Vinapriscaz Blog

The treatment continued for the remaining nights before their mother came back. On the fourth night, Leonard said to me, “I hope you aren’t thinking of telling our mother. Do you really think she will believe you over us?” At this, his brothers burst into laughter while I cried silently. I knew he was right. I was indeed on my own. I felt worthless. I couldn’t interact with other girls my age; I didn’t feel like a little girl anymore. Those boys took that away from me. The assault continued till I was 16. Any of them would come into my room at night and rape me. I usually never made any sound. It was useless. I went to school one day and decided I wouldn’t return to that house. I didn’t know where to go, but by night, I ran into a church where a lady cleaning saw me with tears in my eyes and took me to the pastor’s wife who took me in. After hearing my story, she took me to the hospital the next morning where I was thoroughly checked. I...

I was sleeping in my room that night when I felt rough hands shaking me. I woke up to find the three boys in my room, with scary and mischievous looks on their faces. It was Julius who spoke first, “We’ve come to give you what you were looking for by going to watch Leonard in the bathroom”. Before I could say a word, Pascal and Leonard had appeared on either sides of my bed and held my hands apart. I was filled with panic from the pit of my stomach. When I tried to scream, I got the slap of my life that dazed me for a moment from Leonard. With a wicked smile on his face, Julius spread my legs apart and knelt between them. Then he proceeded to unbutton my pajama shirt slowly; he wanted to make sure I’ll always remember every moment of it. My face was already drenched with tears and Leonard jeered at me, “we’ve not even started and you’re already pouring out all the tears in your eyes. Better keep some for the main thing”. I was too afraid ...

Since I had no known relatives; my mum was the only child of her late parents and she left everything and everyone related to my dad after their divorce, I was taken in by my mum’s closest friend. She was a business woman with a very big boutique. Her husband worked with an oil company, so he wasn’t always around. I was registered in a school with their three sons, Pascal, Leonard and Julius aged 11, 14 and 16 respectively. Maybe it was because their parents were wealthy, coupled with the fact that they were over pampered, they were excessively spoilt. They treated me like an object to be avoided. I was 13 years old when I rushed back home from school one day really pressed. I was at the verge of peeing on myself. My mum had always told me that the bad habit of holding back urine till the last minute would cause trouble for me if I didn’t stop it. I guess the trouble decided to come on that day. I rushed into the bathroom without knocking, only to be met with the nake...

In this century, I’ve always watched marriages fall apart. Sometimes after many years and sometimes in less than five years like my parents’ and sometimes even after months. But I never thought I will come this close to being a victim, just after seven months of being married. Like I said, I’ve being married for seven months, and in all that time, I’ve never slept with my husband. You heard me. And before you start thinking, my husband is perfectly okay and innocent. He’s at the receiving end of all these. You’ll understand better if I tell you my story. I was two years old when the three years old marriage between my parents came to a bitter end. I still don’t know how it happened; my mum never talked about it. She took me away from my dad and relocated to another state- she wanted to be as far away from him as possible. But sadly, she didn’t last. She died eight years later. Cancer. I don’t know how long she’d been living with it, but her death was the beginning of my nightmare....

Later that evening, as I sat with papa outside, his friend uncle Barinua called in and they began to talk over a keg of palm wine  about Unle Barido who had just died yesterday. I watched their mouths fill with palm wine and wondered if uncle Barido also drank palm wine, swirling it in his mouth for some time like papa did before swallowing and how it must be for him to not be able to drink palm wine anymore because he was dead. Uncle Barido had died shouting that he couldn't breath. He had been having such experiences for some time just like Uncle Dornu that lives along the way to the stream. I guess Uncle Barido wasn't a strong fighter. As I listened to Uncle Barinua talk about how his Uncle died from the same condition two years ago, I began to think that maybe, my village had done something wrong that we were being punished for. First loosing babies, next dying of breathing problems. I also remembered hearing nma & papa complain last week that the taste of the fishes c...

Later that morning as I watched her wash the bed-spread heavily soiled with blood; a ritual I had witnessed for the fourth time now, I couldn't help but wonder if nma was really a witch like I overhead aunty Zorlesi and aunty Barido talking the other day on my way from uncle Letam's house, with the little keg of palm wine papa had sent me to get. I know my nma & papa had me after being married for 7 years; nma said it every time anyone tried to beat me. And Aunty Waka even said aunty Dumle, aunty Leelee and aunty Barine who suffered the same fate as nma were all in the same witchcraft coven. It was rumoured that they ate up their babies from their womb. As I watched nma wash her wrappers with tear in her eyes, I shook my head vigorously. It couldn't be. Nma is one of the kindest women in the village, and I know witches are always wicked like Nàà Sorka, the village witch that had been abandoned in her hut by her children because she bewitched all of them. No, nma is n...