nana, a woman in her fifties who lived in our village. She had tears in her eyes and looked very much defeated. She beckoned the curious people to follow her to some destination.

My parents were away in their fields and my brothers were still sleeping inside. I put on my shoes, took my hat and followed the group to wherever they were headed for.

Nana was hurrying in front us, still unable to calm herself down. A few minutes later, we entered a field of potatoes and smelled a disgusting stench. I put my hand to my nose and didn’t try to walk any further. Nana stopped too and pointed to the distance.

A couple of people followed in that direction. They made a few steps forward and I could read disbelief and sorrow in their eyes as they turned back around. Some had their hands crossed upon their heads and others were in tears.

Suddenly, although I couldn’t understand why, I became the focus of some people who saw me in the crowd. I felt uneasy and decided to check out what was going on.

“Don’t go there,” a man coming my way said to me in our dialect.

My eyes lingered on him for a while as I tried to decide whether I should really move back. He insisted again but his warnings just made my curiosity stronger. 

Disregarding his words, I walked on and suddenly froze before the most shocking sight I’ve ever seen in my young life. I looked at the lifeless corpse on the ground and tears welled in my eyes. Zikomo.

I burst out crying. My dead friend's abdomen had been cut open and his hands were missing. The horror of it made me run all the way back to my family's hut. There, in a corner, I sat on the ground and let the tears flow.

I understood then why they all had looked at me in that field of potatoes. The reason was plain and heartbreaking. I was just like the victim. An albino.

Zikomo was dead, savagely murdered and amputated like an animal. He was yet another victim of the way people perceived us.

I eventually fell asleep and it was in the dead of the night that my mother woke me up. When I rose, the images of Zikomo, him alive and then dead, flowed back to me so powerfully that I started weeping again. My mother noticed I had a fever and told me that I shouldn’t be too upset about what happened.

But how could I not think about my one true friend now dead and gone? How could I pretend that none of that happened? 

It was quite obvious that I wasn’t feeling well but it wasn’t just physical. It was deeply emotional. I couldn’t come to terms with the image burned in my mind of my friend lying under the sun, flies feasting on his flesh. An innocent being that some wicked people killed and then left in a field to rot.

I was even more afflicted when I later heard that Zikomo’s body parts would probably be exchanged for money. So that’s what we were, I reflected. Just some goods people could trade for wealth. It was so cruel and shameful.

Zikomo’s parents were informed of the horrible discovery and came to take away what was left of their child. They buried him the same night and my father alone attended the burial ritual. My mother, concerned about my state, had preferred to stay home with me. I cried that night. I cried for many nights. I cried in grief for a lost friendship, and in terror of the days to come.