Me Too

When it began

I use my silence to protect myself but that silence has protected my abusers for years . My mom always told me that as a baby I was always very quiet. I did not cry a lot and she could leave me in one place on the couch and I would remain there for hours. My mom had me when she was 18 and struggled to take care of me while working in the hotel industry.  Eventually,she gave me up to my father's family after they had finally acknowledged that I was indeed one of them and not a married man's child as my father claimed.
I imagine that I was a normal child. I do not have baby pictures or any memorabilia like other children that I could use to get a sense of what I was like. My mom used to say how beautiful I was but I haven't felt beautiful a day in my life.

I was only 5 when it began and in my dreams I am in a yellow dress but I do not know how true it was as my clothes change all the time in my dream but the details remain the same. He was our neighbor and family friend. His grandchildren would visit our home and vice versa and we would play. He was also a farmer so he would share what he has planted with my family. I thought nothing of it when he told me to come for some ground provisions to bring to my grandma. I remember going into the house and it was empty and he told me they were in there. I walked in and it was a bedroom. I turned around to alert that it wasn't the kitchen and I bumped into him. He told me that he did it to all children and that it was just a game that we were playing. I didn't understand. I only remember the pain and the little blood. I thought I had hurt myself and was so scared because I didn't want my grandma to see it. I remember standing in the back yard looking at the blood and searching myself to find the cut that was causing it. It was late evening and I was called inside to take my bath. I hid those clothes until there was a fire and burned them.

I was a tom boy so getting cuts and bleeding was the norm for me. I had just as many bruises and cuts as my male cousins. I was quiet and didn't talk a lot but I loved a good tumble and would prefer to be up and about like the boys as much as I loved playing with dolls. So hiding clothes with blood to not get a beating was somewhat the norm for us. Looking back now it was funny until that day.

I became a different child.  More quiet and withdrawn. Using mono syllables and shaking my head when being spoken to instead of speaking. I warned my cousins in my own way.  I told that that he was a raper man and that they should never go to his house again.

My little cousin ran to our aunt and told her what I said and she asked her where she heard that from and she told her it was me. I remember saying it's " true auntie" and I wanted to tell her so bad bad she told me never to say something like that again. So I kept everything to myself and suffered in silence.  I avoided him but he always tried to get access to me. Sometimes I would be washing the dishes by myself and he would appear at the door since I would leave it open to throw the garbage out.

I remember all the times I would play games in the kitchen just to keep my cousins in their with me until I was done.  Our favourite was Grace cooking.  He was stand in his years looking at the house. I would see him through the window and feel so scared. I was as scared of him as I was scared of a ghost. I didn't escape it though it continued to happen for years and I said nothing and suffered in silence. He would sometimes give me money I guess to compensate for his wrongs.  Imagine a man your grandmother's age taking advantage of you. I would have money and my family always thought I stole it from them when in reality he gave it to me.

His whole family migrated leaving him alone and I suspect that they knew and he was touching his granddaughter but I have no proof. They only came back once and that was when his wife died. His son came back once time after that and that was it. We never saw them again.

Being a child I always thought everything was my fault and that I somehow caused it on myself by being bad or not listening to my grandma. I think sometimes if I had spoken up things would be different but I was corrected on that point when he did it to another neighbors child and they wanted to call the police. I remember my grandma making the comment that the girl was lying and the man did not do anything like what she was saying. I knew then and there that their reaction would be the same to me.

I think of all the times my cousins did not want to keep my company in the kitchen. All the things that happened right at our back door with my family in the living room or on the verandah.  I think of all the times he touched, or put it in or tried to and would just be there grinding on me. Telling to bend over or move a little and I let it happen. I didn't know that I could be helped. I never considered telling my mom or anyone at all. I just kept it in and it went on and on.

I remember being around 11 and confronting him and screaming in the yard. My other little cousins were there and I asked him if he could really look at a child that young and touch them and he told me yes. That was when I knew that if I escaped he would move to one of them. I made up my mind to let it continue with me and hopefully stop there. I did not want anything to happen to them.