by Aluta Nite
Nonetheless, Michael future in terms of job security and prosperity was unknown. As he continued with his studies, the couple had three children, and after graduating they had three more children, in total three boys and three girls.
Jeanette had a female cousin who one day during a visit with Jeanette said to her, “Jeanette I have something to tell you, but please do not get me wrong. I hate having to tell you this, but my conscience cannot sit well with me till I tell you.”
“Please do not hesitate to tell me. Feel free to speak your mind with me, as we are cousins,” Jeanette intoned.
Her cousin paused and then said, “Your husband shows signs of a trouble-maker.”
Jeanette asked, “What do you mean or know that I don’t know?”
Her cousin replied, “I see a lot of deceit and pretence in his eyes and talk.”
Stunned, Jeanette said to her, “Okay, let’s wait and see.”
After graduation, Michael worked at a large, private law firm while doing internship before starting his own firm. As his income grew, people began to see another side to Michael. He abandoned the good friends with whom he had enjoyed music over the years, and was rarely seen at home.
He eventually bought a car and with that, stopped sleeping at home except on rare occasions. The family used to go shopping together regularly, and that also stopped. Michael preferred to shop once at the end of the month, take the items to his wife’s doorstep and run off again.
Jeanette gathered courage and told him to stop shopping for the family, because he shopped with his mistress in tow, and she had a say in what Jeanette’s shopping needs were, not to mention accompanying him to deliver the purchases.
Her youngest daughter, who was very fond of her father and did not understand the goings-on, repeatedly told Jeanette that she was the cause of their father’s absence. She even asked her mother to go out, look for him and bring him home.
Through her job at the financial institution, Jeanette took loans, furnished the house adequately and bought a car. She also took on a mortgage and bought a house big enough to accommodate her and her six children comfortably. Meanwhile, the children were growing and going to school.
Michael moved on with his chaotic life that involved a slew of women. He partied with them, travelled with them, drank with them and lived with them openly. Some were divorced with or without children, while others were spinsters.
One dreadful Saturday night, he had the audacity to go to Jeanette’s house, at midnight, drunk with one of his mistresses. Everyone was asleep. He opened the door with his key and proceeded upstairs with his mistress in tow.
He entered the master bedroom and ordered Jeanette to go downstairs and sleep on the sofa in the living room, so as to make room for him and his mistress on the matrimonial bed. Jeanette objected and he began to beat her and eventually pushed her down the stairs. Their children woke up and witnessed it all.
Jeanette ran outside in her bed-time clothes, barefoot, and he followed kicking, pushing and slapping her, still with his mistress following closely. Jeanette ran into the street crying and screaming for her life, trying to make her way to her cousin’s house about five-minutes-walk away. He chased her and continued to rain blows on her as she began to swell and bleed. Neighbours had now woken up and perched themselves on their windows watching the drama unfold.
They reached her cousin’s house with Jeanette wailing and knocking desperately. Her cousin and husband opened their gate quickly and took Jeanette in. Michael tried to follow her inside after throwing the gate wide open violently, all the while verbally abusing her, but was restrained by her cousin and husband.
His mistress had been taking in the scene with a wry smile on her face all the way. About half an hour later, after hurling more insults at Jeanette, and trying to gain physical access to her inside the house, he decided to leave.
“You can have them both,” he said insultingly to Jeanette’s cousin’s husband, referring to the two women.
Her cousin’s husband remained non-confrontational throughout the ordeal, to avoid escalating the situation.
Before leaving, Michael yelled out to his wife, “Come very early tomorrow, take your clothes and go away for good. I do not want you in my life anymore. I can take care of my children alone.”
Jeanette was in a lot of pain. She had bruises and welts all over. She could not walk straight and was crying uncontrollably. From time to time she asked herself, “What did I do to deserve all this? What changed and why? How am I going to walk around tomorrow with the neighbours whispering about me?”
At one point, her cousin said to her, “Jeanette, do you now recall what I told you many years back about this man? Over the years since graduating from law school, he has given you hell, and you have come to me crying and complaining from time to time. I am telling you the worst is still to come. I do not see an end to all this.”
Her cousin gave her a warm sponge bath, applied ointment on her wounds, gave her painkillers and a cup of warm milky cocoa, and put her to bed at about two in the morning. She whimpered for some time before falling asleep until six in the morning. She woke up feeling very sore and was given more painkillers.
Later on Sunday morning, Jeanette’s three youngest children came to her cousin’s house to have breakfast and see their mother. She could not go home to pick up her clothes until she was sure Michael had left. At about eleven in the morning, when she got word that he had left her, cousin went with her to get her clothing.
They then went to Jeanette’s father’s house on the other side of the city, where Jeanette was to stay for some time. She was afraid that Michael would go back to her cousin’s place to assault her again. She left the children alone with the housekeeper as their father had demanded, and sought medical attention.
Jeanette was too unwell to go to work on Monday morning, so she called her manager to report that she was sick. Michael also called her office to talk to her and when he found out she was away because of ill health, he told her boss she was lying and that she was instead enjoying the company of another man.
When Jeanette was well enough to go back to work after a week, her boss saw the bruises, bumps and marks on her face, neck, arms and legs and the doctor’s report. He was speechless and too embarrassed as a man to comment, not to mention his knowing Jeanette to be a very soft-spoken and gentle person, who did not deserve such treatment.
She stayed at her father’s house for three months then decided to go back to living with her children. However, depression threatened to take over her life.
She would, therefore, rush to her cousin’s house at odd times when she needed someone to talk to earnestly. This relieved her mind and calmed her nerves, preventing her from going berserk. Her cousin always gave her the attentive ear she needed. However, due to desperation, she sometimes, got involved with dubious prayer groups. When she eventually thought she was on her way to better health, more drama started.
Michael sent their firstborn son to college overseas with the promise of paying his educational and living expenses. He never fulfilled his promise, therefore not only did their son have to drop out of school, but he also had no means to purchase a plane ticket to fly home with. In addition, their son was too upset to let his mother know what he was going through, whereas his letters to his father remained unanswered.
Jeanette got wind of his predicament from his fellow students, who had gone back home on vacation. She brought him back home a year later after much financial struggle. Michael did not want to hear about or discuss the matter with anybody.
Moreover, Michael in his escapades had not been paying his credit card debts. In addition, he had been stealing his clients’ money, which amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars that had been entrusted to him for safekeeping until their cases were settled.
One evening, Jeanette went home from w
ork and found that auctioneers had gone to her house in the early afternoon, and carried all the furniture she had bought. The auctioneers had already laid claim to his office furniture and car, as well as the family’s rental house elsewhere.
Because Jeanette was in the dark about Michael’s financial troubles, she called the auctioneers the next morning and found out that he had not paid debts of over $500,000. She then told them that the furniture was purchased by her and they asked her to bring the receipts and loan agreements the same day to prove that. She went with the proof and they returned her furniture the same day with an apology.
Michael was eventually arrested because of the outstanding debts, and eventually imprisoned for three years. While in prison, none of his mistresses visited him. Jeanette alone and their children went to see him.
At the end of his sentence, she took him home to their children. After recuperating from prison life for a few months, he began to seek employment again. However, nobody would hire him, because he was no longer allowed to practice law, based on his tarnished record.
He later got sick and was found to be HIV-positive, a status he acquired before or while in prison. Because anti-retroviral drugs were not commonly available, he died soon after. Jeanette did the honourable thing and gave him a decent burial. She never ever brought charges against him for assault.
Colonial Security Dogs
As indigenous people were forming protest movements for independence from European colonial masters, there was something else going on that disturbed many.
Because of segregation laws, white rulers lived in the leafy suburbs of the cities with watchmen and big, savage, male dogs to guard their lucrative properties. Indigenous people lived in squalor near city centres or inner cities. The men went to work for pittance while their wives stayed at home.
People were assigned small houses, some ten feet by ten feet, regardless of family size. Moreover, houses typically did not contain basic amenities such as indoor plumbing, and therefore no bathroom and laundry facilities. These were instead available communally, except in a few cases whereby the man of the house held a supervisory post.
Besides political confrontation in relation to seeking independence from colonial masters, there was strife brewing between some foreigners and indigenous people living in the low-income areas described above.
In one particular area, lived people who worked menial jobs such as messengers, cleaners, drivers, watchmen, clerks, gardeners and houseboys. The men left their families early every morning, except on Sundays, to go to work in government and city council offices and elsewhere and some returned home for lunch, if distances to and from work allowed.
Most women were not employed, but stayed at home to take care of their younger children and do house chores, while older children went to school. Moreover, many women were not educated because boys, who were to become sole or primary breadwinners, were deemed more eligible for formal education that would culminate in careers.
The neighbourhood was usually teeming with activity during the day, as children played outside and women cleaned inside and outside their houses or washed dishes and clothes. In the afternoons, after housework was done, women sat under trees braiding hair, sewing, crocheting, knitting or preparing vegetables and grains for dinner.
In this neighbourhood, there began to appear three, well-dressed, indigenous men carrying brief-cases full of gifts such as perfumes, jewellery, lotions, purses, handbags, scarves, stockings, watches, brassieres, belts and other trinkets that women like. These men were typically inebriated, given their unsteady walk and slurred speech.
The men were paid by the colonial masters to lure the unsuspecting women away from their homes to the suburbs in taxicabs, while their husbands were at work. The women had not the slightest inkling of the horror that awaited them.
In luxurious properties in the suburbs, women were forcibly tied by their hands and feet to the four corners of beds. They lay on their backs spread out, as the ferocious, sex-starved male guard dogs that accompanied watchmen on colonial properties were set on them! The women screamed and shouted themselves hoarse, to no avail.
Their abductors waited outside for the job to be done before taking the women back to their ghetto-like neighbourhood. That was the cost exacted for accepting the gifts the women had received beforehand.
How demeaning! It was as if the women were biological substances devoid of any dignity or honour, and therefore not worthy of any respect or moral consideration. How degrading for the mind, body and soul, both for those victimized and those who orchestrated such acts!
The women came home psychologically broken, sick and disgusted. Regret for taking the gifts was all they could speak of, but it was too late. The damage had already been done. People in their communities were livid when they heard about their ordeals.
The women’s health was compromised for some time, and some never fully recovered psychologically.
Whenever the well-dressed abductors made fresh attempts on unwitting women, they were beaten mercilessly by adults, stoned by children, and chased away. They would therefore move to new areas or reappear again after some months.
The abductors’ stake was in getting paid to feed their addiction to intoxicants and to supply their basic needs, not to mention the pressure of ensuring the guard dogs were satisfied sexually. The police never appeared in the neighbourhood to investigate these criminal occurrences.
This went on for years until independence from overt colonial rule was established. The abductors disappeared for good after independence as leadership had changed, and such atrocities would not be tolerated.
In addition, some of the dog owners who had lived in the suburbs returned to their countries of birth, and those who remained, changed their ways for fear of reprisal from citizens of the new state. The matter was simply forgotten over time after having been swept under the rug. Justice was never served.
Tourism Plus
In a particular coastal area where tourism dominates, many local people have abandoned their previous lifestyles to pursue activities that makes some happy and others bitter and miserable. This is the consequence of tourism bringing with it characters of all sorts from all over the globe.
There are those who go for the hot tropical weather. They flee cold weather in their countries, for the opportunity to sun-tan. There are also those who go for what are commonly known as sex tours, to reinvigorate themselves with young men and women. Others seek new and different companions from the variety available in their home country. Moreover, there are those who do roaring business in drugs by exporting, importing and distributing them locally.
Land tilling and cattle rearing are slowly becoming things of the past in the area, as high expectations for and yields in US dollars, sterling pounds, euros and other major world currencies rise with tourism. Many young people even shun formal education because of the newer lucrative alternatives.
In fact, one might be heard asking, “Why should I bother going to school, when I am better off financially than those who’ve been to school?”
Another might add, “If we all farm then who’ll buy the produce?”
In addition, some of those that work for the government of the day, at the port or who teach, et cetera have their eyes on the tourism industry for some sort of future “investments”, perhaps during retirement.
Dreams, like day-to-day economic activities are increasingly revolving around tourism, which is one of the highest income-generating industries in the country.
On the other hand, agriculture, the economic backbone of this coastal area is becoming obsolete. People forget that in times of political or economic strife, tourism collapses and it takes a lot to revive it; meanwhile economic suffering prevails.
What typically happens at this coastal area is that young husbands and their wives with several children collude to sow and h
arvest from the new fertile soils created by tourism. Men go to the beaches to befriend gullible, single female tourists who are on sex tours or seeking different companions than they have had in the past. Wives remain at home knowing exactly what their husbands are doing.
In no time dollars, pounds and Euros start pouring in and the families experience significant material changes in their lives. Because these international currencies are very strong in relation to the local currency, conversions from the former to the latter yield large amounts of money that afford families many things they could only dream of previously.
Typically, the female tourists are smitten and come back every year or so. While away, they send money to their lovers, write letters and call them on phone. The mistresses are in the dark, however, about these men being married with families.
When the mistresses are in town and the men take them on local village tours, they do go to their homes too, but introduce their wives and children as sisters, aunties, cousins, nephews and nieces.
Some mistresses get pregnant, but most are normally past child-bearing age. The few that get pregnant return home indefinitely to raise their children in a more familiar environment.
The men typically have little to no desire to identify with the children sired with their foreign mistresses, as they already have families and related responsibilities.
Some of the wealthier mistresses, who are typically retired, invite the men to their homes abroad, all expenses paid. Those that go come back even better off financially. In a few instances, the men remain abroad and send money home.
When the families feel that they are comfortable enough having built or acquired one or more new houses for renting or businesses, the scheme is abandoned.
The men curtail their extra-marital relationships and return to their families. Thereafter, when the mistresses write, call or email them, the men give them the cold shoulder. In a few cases, however, the mistresses insist on getting married to the men, and even resign from their jobs abroad and move to the coastal area.
