Today is a special day to me. It was on a Thursday, July 30, 1998 that I lost my life, my virginity, my future, and all that I stood for. I had lost the last of my parents three months before that. I had had to stop my education as well. My siblings and I were living in the rapist and his wife’s house at the time. I am the oldest and being female in a house with men who are not nuclear family in Zimbabwe is a serious threat to self when it comes to rape. There are many house girls who regularly are raped by the man of the house and get extra cash in return from him, without his wife knowing.
I remember the day very clearly, especially the fact that I had nobody to turn to after the rape. His wife was already ill and in need of a certain level of care, having been infected by the same man.
2 comments:
My heart reaches out to you. I am crying right now as I am writing this. I lost my virginity at the age of 16. I was raped by a family friend, the man that my father respected. He infected me with HIV. He died 6 months after the rape had happened. I am dying now.
My nation is awash with girls my age in the same boat as myself. Many have only ever known what to think about their plight. Many have tried to defy their condition and gone and got married and had children, only to lose all the people round them through HIV. Yes we cry, we worry, we feel the loneliness and we fret about If only this or if only that, but I close my door at the end of the day and reality is still reality. I am me as I am now.
I look round me and see others who are also with me. Its a national ID to be in this boat. Its patriotic to suffer and to go round infecting each other. That is why nobody has stopped it since the early 80s when it started.
Don't let them make you cry. Be strong, is what everyone tells me and is what I tell everyone. But I cannot help wondering who is next. My mind is preoccupied with HIV.
Thank you for your life which I have interracted with this briefly and yet known so much about you. I am grateful. Be strong.
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