According to the stories I was told, I am an accident. I am pretty sure if my parents could go back to the night I was conceived, they would wear a condom, or better still, abstain from doing from the act altogether. No matter how many times they say children are a blessing, nobody wants to carry a mistake baby into the world and raise them. Especially, not my mother, who was only seventeen when she conceived me. She became a statistic because of me, a faceless number among the sea of teen girls whose dreams died because they couldn’t keep their legs closed, or because a man wouldn’t take no for an answer.
After my mother had me, she could not continue her education. She dealt in petty trade and did odd jobs here and there to take care of me. I know she did her best because she is a hardworking woman. However, life was very hard for her as a single teenage mother. So, when she met a man who showed her a little affection and promised to take care of her, she welcomed him into her life. This man married her and took us into his home.
He was good at first, but trust time to reveal the hidden nature of things. This man started bullying me when my mum gave him a child. He treated me as if I was an inconvenience. He would go out and come home drunk and cause chaos. Then another baby came, and he got worse. He wouldn’t provide for the house. My mother had to do all of it. And through it all, he could not stand to see me. Things became more difficult for us than they were when my mother was single. By the time they had their fourth child, we lived in utter misery. Our living space became so cramped that I had to go live with my father.
I thought living with my father would be better. I thought I would finally get to experience a father’s love. But I was in for a rude awakening. My father and I lived as though we were roommates. He didn’t care how I ate or wore clothes. Whether I used sanitary pads or rags for my period was none of his concern. Where I got soap to bathe and do my laundry did not concern him either. I was practically on my own. That was how I started selling to fend for myself.
I sold whatever I could afford to sell, but I didn’t earn enough money to provide for my basic needs, let alone pay my school fees. I was a teenager then. My body had started taking the form of womanhood and men drooled over me. “You are such a beautiful girl,” they would say, “A girl like you deserves to be taken care of. If you take care of my something, I will make sure you don’t lack anything,” they promised. I tried to fight off their advances. I told myself I wouldn’t be one of those girls who gave themselves to men for money. I was determined to survive my torturous life through hard work and sheer determination.
However, I was just a young girl with the kind of body men around me wanted to bury their bones in. There was only so much resistance I could put up before I caved in. Once I went down that path, life got easier for me. I mean, it was hard to have a man pin you beneath his bulky body for however long it would take him to get his pleasure. But the money eased my burdens. I had enough to take care of my needs, and even supported my mother and my younger siblings.
My father had no idea what I was doing for money, or if he did, he didn’t care. One time he asked me to wash his clothes and I asked him, “I always wash your clothes for you but you have never given me soap. I am not working, so where do you expect me to get money and buy soap to wash your clothes?” This man responded, “I put a roof over your head, so the least you can do is buy soap and wash my clothes.” “I don’t have money to do that,” I responded. So he got angry and threw me out of his house. I thought it was something temporary and that when he calmed down, he would let me return, but I was wrong. He didn’t want me anywhere near him or his house again. That was the loudest way my father told me that he didn’t want me.
Life got extremely hard for me after that. I was not able to concentrate on my education, as I had to give my attention to men who promised to take care of me. Due to this, I didn’t pass my core maths when I wrote my WASSCE. I had to stay home for five years and rewrite the exams repeatedly until I got it right. While all this was going on, I was still supporting my mother and my younger siblings with whatever money I could gather. My mother currently lives in her husband’s sister’s house, and they use her as a maid. She sweeps and mops her sister-in-law’s room, and washes the woman’s clothes, even her panties. My poor mother is only forty-three but her suffering has given her the appearance of a sixty-year-old woman. Every time I go and see her I cry. I wish I could do more for her than I am already doing.
Right now, I am at university. I sell stuff to help sustain me but I don’t make enough money to cover all my needs. I am only able to survive because of the man I am currently sleeping with. Of all the times I have done something like this, this is the saddest I feel. The man in question is someone who took me under his wings . His family knows me and his wife treats me as she would a daughter. And this man is a pastor so I took him as someone who will guide me back to God. Little did I know that he had his own plans to lead me further away from God. To justify his actions he tells me, “My wife has refused to perform her marital duties, so it’s your job as her spiritual daughter to fill in for her. Think of it as doing her a favour.” I know it’s not right, that’s why I feel so sad. But if I don’t do it, I won’t eat, my family won’t eat, I won’t be able to pay my rent, and I won’t be able to pay the fees of two of my younger siblings.
I have given my mother capital to start a business on a few occasions so that she will stand on her feet. But when she starts the business, she ends up spending all the profit and even the capital on the family’s needs, and that doesn’t help. I am constantly thinking of how to make life better for myself and my family so that I would stop trading my body for money. I suppose too much thinking and crying is why I now battle with hypertension although I am not yet thirty. It is easy for people to judge me because they think I do what I do for the fun of it. They have no idea how much it saddens me to live this way. They do not know the courage it takes for me to smile sometimes.
I am sharing my story because I cried when I read the story of Agnes. I just want to reinforce that we shouldn’t judge people when they do certain things we don’t understand. Things are hard now but I believe that there is light at the end of this tunnel for me. It is well.
