Rape will not define my future

By Joan Barsulai

Lucy Wangui was born 40 years ago in Murang’a County. Being the first born in a poverty-stricken family of six was difficult. Her parents, who were peasant farmers, struggled to make ends meet, and the family lived from hand to mouth.

After her O-levels, Lucy decided to drop out of school, to reduce the burden on her parents and give her younger siblings the chance to get a better education. But idling at home proved too depressing, so she moved to Nairobi to look for a job as a housegirl. She figured it was better to try her hand at anything that would help to support her family.

Working as a house-help was no easy feat for Lucy, but her goal helped her persevere: “I had to contend with cruel employees and staying in a room so tiny that they had to chop the bed almost in half. But my sisters stayed in school, thanks to my salary, and that was all that mattered.”

On July 14, 1995, Lucy was heading home from Bible study along Limuru Road when she decided to use a shortcut through City Park.

“I was carrying my notebook and Bible, and I tried to catch up to some strangers who were slightly ahead of me, but they were walking too fast.”

As she hurried along the dark path, she was accosted by three ‘street men’. Before she could get a close look at her assailants, one of them hit her on the neck with a blunt piece of wood, and she was temporarily blinded. For the horrifying hours that followed, the men took turns raping her, and then left her naked, for the dead.

Luckily, passers by found her and called the police, who took her to the hospital.

During the months that followed, Lucy could barely walk, and her whole body ached incessantly. She wished she had died from her ordeal; she was on suicide watch, and in great mental distress.

“I prayed over and over to God, asking Him to end my life. I kept thinking about the path I had taken that had destroyed my life. Why did I take that route, and why did God let this happen to me, especially when I was coming from Bible study?” she recalls.

With time, she underwent counselling, which helped her a great deal. Her father was also a strong support during those tough times: “He stayed by my side through it all, telling me over and over that I am his daughter; his little girl, and that nothing will ever change that.”

The rage that consumed during those days was like nothing she had ever experienced. She found herself deeply resenting men, including her father and brothers, and she wanted nothing to do with them.

But when she met girls as young as two years old who had been sexually abused, she knew that at 23, her life was not over. If they could survive it, so could she.

Lucy says she realised that her only way out as to forgive her assailants in order to move on. Since no arrests had been made, and she had no way of confronting them directly, she would write down all the things she felt about them every day and tear the notebook into pieces. The healing had begun.

Her heart also healed, and in 1997, she fell in love for the first time, with a fine young man from her neighbourhood. They wanted to settle down together, and so they went for a HIV test. Lucy turned out to be HIV-positive, and she realised that she had contracted the virus from the rape.

“The wounds opened up afresh. My boyfriend left, and I was left picking up the pieces, again. I could not take it any more.

“I had always wanted to have children, specifically twins; it was my greatest dream, but it had been shattered. I was reduced to watching my friends and former schoolmates get married and have babies, while I struggled to get through each day. It was very hard.”

As Lucy struggled to come to terms with her condition, she heard about Asunta Wagura, the Aids activist, and made it her mission to befriend her.

“I lived in fear before I met Asunta,” she remembers. “Every Sunday, I would go to Kenyatta National Hospital’s Ward Seven and Eight, where there were sickly Aids patients. It was torture for me, but this was the reality I was preparing for. It felt like my inevitable destiny, so I lived like a zombie, just waiting to wither away and die.”

Asunta, however, assured her that there was hope beyond her HIV status. With her newfound zest for life, Lucy joined Kenwa (Kenya Network for Women Living with Aids) and threw herself into fieldwork, where she visited people, especially children, living with HIV. As she offered group therapy for children, it also proved to be a therapeutic experience for her.

HORROR

Lucy now works at Hope Worldwide, a non-governmental organisation that helps the needy. She has risen from a volunteer, to an office caretaker to an office assistant. She spends all her free time giving talks to schools, corporate organisations and women’s groups, and also counselling HIV-positive individuals.

“I meet many fearful people who are constantly agonising over their HIV status. I feel encouraged whenever I can give someone hope and get them out of that state, because I have lived through such horror myself.”

Lucy has not given up on motherhood yet, and she is still hopeful about meeting the right man and settling down.

“I’ve met wonderful men who expressed interest in marrying me, but I still haven’t completely overcome the past and the fear of intimacy.”

To make up for not having children, Lucy spends most of her weekends and after-work hours volunteering at various children’s homes in Nairobi. Such is her love for children that she took a loan to buy a piece of land in Nyahururu, where she hopes to build an orphanage. She hopes to retire soon, once she gets funding to build the centre, and spend the rest of her days raising orphans who have nowhere to call home.

“With my limited education, I have gone far because someone believed in me. I am determined to do the same for children out there who have no voice of their own,” she says with conviction.

For now, Lucy lives her life to the fullest: “ I’ve found that the only guarantee in this lifetime is death. Everything else, including work, babies, and marriage, is just a bonus. While I’m here, I’d better make a difference when and where I can, before my time comes.”