Christiana Kunkala
Lest you forget; this is April and its is the SEXUAL ASSAULT AWARENESS MONTH. On this, one of our contributors: Christiana Kunkala massages us with this. We should always be careful with our girl child.
The year was 2007, I was eight years old, running and playing through the streets of Ozuboko-ama; what did I even know? A harmless beautiful time to be alive. The only pain I could remember was staying at a place when my mum used to say “Christiana, sit at a place”, that was just a lot punishment for my little busy legs.
My neighborhood was inhabited by people from common backgrounds, everybody knew each other’s family. To the best of my knowledge, we were one; especially as we spoke the same language. Fondly called ‘kelepe‘, I would go about greeting people and playing with teddy bears; though, it was plastic. We had this light skinned carpenter who saw me the other day and said “this girl you done big finish oh” in the Nigerian pidgin English which translated to “this girl, you are now grown”. In my spirit mind I said, “the guts!”
The other day, my mum and I were having a conversation. We talked about that neighbor hood, then something stroke. You know somehow, our brain has a means of removing sick memories from our head or make it a little less repulsive.
My eight years old busy legs had found its way to our family friend’s, Uncle’s room. He stayed in a single room; what took me there in particular, I can’t recall. But, he handed me over 20 naira to buy that lollipop sweet. What did I even think would be wrong with that? Harmless world we live in anyway.
I bought the sweet, and continued licking it happily. Then, I saw he proposed a bigger sweet which was in flesh with a red cap. Uncle got closer, put his big sweet in my mouth and he began to thrust; while this was ongoing, he put his hands around my throat. Little me was trying not to comprehend, because my head was on fire; trying to understand what it was, trying to understand if I should chew or scream. Then I bit it, quickly removed it from my mouth and put my lollipop back in my mouth.
Somehow; what that meat smells like, keeps coming to me. This fresh meat and same time dusty book smell keeps playing in my head; it makes me feel a little sick and sad that every time a man I like takes off his trousers, I don’t feel excited. I just feel like that is a destroyer and nothing good comes out of it. It tries to stay calm and could do all wrong once directed too, why is it shaped like a blunt knife? Why does it stand so strong at the sight of a victim?
The other day I thought; if I didn’t bite, that would mean after feeding me of his manhood, he would have gone down to my womanhood to penetrate?
The girl child molestation is even more mental damaging than its physical; thinking without circumspect, Uncle would have done worse to other children. I feel apathy towards the male other, I try to fight it; after all it wasn’t so intense. But, he did it anyways and would do more if he could.
PAUL KAY's BLOG 