THE TALE OF A CRIPPLING RELIGION PART 2 (the story of Ethel)

Today I share the story of one who has touched my life in ways only God understands but she claims the same for me too, so we share a wonderful mutual benefit relationship.  I have shared her story before but now she shares her story briefly, personally. Meet Ethel Matthews and here she goes:

I am 16 years old and born in a family of 6. When I was in grade 8, my father started attending a new church called New Bible Believers. In that church, there were so many rules and one of the rules was, “it is not right for girls to be educated.”  My father upheld the rules and He chose to abide by this rule as well, he told me and my siblings to stop going to school.

When I heard this, I started thinking of my future, that I will be poor, unloved, sufferable and also not self-reliant for the rest of my life. I would also think of all my little sisters and I hated that they would experience the same things I was experiencing then and this did not settle well with me. I am the first girl in my family and I have four other sisters (11, 9, 5, 6 months old). In my heart I knew I had to set the right pace for my sisters in education and life.

I would cry all the time and nobody really understood the agony I was going through. When my father realized I continued going to school behind his back, he became very angry and he shouted at me, beat me and chased me out of his house. Every time he chased me out, I would sleep in a tree on an empty stomach. I continued to go to school in hiding until I wrote my national examinations. Over the holidays he restricted me from visiting and chatting with anyone who was not from our church. I had trouble keeping up with this.  Every time he found me hanging out with someone who wasn’t from our church; he would whip me and make me sleep outside the house.

One day he saw me talking to a girl who had put on pants and this day he told me, he never wants to see me in his home again. I went to aunt Ketties house (another lady who has helped me a lot), when the sun had set, I decided to go back home to apologize. If I had known, I wouldn’t have gone there, he chased me with stones, and I even have the scars to show. I slept out and people started advising me to just succumb to my dad’s pressure but one person said I should not.

Aunt Vanessa, I had met her earlier on when she wanted to start Voices Awake, I had sat for my primary leaving examinations once, had not done well and people had given up on me (especially because my father never listened to anybody and everybody who tried to help me would be insulted by him) but she helped me go back to school and re-sit for the exam.  Whenever I was going through this with my father, she would advise me to fight on and she was there to fight with me. This time around it was worse and people said I should just go live at my home village but Aunt Va said I could stay with her until the exam results came out.

We went to the police station, to the village head men but they didn’t help my situation. I was also afraid that if my father was put into prison, no one would be there to take care of my siblings. My father insisted that if I choose school then I should leave my home, and that I am no longer his daughter, and so because I wanted education I left home. Aunt Vanessa took me in as we waited for the examinations results.  When the results came out I had passed and she encouraged me to go to a boarding school since I had no home and I stayed with her on holidays. The other year the school raised tuition and boarding fees and I couldn’t go back to boarding school, I had to change schools and Aunt Vanessa said I could stay with her and continue my education. Now I am done with Form 1, going into form 2, I am learning at Rise Malawi Secondary school.  If it wasn’t for Rise Malawi, My high school sponsors and Voices Awake, I would have been Married and having children right now. Thank you Aunt Vanessa because my life is changing little by little.

Me: Tell me what it is like to live in poverty?

Ethel: My family is really poor, the things we lacked, or rather I lacked are, clothes, blankets, shoes, soap, lotion and food, highlight FOOD. I lacked positive thinking and high self-esteem (you don’t see anyway your life could be transformed when in poverty). Some people discriminate against you because nobody wants to be identified with you. At school, you go to school without breakfast and you have no lunch money, you always beg or rely on your friends but peers want a give and take relationship. When you bath, it is without soap and no lotion, your body is dry and nobody wants to be seen with you. I could eat anything I get my hands on even if it is rotten, you don’t have a choice, you just need food. You drink any water even if it is dirty and you lack cleanliness of the body.

Me: what is your highlight since we started living together?

Ethel: haha… (Laughs), Aunt , don’t laugh, promise

Me: (smiles) - I won’t promise

Ethel: mmhhh, a lot, a lot like

1. I had never eaten fried food; we never used to have cooking oil

2. I didn’t ride cars, but when you came you started taking me places like the college graduation- now I want to be a university graduate

3. I had one under wear now I have more

4. I had 2 skirts and 3 blouses, no shoes now I have more

5. A lot of times I had one meal a day or stayed days without eating because we had no food, now I eat to my stomachs content ..,haha

6. I used to bath without soap and no body lotion but now these things are provided

7. I could cover myself with a chitenje( wrapper usually 2 meters long, used for carrying babies, and for modesty in women and making clothes) when it was bed time, now I have a blanket and bed sheets

8. I didn’t know how to read, understand, and relate to the bible , now I do.

9. I used to sleep on a sack, the 50kg ones we use to store maize, now I sleep on a bed

10. I didn’t know how to switch on electrical appliances, switch on lights, or sockets , now I do, I thought a cooker was a television the first day I came  into your house (laughs again)

11. I had never eaten a cake, now I can’t even count the many times., eish it’s a lot , can I stop there?

Me: sure, what is the biggest lesson you have learnt since we started living together?

Ethel: To love God, love myself and love people. I have accepted where I am at and I know I can be more than this. You encourage me to dream even if it seems unreal

Me: OK, can I share what you have told me with my friends and the world?

Ethel: Yes, I have learnt to share my story, because when I share I get helped and I help others, haha and also… something at the back of my mind is telling me not to say this

Me: Say it, I want to hear it

Ethel: I need people to continue helping me with my school and daily needs, but also most times I think.. maybe you will get married, and leave this place, and then I will have no one to live with, imagine if you get married next year, will you still live with me?

Me: (silently turns back and walk into the house)

Ethel: Stop, say something

Me: (laughs).., but you are the one who tells me to get married that I am ripe for marriage., haha.,
 (I laugh again and go to my room to write all this down, and put it on this blog, so that you read it and choose to sponsor a girl or the work of Voices Awake.
For more of Voices Awake like our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoicesAwakegirlsEquippedForChange or email mwangalav@gmail.com)