A rape victim narrates her ordeal

| Friday March 19, 2010 00:00

'I came to Gaborone to look for a job leaving my parents who were working as teachers in Francistown. I came to stay with my grandparents'. My grandparents have since passed on, but each of their children -my mother's siblings, including her, have a house of their own in the yard - it's a big yard, just so that when things don't work out wherever they are, they can always have a place to sleep. So I occupied my mother's house, a little away, not too far though from the main house.' That decision would forever change Tsaone's life.

Having grown up in the home where she now stayed after a four-year absence, she knew just about everyone of her neighbours. She also knew - or believed, that she was safe at home. Indeed she had heard on one or two occasions about some petty robberies where a cellphone or a handbag was snatched from someone in the neighbourhood. A few break-ins had also been reported....but, never anything like what was about to happen to her on that fateful night.

'I arrived from work where I had only started working a month earlier at around 7:30 pm. It was very hot so I decided to open the windows and the door. I dressed up and sat in the living room to watch Generations.

I was kind of lazy to cook that night so I warmed some water for coffee. During a commercial break I dashed into the kitchen and quickly fixed myself a cup of coffee and a sandwich. I came back and sat right where I had been sitting. I was not exactly facing the door, but I could see you if you entered. I also could see tenants in the other houses within the compound as they went about their business, since there is enough light in the compound. I must have looked down at my feet or something but when I looked up, there was a man at the door. He had a knife and put his finger to his lips for me to keep quiet. I obliged, as I was afraid he would use the knife.' All this time Tsaone has been talking with her eyes closed. She opens them - letting a stream of tears flow down her cheeks. She wishes she could somehow have done things differently that day. If only she had locked the door. For what happened next was five, or 10 minutes - she does not really know, of pure terror.

'I thought he wanted some money or cellphone, so I offered him anything in the house - even the TV. But he was not interested in any of those items. He closed the door and held me so tightly by the scruff of my neck I could hardly breath. For some reason he appeared to know where the bedroom was. He pulled me into the bedroom and I screamed, calling out to my cousin who was staying in the main house with her mother. No one came.

He put the knife to my throat and told me that he would slit it if I made a sound. I begged him not to kill me and offered him money - it was month end and I had some money in the house, but he appeared not to be hearing me. He seemed just so determined, so sure of himself and I thought better of resisting him.

He smacked me across the face and then hushed me. Then he tore my dress from top down, then my panties, using the same knife. I begged him to wait, tried to tell him I was having my menses, but he roughly pushed me onto the bed. I asked him to at least use a condom. Strangely he obliged. I thought if I survived the rape and possibly death when he is done raping me, I would not want to have HIV or some sexually transmitted disease.'

Tsaone felt the man as he came into her, but then a sense of hopelessness came over.

' I felt like I was out of my body, floating...floating. I did not care anymore if he was going to kill me.  When he finished he instructed me to close my eyes and said if I opened them he would finish me off.

I heard the TV volume going up, but I dared not open my eyes.  After what seemed like eternity I decided to open my eyes. He was going to kill me anyway. He was gone. I screamed and someone heard me. I sat down and cried,' she chokes on the words and tears well up in her eyes.

While Tsaone did not know her rapist, she had looked at his face long enough and believed she would be able to identify him.

As the people in the yard gathered, someone said she had heard Tsaone scream, but had thought she was with a friend and laughing.

'They could have helped me,' she sniffs and the tears come down now in a torrent.

'I called one of my cousins who stays the other side of town. I knew he would be firm and work with the police to find the guy who raped me. We went together to the police station where I made a statement. They took me to a see a doctor who performed a rape test. He took hair, DNA, blood and checked for any damage.

Once again I had to relive the events of the last three hours as I had to answer a lot of questions and to fill out a whole lot of paperwork and was asked a lot of questions again. I was really tired of all this and was beginning to hate these people. Did it have to take this long? I was wondering if they really understood what I was going through.  After the rape-test the police went to my house with us and asked us not to touch anything in my bedroom.

They went with us and locked the door. I took a shower at my cousins' - I must have spent over an hour there as I tried to remove the guy's touch and his smell from me. I just felt so filthy. I spent the night with my cousin, ' she says, cupping her mouth to stifle a cry.

The police came the following morning to collect evidence. They took Tsaone's clothes, her bed linen, applied black powder to the door handles and searched the floor and everything for any marks and spots, and took pictures asking questions all the time. They applied black powder to the door handles and the headboard. But they did not find any used condoms.

'My supervisor allowed me to stay home for a few days and arranged for my counseling sessions with lifeline.' The counselor also ensured that Tsaone received prophylaxis from the hospital, as the doctor had not prescribed it.

I felt like a ghost. I had no soul. Everything seemed and sounded strange.

A part of me wanted to die, in fact I would hear that someone is dead and envy them, yet the thought of my family - my mother and my siblings kept me back from committing suicide.  For some reason I kept wanting to blame myself for being careless, for believing that I was safe in my own house.  I had to wait for almost three months before a confirmatory HIV test could be done.  Fortunately I was negative,' she says as once again tears come streaming down her face.

Tsaone has been on and off anti-depressants for three years now. She got married late last year but the memory of that horrible day will not leave. Like a fairy it visits her, in her moments of solitude and in the cheer of the company of friends and family, following her, wanting to suck the very life out of her.

' But I must be strong - I have to be. My husband and my little girl mean the world to me.'  *Not real name