Written by: Admin_SheEvo
I spent my entire school career in a boarding school, where I was expected to look after myself from the tender age of 8, in Grade 2, until I graduated in Grade 12. I remember when I started boarding school during the second term of Grade 2 in the middle of winter, my shoes were stolen from my locker. When I told my mom, who was a domestic worker, that my shoes were stolen, she told me that she didn’t have the money to buy me another pair of shoes, so I had to attend school barefoot for the whole term. Then there was a time when my feet were cracked from walking barefoot and eventually bled, but I didn’t feel anything; only the other kids could see blood flowing from my feet, and they were the ones who showed me.
I never knew a mother’s love/attention since I started boarding school. l had to spend my holidays with a guardian, and I could feel a sense of not belonging there. If there is work to be done at home, no one else could do it besides me, starting from cooking, cleaning, laundry, and milking goats. I did not spend my holidays resting; I worked hard so that I could get a bar of soap and lotion for boarding school.
I had to do laundry for other girls in order for me to use their soap water to wash my own clothes, and iron their clothes so that I could iron mine because I did not have the privilege of getting full toiletries termly. I got old clothes from family members, especially from girls of family members where my mother was working. I never knew wearing store-bought underwear; only from the leftover fabric that my guardian was not using, she sewed some underwear or two.
Imagine a teenager who gets her period every month. Not having any sanitary towels to use, I had to use the mattress I was sleeping on. Every month, I would cut 3 or 4 pieces from the mattress, cover them with part of a t-shirt I cut up, and use that as a sanitary towel. It didn’t help much, but it was better than nothing. When the bleeding was too heavy, I had to skip school for the day.
Coming home for the holidays, you will face a constant reminder that it’s not your home. Since I was the only one doing all the domestic work, after I mopped the floor and the other kids came from playing and they wanted to use the bathroom, and I told them that the floor was wet, I was constantly told that I should let them enter their house, I should remember that it is not our house… this reminder lives with me until today.
Whenever you want to do something or you have an idea and you are looking for validation or support from your guardian, there was always a negative comment and eventually a big NO! That caused me to start feeling that I am not good enough, or anything l do is not good enough, or I cannot be better than someone else.
I am fighting daily to be better and to know that I am good enough, but this childhood trauma is stuck with me, that it causes me to procrastinate or delay very important things I have to do in order to make my life better and that of my daughter. I know I am stronger than my past. And every day, I choose to fight for a better life-not just for me, but for my daughter. I may still carry the scars, but they remind me how far I have come. I am learning, step by step, to believe in myself. No one can take away my power. No one can erase the fact that I survived.
And now, I am trying to build something new… a life where my daughter will never know the pain I knew. She will grow up loved, supported, and sure of her worth. The little girl who walked barefoot, who sewed her own underwear, who made do with nothing, she is still inside me. But she is not broken. She is a warrior. And warriors keep rising. My story isn’t over yet. The best chapters are still ahead.
Written By: Jasana Uandia
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