Broken Women of the South

I was going about the mundane task of shredding lettuce for a salad when my mother launched into a tale with chilling nonchalance and a blasé air. A woman we all knew, a woman trained in law enforcement, a policewoman, had been killed in cold blood by her boyfriend. It no longer mattered that the woman had been married and her having a boyfriend had gained disfavour in our small community (because in a small town everyone knows everyone’s business).

Nobody knows why it happened but everyone knows what happened. The woman was nine months pregnant. Everyone had been having a lovely time speculating about whose baby it would be. Even though they judged her, and judged her harshly, nobody wished to see the woman dead. So on the day a keening cry was heard, emitted by her aged mother on a clear sunny afternoon, nobody laughed; nobody thought she deserved it; and many cried upon hearing the grisly tale.

It would be her young children’s testimony that would lead to the arrest of her boyfriend. It seems that the woman went missing for a few weeks; no one was alarmed as her lover was missing too and everyone added two and two together. The boyfriend came back, claiming to have been visiting family and asked where the woman was. That was when the alarm was raised. When police came asking questions, the children said it was the boyfriend whom they had last seen with the woman. Perhaps it is the compulsion, often cited in criminal modus operandi investigations, for the murderer to return to his crime scene that sent the boyfriend looking for the woman. In a matter of hours, the woman’s now decomposing body was discovered in a cane field. Her abdomen had been slit open, the child wrenched from her uterus and bludgeoned to death. There were signs of rape and stab wounds.

Each slice of my knife into the tomatoes made me visualise the murder of this woman. No matter what she had done, no matter her morals, she did not deserve to die like she did. And yet I carried on, ‘oohing’ and ‘aaaihing’ when appropriate while my mother regaled me with the horrifying story.

On Monday, a co-worker told us the story of how she found her children’s nanny stabbed, her eyes gouged out and raped the previous Saturday. Y co-worker had to identify the body when the community called her and asked to see whether or not the ‘victim’ was still alive. Despite this shocking experience, my co-worker was at work on Monday, although visibly sad, showing no signs of the emotional scarification one would expect from the encounter.

My mother, my co-worker and myself are products of a country that has become desensitised to violence. We are saddened yes, we grieve, but we are hardly ever shocked at the violence of crimes against women. We are no longer distraught when we hear stories like this, we are just fervently thankful it was not us. We are aware that nothing differentiates us from those who have fallen victim to such cruelty, except sheer dumb luck. We are powerless to protect ourselves pre-emptively, because when our turn comes the perpetrator might not need to break down windows or scale walls, it could be someone who has shared your bed and shown you what you thought to be love.

Indeed, our country is diseased.

I Gave Him HIV; He Asked For It

She sits with her stomach protruding proudly, stretching the worn material of her tube top. One of her eyes is crinkled in a smoker’s squint, a cigarette dangling from her lips.

“I didn’t really want another baby, but it happened!” she laughs raucously. I wonder if she has also been drinking.

“I didn’t find out till it was too late because of the drugs I take, they mess up your period and make you fat you know?”

“Drugs?” I ask, unable to conceal my shock. She’s smoking, taking drugs and possibly drinking while she was pregnant?

She laughs her outrageous laugh again and explains, “ARVs sisi. I’ve been on them for a year now.”

“So your boyfriend knows you’re HIV-positive? Is he also positive?”

“Well NOW he is. I don’t know about before but when I told him I was positive he said he was a real man, refused to use a condom.”

I look stupefied.

“Don’t look so shocked, so many men think you’re joking here if you are straight with them and tell them you’re positive. I’m not going to stop having sex just because they’re stupid.”

She is serious. She belongs to a group of friends who make no bones about being HIV-positive. They say; “It’s just like diabetes or cancer; you just have to take care of yourself.” I applaud them this mentality, in a world where many people still view being diagnosed HIV-positive is a “death sentence” they are amazingly forward-thinking.

All of them have been aware of their positive status for over five years. All of them are on the state ART (anti-retroviral treatment) programme. All of them are alcoholics. All of them have transitional sex.

They claim they tell their prey that they have HIV. They claim most of the men they sleep with refuse to wear condoms stating various reasons including;

-          Real men don’t wear condoms

-          Doesn’t she trust him?

-          Doesn’t the woman trust herself?

-          You’re just saying you’re positive because you want you avoid pregnancy, I’ll ejaculate “outside”.

-          I don’t enjoy it with a condom.

-          I’m too big for a condom.

-          I have HIV too so what does it matter?

-          I’m allergic to the lubricant on government condoms.

-          I can’t “feel” you when I wear a condom.

As these women talk to me, laughing all the while at my stupefied facial expressions, they almost convince me that the men who get infected by these women deserve their just desserts for their stupidity. I ask why don’t the women protect themselves from re-infection?

*explosions of mocking laughter*

Am I serious? If they tried to protect themselves by wearing female condoms (assuming they manage to find some as they claim female condoms are almost the Holy Grail) then the men would stop sleeping with them. Then they would have no alcohol, no places to sleep, no food, no sex no fun. The cycle is vicious. I cannot bear to listen to any more.

“The good thing about the father of this baby is that he is a TEACHER! So he’s rich!” the lively pregnant one laughs gleefully and lights up.

Grabbing the packet (mine) from which she has been pilfering day I make a beeline for a place where such madness is not so normal.

She Said No; A Rape

Hers is a typical rape story, isn’t amazing that the phrase “typical rape” story exists? A testament of the age we live in; and the abnormalities that have become the norm. Someone she knew, someone she would have allowed inside her house in the dead on night on a stormy night, turned on her. He was deaf to her screams of, NO! NO! NO! He did not care that she begged him to stop. And when it was over, he asked her if she had enjoyed herself; while she struggled to make the world stop, so she get off.

On her Matric Dance night she braved the farewell and after-party without a partner because her boyfriend (someone she had promised herself to) could not make it. It was a day to celebrate the end of her high school career, it was more important she commemorate the journey with friends than it was that she show up with a gorgeous boy on her arm. She intended to have a good time. She was a virgin.

“I was sitting and chatting with a guy friend when the friend who had brought asked us to organise a ride home. She had brought me and my best friend. The guy I was chatting to offered to drop us off. I was flattered that he was even talking to me – he was very good looking and well known in our neighbourhood, was a part time house music DJ and had no shortage of girls. We continued drinking together and I remember I was knocking back red Sambucas at his invitation. When we were ready to go home he asked me to walk to his bakkie with him as it was parked a bit far from the club; claiming he felt tipsy and wanted some fresh air before he got behind the wheel.

By the time we got to the bakkie I was feeling seriously woozy and it was only after we had driven off that I realised we were heading away from the club and not towards it. He told me he just wanted to take a short drive with the window open to sober up.

Looking back now I feel stupid but then I was just a short, fat girl with glasses; I was also wearing a floor length black dress that just about covered me like a sack – the last thing I thought was that someone like him could possibly be thinking of me in any way other than a friend.

He pulled up at a parking spot overlooking the beach and asked me if I wanted to take a walk on the beach. I said no – by this point, I was getting a bit uncomfortable but he assured me he was still trying to sober up and he just wanted to talk. Then he asked me for a kiss – at which I told him that I had a boyfriend.

So he said, “Why did you come with me then? Just give me a kiss and then we can go get your friend and go home.”

So I kissed him, because I thought that would placate him and he would take me home. I wanted to get away from him at this point. When he tried to push my dress up, I started pushing him away and saying “no”.

I can’t remember how many times I said to him, “Please do not do this”. It felt like forever and my throat was sore from shouting the following day – I fought so hard, he tore my stocking; I started trying to open the door to get out and run.

Then he leaned over me his 1.8m frame over my 1.52m (to me he was huge) and my efforts to fight him off were useless; I was like a moth swatting at a bear; he opened the glove compartment to show me a gun; he told me to shut up and stop screaming or he would have to use it.

I was sobbing and just kept saying, NO. NO. NO, thinking he would stop. I asked him to at least use a condom but it was like he had zoned out and he could not or would not hear anything I was saying.

Then he raped me.

After he was done, he asked me if I had enjoyed it and I said no. He seemed surprised, and then continued to try to have a conversation with me like there was nothing wrong. He said it had been great and we should get together again. He could not believe that I was a virgin when he saw the blood streaking down my legs.

I was crying by now and he just kept talking normally so I asked him to please drop me off at the club and I would find my own way home; by the time we got there, it was closed and my friend and her boyfriend were waiting outside. I was hysterical when I jumped out the van, I did not even wait for it to stop moving. My hair was a mess and the blood could be seen all over my legs, my stockings were ripped – I looked like hell.

My friend’s boyfriend was horrified, he wanted to go to the police station immediately but I was in no shape to do that. I was so shocked and hurt and ASHAMED. I just did not want anyone to know.

When my mom opened the door, took one look at me and started shouting and crying that we needed to go to the police station and asking if I had been raped. I was sobbing and hysterical, the last thing I needed was my mom panicking and shouting it out to the world. I ran into my room and into my shower with all my clothes on; I stayed on the shower floor for more than an hour; scrubbing the blood away and trying to clean myself.

I could not clean myself enough – the next day, I kept taking a shower. Oddly, my mom woke up the next day and never asked me about that night again; ever. It was like she decided she did not want to know.

For about a month afterwards, I did not want to brush my hair or get dressed – or make any attempts to look nice. I thought it was my fault for trying to look pretty and maybe if I made myself as unattractive as possible, it would never happen again.

I also fell pregnant. The man who raped me called me a few times, adding to my trauma. When I saw him with his friends they would stare at me. It felt like no matter where I went, if I turned around he would be standing there; watching me.

I could not stand the thought of a baby, I would have hated it, and so I had an abortion. I never told anyone. I thought I would tell my family once I had got over the shock, once I had dealt with the rape and the fact that I knowingly aborted a baby.

I did not want to lay any charges because I was convinced no one would believe me. I could scarcely believe it myself, it made no sense. Why would a good looking well educated boy from a good home do something so violent – and a boy who had girls throwing themselves at him?

Then a few months later, my mom, brother and I came home to find that my father had committed suicide – he had shot himself. There was no note. For a long time, I felt very guilty because a part of me thought he had somehow found out about the rape and was so ashamed of me that he killed himself. I later discovered he had financial difficulties.

However, there was no way that I was going to add to my family’s trauma after that. We were so ravaged and torn apart by my father’s suicide, it was a total shock to my family. I also broke up with my boyfriend because he wanted to get engaged and I did not know how to tell him I had been raped. I did not want to see any looks of revulsion or pity on that face I loved so much.

I think of that year as the worst year of my life and I know I made it through that year somehow – so I can handle anything that comes my way now.

It was a long time before she was able to date, to be intimate with men and to be happy. But she did it, drawing strength from a will to live, to triumph, and to never be the victim again. She still believes aborting the baby was the right decision. She is now a successful married and mother to a beautiful son.


Near that stretch of sandy beach, her innocence being ripped from her, she became his victim. To see her today and know what she has been through is testament of her power. Where some would break, she is a woman who has lived beyond her fear. I salute her.

Lessons in Life: A Series - Death of the Blameless

I never met her; I did not know she had moved to the little village she would perish in. And yet she lives in my mind now; a symbol of the price of turning a blind eye to your neighbour’s plight.

Many would later say that moving into the house that once belonged to a man who was brutally murdered by young boys was a sign that she would not live long. But of course, that was just an excuse people used to cope with what they witnessed; a smidgeon of comfort to move past the horror.

Her story will find a chapter in the village’s gory history books, along with the story of my childhood friend;

Nathi was my best friend when we were five years old. My mother and his mother were childhood friends. Secreted away from the brutalities of apartheid while my mother worked in the city, Nathi’s mother was my second mother. I am told that when we were babies his mother would breastfeed us both, and when my mother came home, she would pretend “breastfeed” us too. Nowadays that practice would probably lend someone in jail.

With political rivalry at its highest, Nathi’s father did not like that his mother was a supporter of a political party that rivaled his. Today I would say that Nathi’s father was on drugs, because what happened remains inconceivable to me. So infuriated with his wife’s allegiance to another party he became convinced she was passing on his party’s secrets to hers; he resolved to kill her. It was a night that she had taken Nathi into her bed with her, believing her husband would not be returning that night as it had happened so many times before. It was later discovered that he had lain in wait in their tool shed.

As he raised his spear to plunge into her covered body, he never thought to remove the blankets first, if only to make sure his aim was true. Today I take solace in imagining that Nathi never knew what happened. One second he was sleeping soundly in his mother’s arms, the next, a spear had pierced through his heart, clean through his small five-year-old body. Crazed by the mistake he had made, Nathi’s father never got around to killing his wife.

Nathi’s story is still told in the village. My little daughter knows it, she knows of how I lost my best friend and confronted death at five years old.

This woman’s story is one that will also be sown in the fabric of the village, a legacy of a time when everyone minded their own business. I remember how the village hunted Nathi’s father like a dog while he ran in the mountains, afraid and knowing his life was worthless to the bloodthirsty villagers. I remember how the police rescued him from clutches of a cluster of young men who were beating the life out of him. And then I recall the blasé attitude that this woman’s death was greeted with; the carelessly-told stories by her neighbors about how her lover would beat her up in the dead of night. I shudder at the tales of the horrors he visited upon her four-year-old daughter, and I hang my head in shame at how nobody did anything.

She came to the village with her lover who was born there. They rented the dead man’s house from his aunt who also lived in the village. I have gathered, although one cannot trust village gossip completely, that from the day they moved in to the day the man’s screams called the neighbors to his home, he would beat her and make her watch while he practiced lewd sexual acts on her child. It is said that he was not the father of this child

When she made the short trip, past two houses up, in to the local shop to buy a bug killing spray, she had had enough. She had experienced life at its worst and she knew she could endure no more. Carefully cutting a hole so as to pour the contents into a glass, she made juice for her little one and diluted the poison with it. She then made her child drink. And sat and watched her die. She then drank the remainder of the poison and died too. Her lover found them a day later and policed ruled a double suicide.

I do not know if bug spray can kill humans but the shopkeeper confirms that the woman did buy a large can, the same can that was found empty in her home, and the same substance that could be smelt in the child’s juice glass. The most horrendous aspect of the story to me is that soon after the murder and suicide; the neighbors claimed that the woman had tried to strangle the child twice before resorting to poison. If this is the truth, why did they do nothing? What kind of people are they to sit and do nothing while a child is being harmed?

I have since seen the man who lived with this woman; he is a quiet man, dark with sunken eyes. Even if I hadn’t heard the stories about him I would still be afraid of him. This woman and her child were taken home to be buried; I often ask myself why she didn’t go home. I will never know the answer; I suspect she too, would not have an answer.

A Blogger Challenge: 16 Days of Activism

I’m not a preachy blogger.

*snort*

Seriously.

Well I didn’t used to be, and I’m hoping I not one now also.

25 November 2010 is the beginning of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, this day itself being International Day Against Violence Against Women.

I challenge anyone who feels so inclined to use their blogs to create awareness and participate actively in the 16 Days of Activism by blogging about a real woman you know or have heard of that symbolizes women’s triumph against violence and abuse.

Perhaps I detract from the purpose of the project when I say that violence and abuse does not necessarily have to be “traditional” spousal abuse in which a woman is abused by a man. I challenge you to find that lesbian woman who was traumatized by her lover, that child whose own mother or teacher abused, the woman who rose above the humiliation of sexual harassment at work, the little girls suffering at the hands of bullies on our playground.

As South African woman let’s all stand together, just for 16 days, and barrage the ears of abuses with our words; via our avatars, tweets, blogs, Facebook status and wearing a white ribbon.

You did it for the world cup. :)

You may also participate here. I know I will!


PS: I got this post in early because I'd like those who are interested to invest some thought and time into at least one post! Ta.