NDALAKWANJI

Ndalakwanji is my name, given to me by my grandmother, and has been made a reality question to me through my Father

How is that so you may ask, but this ink on paper reveals it all it has the answer

These finger imprints on my biceps are a frequent reminder of my father’s grip as he forced me to the floor when mother was not around.

These lines that fall down my cheeks are the gullies that were formed when tears caressed their surface endlessly because of my pain.

My body became dead to physical hurt but the pain in my heart was like a dagger endlessly piercing it because of every moment that father took away my innocence.

The thought that the only man I was supposed to look up to and trust was the man who betrayed my symbol of womanity cremated my heart.

Father created an intermittent path to my heart for all men as his example blurred my judgment of all males. 

Every romantic approach from men felt like a snare from the beast of revelations just to abuse me and play fathers role again. 

I was traumatized, too sick to be healed, abused past my threshold, hurt and wounded beyond recover and mutilated beyond recognition. 

Father took away more than my innocence he, took away my self-confidence, my womanity, my pride, my joy, my husband’s right to a virgin and my path to a normal life.

Thoughts to commit suicide made settlement within my grey matter and execution was judgment at the tip of my hands, my father’s belt that he shamelessly took off in my sight would effectively hung me up the ceiling.

But the world had to know first like titanic before its fall, so I told mother, I told mother, I told mother, but mother…

Mother looked at me in tears as if in agreement but her mouth betrayed her facial expression as her lips moved to say my claim was false and with her hands emphasizing a point chased me out to my room.

Mother despite knowing the truth, acted ignorant for fear of abomination, ankhoswe and marriage loss and not forgetting this deadly Malawian phrase that says banja ndikupilila.

With mother placing the final seal on my self-given death sentence I reached for a rope and creatively and artistically prepared my death instrument which was to make headlines the next day as I put my head on the lines. 

Before I could fully support my body on the rope by the neck my stomach made a call that was meant to be answered by my mouth and I vomited the content and at that moment I knew there was life in me but unlike other pregnant women I wasn’t content.

Ndalakwanji is my name, given to me by my grandmother, and has been made a reality question to me through my father.

I am 9 months pregnant, in a hospital ward, and am thinking about one thing.

How will I tell my unborn child that my father is its father and grandfather, which makes me its sister and mother and, makes my mother its grandmother and older mother, which makes her my co-wife to my father and her husband?

#STOP-GIRLS AND WOMEN ABUSE

By Steven Mwangala