By Prisca Anyungu
I was born and raised in the western part of Kenya. I lost my dad when I was only 6. Being the first born in a family of four meant working extra hard both at home and in school. It was tough, but I did all I could to make sure I helped my mother who was just a peasant farmer.
I did my Form 4 exams and later joined a national polytech to study accounting. It was during my first employment as a cashier in a restaurant that I met this man who was working with a bus company. We fell in love and, after a month or two, came together as husband and wife. It didn’t take long before he started showing his true colours.
We would quarrel over the slightest things. The fights ended with beatings and belongings being thrown outside the house. I used to cry but believed that, with time, he would change and we would live happily together.
Less than two years into the marriage came my first pregnancy. When I was five months pregnant, he was involved in a severe road accident that led to his left leg being amputated. This was the time he needed me most. I did my best to take care of him even though I experienced a painful miscarriage less than a month after his accident.
I was confused but always prayed to God to give me strength to overcome what I was going through. Little did I know that after he recovered completely, he would go back to his true self.
Pregnancy came and another pregnancy after another year. Hell began again. By now he had been fitted with an artificial limb and could move around easily. His drinking habits started. He would come home late, drunk. Non-stop quarrels with no basis continued with beatings. Most of the time, I would run to our neighbors to seek refuge in their house with my little kids.
One night, we were forced to trek 3 kms to the nearest police station to seek help. We came back to the house with policemen, only to find he had locked himself inside the house. He did this a lot. The law doesn’t allow breaking into someone’s house. He would refuse to open. Most of the time we would spend our nights on pavements with no blankets.
When my firstborn girl was 3, she told me we couldn’t go on like this. “Let us leave daddy alone because he is a bad man,” she said.
He always threatened to kill us. I cried a lot. Sometimes society judges us so harshly.
“Maybe you should have tried harder…”
It was a matter of life and death and not what society would say. Enough was enough. We left with nothing, not even clothes to change.
I thank God for carrying us through. I left empty-handed with my kids – one on the back, the other one by my side going to an unknown place.
We had to start life over from the scratch, but today, five years down the line, we are happy and stress-free. I’m raising my 9-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son. They never ask about their dad, but every time a door is slammed in the neighborhood, they tremble and wonder if their dad has come to disturb us.
My advice to other women is to value your life more than anything else. I used to ask myself if I left him, what would happen to me and my little kids? But my babies supported me, and we left.
Ladies, in every situation you go through, put God first. I used to pray constantly during the night asking God to see us through the night so we would not to be harmed. Indeed, he protected us.
Life is not all about being with a man. If you tried with him and it didn’t work out, move on with your life. God always has a way of showing himself to us. I am a happy single mother today and I pray one day God will bring a serious man into my life. I vowed never to give up on love because I trust there is always someone out there created for you.
