Janet Solomon's Diary - Episode 5

Diary Of A Hustling Single Girl - Episode 5

If you have been following me through the other episodes, you would have noticed that my childhood is not something I wish to remember. But, that is not all about what happened during my childhood. Continue reading and you would rethink the people you take your children to, or the way you treat your children.

Loneliness became a part of me since there was no one to talk, chat, gist, gossip with. At that age, I did not understand what ‘white’ people did to Africans during the slave era, and so, I couldn’t call myself that.

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I referred to myself as a housemaid though it was much worse than that. The only thing I did was house chores and received beating for what I did right. I repeat, I became an extreme introvert - if that exists.

My aunt listened to nothing I said to her. She was only interested in me, when she brought in her boyfriends.

“Cook one of those special meals. If you like make it salty. Then, remember to disappear until after he goes away”.

“Yes ma”.

No school, no friends, no family, no enemies, nothing! I was like a spirit that worshiped in the house of the living. My existence at that point was a mistake.

If I went out to buy anything and spent more time than she expected of me, I was in deep bitter-leaf soup, if you know what I mean.

Sometime into my teenage years, I can’t quite recall, I started bleeding. The memories of Big Daddy came back to haunt me, I didn’t know it was menstruation. I tried again telling my aunty the whole truth about those two nights, but I was afraid that she would beat me to death.

I know you would say I should have got used to the beating at that stage, but…ladies and gentlemen, you cannot get used to torture.

You know how they show it in movies when someone is in a dilemma? 

Two angels on either side of one’s shoulders – a black angel and a white angel. One would tell you to do it and give you the consequences of not doing it; the other would only stay there and be countering what the first one has said; that is how it was for me.

Where was I now to run to? Or to whom was I to go to explain this? I concluded that Big Daddy had ruined my life. But I remembered he mentioned something like a menstruation period the second time he came to rape me.

“But what is it all about? How am I supposed to control it? Or…” Too many things running through my head at that age, it wasn’t supposed to be like that.

“Aunty please, just listen to me for a minute or two”, I prayed silently in my room one night. If I was allowed to attend church services, I would have just approached any adult female and told her my predicament, but I was grounded, no ‘indiscriminate’ going out and no ‘visitors’ of any form or type.

“God… am I going to continue this life like this? Please tell me what to do. I know I am too small to understand life, but change my aunty’s heart towards me. She is a devil to me and I don’t want it that way. In Jesus name I pray, Amen!”

I couldn’t take my bath regularly again because of the wounds on my body and that one my aunty noticed.

“Come oo, you dey smell oo! You still dey baff so?” She asked scanning through my eyes.

“Yes aunty”. I answered face down.

“Come make I check”.

She stripped me naked in front of her female friends, that one knew the happenings in the house.

“Jesus!”

“See blood all over your pant”.

“Aunty I have been trying to…”

“Shut up! I say shut up. If I hear pim from your mouth”.

Out of pity or pretense, whichever one it was, her friend asked how all that blood came about.

“I think it is men…en…” I didn't remember the name.

“See what I keep saying about this girl? You have gone out to see a man abi?”

“No oo!”

“If I slap you ehn, e go resound like say you hit trailer wey carry sand”.

“E be like say she don dey menstruate oo”.

“Wetin? She don reach that age?”

“Hmm… you no know these children of nowadays. Their own maturity dey start earlier than normal. Na wetin make them dey get belle for early age be that”.

“Just comot for my side”.

At least, I was glad she knew I was menstruating. But what was I supposed to do about it?

She called me in the morning and gave me four sanitary pads and said I had to manage it, because she would not waste anymore pads on me.

So, I reused the pads ‘uncomfortably’ for several months. Mine came with severe pains. I concluded it was as a result of Big Daddy’s penis that penetrated me. It had caused more damage than I knew.

Hostility ruled my aunt’s mind and so I couldn’t tell her or ask her for more. And so, I made a very rough decision…

To be continued…