I met Maria 3 months ago.
We’ve been talking since then. And we are on a path towards building a
thriving friendship.
We next met a month later at Pizza Inn, the one next to Oilibya Petrol
Station in Westlands. Obviously on a Terrific Tuesday evening because we both
love food.
We had barely settled in when she began.
“When I walked out of the office that Friday evening, I was safe. My gut
told me so and I believed it. So right on I walked”.
At first I thought she was reading from somewhere.
Like she was putting an inspirational quote out there for fellow
readers to pick up and run with it. But no. She wasn't.
Her face had suddenly turned dull. She appeared gloomy and her eye
sockets teary.
And then our conversations turned from laughter to sadness.
I was confused but she went on… “My plan was to catch a mat to Westlands
right outside our office” Although most of the times she prefers to take a walk,
which she embraced since day one at her workplace. Besides, how do you explain
to your old school parents that you turned down a job offer because the place is
quite a stretch and matatus can be rare?
“That Friday was no different from any other. It was an eventful day but
I had resolved to leave the office on time. Because my mother was visiting over
the weekend and I needed to do shopping lest I feed her some 'air-burgers'.
She smiled fighting tears.
“I left the office at 5:30pm. I waited for matatus outside the gate but
none showed up so I committed to walking. But before I began my walk, I saw a clique
of young men far behind strolling towards the same path I was about to take.
Around seven of them. I didn’t mind them because they didn’t seem ‘suspicious’
in any way.
I still wonder how a city that is safe for women and girls would look like.
All my life I have been accustomed to ‘advice’ of how I should behave or dress
like in order to be safe.
Maria continued… “I kept walking but the same gut told me something,”
You know that feeling you get when someone is staring at you? Yes that
one. Maria felt it and fear on top of it. The unsteady place where your body
feels unsafe but somehow your feet won't carry you to safety.
“I had walked upto a certain point and when I turned to look, one of the
men grabbed me at once. The rest circled me so that no one could see what was
happening. It was the same men I had earlier seen” she quivered. “One of them
unashamed grabbed my behinds and I felt a twinge of pain run up through my left
thigh”. She said fighting tears.
“All these men kept touching me everywhere. Inappropriately. And all I kept
doing is throwing their hands off me over and over again”.
My instincts told me to cover the pizza in front of us.
“When they were finally done,
they all left at once and I watched them walk away! Just like that!”
“I can’t remember for how long I stood there shivering while the
consuming feeling of being vulnerable overwhelmed me”.
She said this with so much heaviness it cut right through my torso.
“My body felt strange. It still does till this day”. She mumbled
Up to this point, all that I remember is we both sobbed.
Her red heavy eyes now shifting to the side glazed with a gleaming layer
of tears. As she blinked, they dripped from her eyelids and slid down her
cheeks. She bit her lower lip tightly in an attempt to hide any sound that
pleaded to escape from her mouth; my heart sank.
That Friday evening my friend Maria was sexually assaulted.
I can only pray that these wounds will one day be scars.
It’s depressing that such traumatizing experiences continue to occur every day.
Unlike Maria, not many of us get to talk about it!
Because we (society) have a way of bashing and shaming victims of sexual
violence!
While
the culprits sadly get away with it. We couldn't eat the pizza. There was nothing exciting about it any more.
Mwende
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