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Do you know that there are certain parts in our memory that our conscious mind dismisses, not for lack of importance but rather as a coping mechanism? Funny enough it takes the recurrence of a similar circumstance to jog that memory, to dislodge the cobwebs and to reveal the naked truth, but only when we are in the mindset to deal with it. And they say there is no GOD. Nonsense! Man in no way shape or form can create the complexity that is us…human beings.
I just finished watching the new Tyler Perry movie ..’For coloured girls’. As usual not just a movie, but a poetic and honest look at a particular set of circumstances…snippets in time if you will. Real life circumstances brought to screen. In vivid colour and graphic in nature. Stories that we have all heard about at one time or another either in telling from a friend/relative or as is wont to happen…as neighbourhood gossip. But hearing that the neighbours daughter was raped and seeing it on film is two completely different things. Seeing the damage that is wrought by such an action on the victim and the lasting effects especially when it is perpetuated by the same persons who are supposed to protect you now that is traumatic.
My heart bleeds for all the Yasmine’s, Tangie’s and Crystal’s betrayed by the very men who are supposed to protect us…what do you do when the enemy you are taught to fear turns out to be not a stranger but a friend? This movie brought me back to two instances….long buried until tonight and while not as dramatic as Yasmine traumatizing enough to be buried.
I had been away for a year at that point, my first visit back home since I had left. It was my old primary school graduation day…a day used to commemorate the rite of passage for teens..from primary school to secondary school. As we say the official send off to ‘big school’. A beautiful evening, for me a time to reflect on my years spent where those younger ones are right now. The excitement of the day knowing you had passed common entrance and were moving on and out, the proud parents bursting with pride at their child’s achievement. Also a time to rekindle old connections, to say Thanks to the teachers who helped shape my foundations. To give back by being a presenter at the ceremony, a symbol of what can be achieved if we are willing to listen take direction and if we want it bad enough.
He was a teacher, one of my mother’s friends, lived close in our area, visited our house on occasion, went to my church, my aunt’s best friend. It was after the ceremony, time to go home, at least for me. My mother was helping with the cleaning up but I wanted to go home. I had only landed from Toronto that morning and had just rushed home, changed and headed to the function…jet lag was catching up with me. I conveyed as much to my mom and she suggested that I go with this particular teacher as he was headed that direction and the walk up the hill to my house was long and dark; she did not want me walking alone. He was supposed to be my protector against the bogey man…but he himself became the monster.
It started out innocently enough, we dropped from the bus and started walking up the hill, conversation flowing. We talked about school, moving abroad, the differences from home etc…walking in the semi darkness as the road was only intermittently lighted by street lamps. As we approached the darkest stretch of road, he started moving closer, there were no lights here as the street lamps had blown. It didn’t occur to me to feel fear, this man had watched me grow, had taught me both in school and in church…he would never do me any harm. Right? Wrong! It happened in stages…first his tone of voice changed, became softer, lighter so I had to strain to hear or ….yeah you guessed it, move closer. Which I did, then the conversation moved from platonic to personal…from ‘so how is school?’ to ‘so tell me, have you found a man up there yet?’.
This began to trigger that age old signal that the body produces when it senses that something is not quite right; the back of my neck started to tighten and heat. Then, moving closer..’you know you are a really pretty young lady right?’ and ‘you know I been watching you?’, ‘I like to see how you have grown’…..by this time my senses are fully on fire and screaming. Then he reached out as if to touch me and I knew it was time to move and quickly too. GOD was with me that night because we were still in that stretch of road that was pitch black and bordered as is common in Grenada by bush…a perfect place to hide, for a man to conceal the filth that coats his mind for the child of a friend. But along came a vehicle. Light, welcome light, bright enough to expose the face of a pervert, to expose the trusted who had become the enemy. That which was chosen to protect has chosen instead to attempt to corrupt.
No one knows what could/would have happened that night if that car hadn’t come along but that encounter really threw me. I never told my mom and that is still her friend to this day…I avoid him like the plague. I can’t even bring myself to look at him and it went no further than inappropriate conversation, far less to be like Yasmin or Tangie, brutally raped. My mind had buried it until now…
The second encounter was really the first, I was about eight years old. My mom had sent me to the community shop to purchase some groceries. I remember the shop being very dark as it was only partially open due to construction. There were softdrink crates along the wall infront the counter where the rum drinkers would sit to have their drink. When I entered the shop, the shopkeeper was in the back and there were only two men sitting at the counter on the crates. Upon my entrance, one of the men got up so that I could pass freely, the other one didn’t. But I knew them both and they me so I was not bothered. I ordered my groceries and waited for the shopkeeper to count it out. When my groceries were ready I went to the counter to pick up, this necessitated me passing the two men again. As before, one got up the other didnt meaning I had to squeeze around him to pass. As I did so the unthinkable happened, he squeezed my ass! I was in shock, no one had dared to do such a thing before. I didn’t quite know how to react, so for awhile I pretended it hadn’t happened until he tried a repeat on another young girl. This time he was caught red-handed and subsequently disciplined by the community.
Instances like the ones mentioned above and worse abound in our communities today and we as females are particularly vulnerable. We are schooled to believe that the rapist or the molester is supposed to be some stranger we would meet on a deserted road and not the people who have sworn to protect us. As Yasmin said ‘we have a new breed of rapists now, the ones we meet at social gatherings and in coffee shops, wearing the white collar and creased pants, the ones that we invite to our homes.’
So what can we as females do? How do we ensure that if this happened to you it does not happen to our children?
GOD alone knows, for if we teach them to be suspicious of everyone we create a breed of women who have trust issues and create a whole other set of problems. The question then is I suppose, which do we prefer, a woman who has trust issues because her parents taught her not to trust or a woman who does not trust because she was betrayed…?