It was going to be a very big wedding. I was a pastor,
so all our church members were coming, as well as all our relatives. My fiance,
Harry, and I were very excited - we were getting married in All Saints
Cathedral in Nairobi
and I had rented a beautiful dress.
But the night before the wedding I realised that I had
some of Harry's clothes, including his cravat. He couldn't show up without a
tie, so a friend who had stayed the night offered to take it to him first thing
in the morning. We got up at dawn and I walked her to the bus station.
As I was making my way back home, I walked past a guy
sitting on the bonnet of a car - suddenly he grabbed me from behind and dumped
me in the back seat. There were two more men inside, and they drove off. It all
happened in a fraction of a second.
A piece of cloth was stuffed in my mouth. I was kicking
and hitting out and trying to scream. When I managed to push the gag out, I
screamed: "It's my wedding day!" That was when I got the first blow.
One of the men told me to "co-operate or you will die".
The men took turns to rape me. I felt sure I was going to die, but
I was still fighting for my life, so when one of the men took the gag out of my
mouth I bit his manhood. He screamed in pain and one of them stabbed me in the
stomach. Then they opened the door and threw me out of the moving car.
I was miles from home, outside Nairobi . More than six hours had passed since
I had been abducted.
A child saw me being thrown out and called her
grandmother. People came running. When the police came they tried to get a
pulse, but no-one could. Thinking I was dead, they wrapped me in a blanket and
started to take me to the mortuary. But on the way there, I choked on the
blanket and coughed. The policeman said: "She's alive?" And he turned
the car around and drove me to the biggest government hospital in Kenya .
I arrived in great shock, murmuring incoherently. I was
half-naked and covered in blood, and my face was swollen from being punched.
But something must have alerted the matron, because she guessed I was a bride.
"Let's go around the churches to see if they're missing a bride," she
told the nurses.
By coincidence, the first church they called at was All Saints
Cathedral. "Are you missing a bride?" the nurse asked.
The minister said: "Yes, there was a wedding at 10
o'clock and she didn't come."
When I didn't show up to the church, my parents were
panicking. People were sent out to search for me. Rumours flew. Some wondered:
"Did she change her mind?" Others said: "No, it's so unlike her,
what happened?"
After a few hours, they had to take down the decorations
to make room for the next ceremony. Harry had been put in the vestry to wait.
When they heard where I was, my parents came to the
hospital with the whole entourage. Harry was actually carrying my wedding gown.
But the media had also got wind of the story so there were reporters too.
I was moved to another hospital where I'd have more
privacy. That was where the doctors stitched me up and gave me some devastating
news: "The stab wound went deep into your womb, so you won't be able to
carry any children."
I was given the morning-after pill, as well as antiretroviral
drugs to protect me from HIV and Aids. My mind shut down, it refused to accept
what had happened.
Harry kept saying he still wanted to marry me. "I
want to take care of her and make sure she comes back to good health in my
arms, in our house," he said. Truth be told, I wasn't in a position to say
Yes or No because my mind was so jammed with the faces of the three men, and
with everything that had happened.
A few days later, when I was less sedated, I was able to
look him in the eye. I kept saying sorry. I felt like I had let him down. Some
people said it was my own fault for leaving the house in the morning. It was
really hurtful, but my family and Harry supported me.
The police never caught the rapists. I went to line-up
after line-up but I didn't recognise any of the men, and it hurt me each time I
went. It set back my recovery - it was 10 steps forward, 20 back. In the end I
went back to the police station and said: "You know what, I'm done. I just
want to leave it."
Three months after the attack I was told I was
HIV-negative and got really excited, but they told me I had to wait three more
months to be sure. Still, Harry and I began to plan our second wedding.
Although I had been very angry at the press intrusion,
somebody read my story and asked to meet me. Her name was Vip Ogolla, and she
was also a rape survivor. We spoke, and she told me she and her friends wanted
to give me a free wedding. "Go wild, have whatever you want," she
said.
I was ecstatic. I went for a different type of cake,
much more expensive. Instead of a rented gown, now I could have one that was
totally mine.
In July 2005, seven months after our first planned
wedding, Harry and I got married and went on a honeymoon.
Twenty-nine days later, we were at home on a very cold night.
Harry lit a charcoal burner and took it to the bedroom. After dinner, he
removed it because the room was really warm. I got under the covers as he
locked up the house. When he came to bed he said he was feeling dizzy, but we
thought nothing of it.
It was so cold we couldn't sleep, so I suggested getting
another duvet. But Harry said he couldn't get it as he didn't have enough
strength. Strangely, I couldn't stand up either. We realised something was very
wrong. He passed out. I passed out. I remember coming to. I would call him. At
times he would respond, at other times he wouldn't. I pushed myself out of bed
and threw up, which gave me some strength. I started crawling to the phone. I
called my neighbour and said: "Something is wrong, Harry is not
responding."
She came over immediately but it took me ages to crawl
to the front door to let her in as I kept passing out. I saw an avalanche of
people coming in, screaming. And I passed out again.
I woke up in hospital and asked where my husband was.
They said they were working on him in the next room. I said: "I'm a pastor,
I've seen quite a lot in my life, I need you to be very straight with me."
The doctor looked at me and said: "I'm sorry, your husband did not make
it."
I couldn't believe it.
Going back to church for the funeral was terrible. Just a month
earlier I had been there in my white dress, with Harry standing at the front
looking handsome in his suit. Now, I was in black and he was being wheeled in,
in a casket.
People thought I was cursed and held back their children
from me. "There's a bad omen hanging over her," they said. At one
point, I actually believed it myself.
Others accused me of killing my husband. That really got
me down - I was grieving.
The post-mortem showed what really happened: as the
carbon monoxide filled his system, he started choking and suffocated.
I had a terrible breakdown. I felt let down by God, I
felt let down by everybody. I couldn't believe that people could be laughing,
going out and just going about life. I crashed.
One day I was sitting on the balcony looking at the
birds chirping away and I said: "God, how can you take care of the birds
and not me?" In that instant I remembered there are 24 hours a day -
sitting in depression with your curtains closed, no-one's going to give you
back those 24 hours. Before you know, it's a week, a month, a year wasted away.
That was a tough reality.
I told everybody I would never ever get married again.
God took my husband, and the thought of ever going through such a loss again
was too much. It's something I wouldn't wish on anybody. The pain is so
intense, you feel it in your nails.
But there was one man - Tonny Gobanga - who kept
visiting. He would encourage me to talk about my husband and think about the
good times. One time he didn't call for three days and I was so angry. That's
when it hit me that I had fallen for him.
Tonny proposed marriage but I told him to buy a magazine, read my
story and tell me if he still loved me. He came back and said he still wanted
to marry me.
But I said: "Listen, there's another thing - I
can't have children, so I cannot get married to you."
"Children are a gift from God," he said.
"If we get them, Amen. If not, I will have more time to love you."
I thought: "Wow, what a line!" So I said Yes.
Tonny went home to tell his parents, who were very
excited, until they heard my story. "You can't marry her - she is
cursed," they said. My father-in-law refused to attend the wedding, but we
went ahead anyway. We had 800 guests - many came out of curiosity.
It was three years after my first wedding, and I was
very scared. When we were exchanging vows, I thought: "Here I am again
Father, please don't let him die." As the congregation prayed for us I
cried uncontrollably.
A year into our marriage, I felt unwell and went to the
doctor - and to my great surprise he told me that I was pregnant.
As the months progressed I was put on total bed rest,
because of the stab wound to my womb. But all went well, and we had a baby girl
who we called Tehille. Four years later, we had another baby girl named Towdah.
Today, I am the best of friends with my father-in-law.
I wrote a book, Crawling out of Darkness, about my
ordeal, to give people hope of rising again. I also started an organisation
called Kara Olmurani. We work with rape survivors, as I call them - not rape
victims. We offer counselling and support. We are looking to start a halfway
house for them where they can come and find their footing before going back to
face the world.
I have forgiven my attackers. It wasn't easy but I
realised I was getting a raw deal by being upset with people who probably don't
care. My faith also encourages me to forgive and not repay evil with evil but
with good.
The most important thing is to mourn. Go through every
step of it. Get upset until you are willing to do something about your
situation. You have to keep moving, crawl if you have to. But move towards your
destiny because it's waiting, and you have to go and get it.
Listen to Terry's interview on Outlook on the BBC World Service
— BBC
What a great story!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great story!Great Lessons.Our God is a miracle God.
ReplyDelete