Thokozani!

"I had a life before that evening, and I will continue to have a life. What happened with me that night will stay with me...but if it hasn't killed me, it has made me stronger."

Had I known better, I would have swiped left! It had not been an hour since I downloaded the app but, already, I seemed somewhat popular...or that's what I thought. In my friend-group, I’ve always been the daring one, always willing to try out new things, the risk taker. Yup, that was me.

After breaking up with my boyfriend from home, I was ready to enter the dating streets again. I wasn't willing to go out and meet new people so what better way than to join a dating site. See, dating sites are quite interesting:  you pick what you want -- Choose may'khethela. You connect with who you think your type is. My type is the one that seems rather plain-looking; professionals; those that have two or three pictures with not much to say on their bio. As for the extra good-looking light-skinned niggas? Not so much. Those ones just spell ‘C-H-E-A-T-E-R’ to me! Stereotypical, huh?

There I was, chatting away with this random - but interesting - stranger. It didn't take long for us to meet because he stayed just 2 kilometres away from my flat. Don't be alarmed ,we met in a public space… can’t help but be extra vigilant when you're meeting with strangers , no?
I wasn't necessarily clear about my intentions from the beginning, I was caught between a space where I wanted to be ‘relationshiped’ and romanced but also didn't mind the idea of  being just friends with this individual.
Mitch was the total opposite of me. He went out often, not as often as he liked because he was rather broke. He always complained about not having money for anything. He always ate free food at work and never bought groceries. That meant each time we hung out at his place he never had any food to offer. Don't get me wrong I was never there for the food, but a girls' gotta eat Ok! Its basic human decency that when you have a visitor over you offer them something to snack on at least, but it was never the case with this one.

In a short space of time we had grown pretty close, he would call me at odd hours of the morning on his way from groove ,probably squashed at the back of his friends' car having begged them to take him home after offering to pay for fuel which he never did -- because he was broke like that. He came from a very good family, earned a decent salary for a 28-year-old with no dependents but his budgeting skills were terrible. He would borrow at least R50 every two weeks from me and claim it was for data and research for his business idea. Me being me, I would lend it to him. He never paid it back .I still stood by him though as a friend / potential girlfriend maybe. Some would assume we were friends with benefits. I don't know which category I fell under really.
                                                            
It was on one particular evening when I had invited him to my flatmates' birthday party that he pitched with his Gobela (a person chosen by the ancestors to be a guide into becoming a sangoma).Yes, you read right his..... Gobela. He didn't look like a sangoma at all. He was an ordinary looking guy, clean haircut, with his chinos on and a cool shirt. Who would've guessed.? My idea of a Gobela would be some old gogo ,with red and white traditional garments and beads but no, he was a modern-day one.

A few days prior, he had confided in me that he was to begin his journey as a sangoma .I was puzzled at the idea of him becoming an initiate. It was then that he also asked we stop seeing each other because his Gobela had advised him that all acts of intimacy should stop as he is about to embark on this journey. Mind you, Mitch and I had never been intimate. Our closeness started and ended with hugs. He believed he had some sort of bad energy that could be transferred to me. This made me even more comfortable around him because I knew there was no pressure for any sort of intimacy and that’s rare considering the nature of men out here. I was okay with the idea of nothing sexual happening between us but the fact that he was training to be isangoma made me feel a bit uneasy. I knew nothing about izangoma. Growing up, I was never exposed to any and all the stories I had known of izangoma were strange and indicated that it is a group of people that you should fear.
 
Oddly enough my fear became a lived reality. Not only did I meet Vusi(Gobela) for the first and last time that day, but he became a huge part of who I am today. A victim ,a statistic...although not yet recorded. A part of a number of thousands of other young women whose dignity has been violated. You've probably heard all of the stories of women like Uyinene Mretywana who got raped and killed in place you would never even think of, a post office!? Then there is those who attend parties and get their drinks spiked, or are drunk to a state where they are taken advantage of. I shall add to your list today: a young woman who retires to bed at a party, is sober, gets into her blankets and prepares to sleep only for a man to "mistakenly" enter her room on his way to the loo and then proceeds to violate her. 
 
 
I can never begin to comfortably narrate what transpired on that particular evening without being triggered. I have self-doubt and feel like a hypocrite for not reporting my own victimization. This was only the beginning.


*** 
 To Natasha: Hope House Counselling Centre,- thank you for listening.😊