Shattered dreams


Date: November 21, 2012
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Written by *Maritha

“I was a shebeen queen with a strong and powerful shebeen. At the age of thirty I first met my current boyfriend. I had four children and my last-born was eight years old. After staying with my boyfriend for three years, in January 1996, I fell pregnant. It was only then that he told me he had a woman in Nata who he had a son with. He planned to marry her because she had his first child. When I was four months pregnant he ordered me to stop coming to his place because his wife-to be was preparing for marriage.

I stayed at my house where I was renting and doing my shebeen business. One of my landlords was sick of AIDS and later died. When he died I was accused of bewitching him to promote my business. I was then chased away from that place. I was given two hours to move out of their place. I struggled to find a place because I was labelled a witch, a person who poisons others. I finally got a place about four kilometres from town.

My boyfriend did not even bother finding me a place to stay yet I had spent my money helping him build his seven-roomed house before discovering that he had another woman. I even helped him connect water in his plot. People used to tell me that my boyfriend was once a lunatic, but I did not believe them.

In my new home there is no water so I fetch water at the river about a kilometre away from where I am staying. I gave birth to a boy, who is eleven years younger than his oldest brother. While pregnant, I was told that I needed specialists because I was almost 40 years old. I had a difficult delivery. My boyfriend did not bother to help me out.

But my son loves his father so much. He wanted me to stay with his father and has tried everything to bring us together. Sometimes he would go to his father’s place after school and ask him to take him to where I live. His father would do so and even spend the night with us, but sometimes he would just drop him off and go back. This hurt the child because he wanted to live with his father. When schools closed, he would go and stay with him and return after three days to stay with me.

The father used to tell my son what he had bought for his child who is in Nata. My son would tell me and ask why his father did not care for him. I would tell him that I reported his father to the magistrate but his payments for maintenance were not consistent. The father would tell me to return the money so that he pays three or four times the same amount so that he covers the arrears to avoid going to prison. When I refused, he would say that he would commit suicide.
Up to now he still owes large amounts of money in court. He comes home any time he pleases. I am not comfortable bringing any other man because my children knew him from when they were young and they even know he is their father. I respect my children.

I am now HIV positive and he is also HIV positive. He does not want to use any condoms yet he has many girlfriends. He is currently staying with a woman who is always provoking me. Whenever she meets my child she enquires if her ‘husband’ slept over at my place. Sometimes the man calls her telling her that he is at my place. Sometimes he can stay for about six months without coming over or even calling. That is when the woman ‘challenges’ me, laughing at me. The man usually comes over when there is commotion at their house.

What pains me the most is that it emotionally affected my child causing him to drop out of school while he was still young. I have tried to put him in different schools but still failed because if he goes to the father, the father sends him back to me. The other time he told my son that he was going to Nata to buy clothes for his other son. My son also followed him to Nata in a truck, hoping that when his father finds him there he will buy something for him.

I am now livingunder very painful circumstances because I do not have a proper home, no water, no toilet, no proper house but shacks, yet I built a house at his plot because he had promised to help me when I get my own plot. I am the only one in my area drinking water from the river, my son is not going to school because of stress, I am HIV positive, I do not have a boyfriend and I have a patella knee problem where he kicked me years back. I always pray that he leaves all his girlfriends to marry me or that he will go forever so that I will find a man of my dreams.”

*Not her real name.
This story is a personal account that is also used in The Gender Based Violence Indicators Study Botswana by Gender Links and Women’s Affairs Department, Botswana.

 

 


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