When I wanted to kill all men on earth.

In the few days following my very first rape, I was raped several times. The man, being my and my three siblings’ carer threatened me with turning us all onto the street if I refused. After he finished each time, I would be in tears and all he could say was “It was not that bad was it?” and walk out of the room with a smile on his face. He was already HIV positive and very thin. His wife did not look as sick but she was. They both were dead within two years of my rape.

From the first day, my instinct was to kill every man I came across. I became very angry with men for a long while after that day. However, I soon discovered that I had no choice but to treat men nicely. I ran away from home after maybe six rapes. I found myself in Harare where I could not go to the houses of anyone I knew in case they send me back to being raped. I decided to make my own way. I slept behind a petrol station and fed on bread and thrown away fruit the first three days. I did not have a wash because I had no soap or towel or anything. I just washed my face with water. All my belongings were is a small overnight bag. I was sitting on this bag at the petrol station, on the early evening of the fourth day, when a man driving a big Mercedes car on his way from work spotted me and spoke to me. I smiled and answered him back. He stopped and we exchanged a few more words. I agreed to go in his car and by the end of the evening I had had sex with him with a condom that he carried in his pocket, I had been fed well, and I had enough money to last me a week. I also had been moved into a room in one of his properties. I had a form rubber mattress and two blankets. When I look back now, that is the evening I discovered that sex pays money. The man listened to me and was very sympathetic to my plight, but he still wanted sex, and lots of it with me. I was 18 and he was in his late fifties. I later found out that he had children older than me. I met his wife and his children when they came to collect rent from the tenants.

My hatred for men continued for a few years, and only subsided when I had some counselling in England around 2003 after I found out I was positive. I had been carrying so much hate for men for over four years. I also had depended on men for my income for that long.