Volume 50 Issue 6 - June 2012 : Social

 

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r close to two decades, Tidimalo, 20, of Mahalapye in the Central District, had made it her habit to wait for tomorrow but tomorrow never came. 

If ever tomorrow came, Tidimalo would be the happiest person today, for her happiness lay in the future. At least that is what she had always believed and hoped for.

Thus, year after year Tidimalo welcomed each new year with unfettered optimism that it would bring her change and happiness given her worsening plight but as they say tomorrow never comes. 

Instead of renewed hope and joy, each new year came with its own curses and struggles so much that Tidimalo would eventually feel rejected by the world while society appeared to be ignoring her plight.

Today, as Tidimalo narrates her ordeal that yanks at the heartstrings, one cannot help tears rolling down their cheeks.

“My parents died when I was very young and since then I started leading a nomadic life,” says visibly dejected Tidimalo in an interview with Kutlwano.

She likens her transfers from one school to another between Serowe and Mahalapye to bank transactions. Her last transfer was when she moved to Mahalapye to do standard six. 

Pew! Little did she know that she had kissed school goodbye the day she shouted “hip-hip hooray!” as the school term ended.

Upon arrival in Mahalapye, she says she moved in with her aunt who was nursing a month-old baby. Instead of continuing with her education, Tidimalo says she was turned into a housekeeper or nanny in that instead of going to school she was to look after the baby until it was four years old.

By then Tidimalo was receiving her monthly food basket as an orphan through the coupon system. While she would not go to bed on an empty stomach her downside was that she lived under physical abuse from both her aunt and brother.

“…after bathing her daughter I could not find the toddler’s underwear and upon requesting auntie to search for it in her house she doused me with hot water and stuck a hot iron on my head,” recalls Tidimalo with a grief-stricken voice.

On the other hand, Tidimalo’s elder brother also subjected her to physical abuse to the extent that he once hit her with a log on the head, leaving her with a gaping wound. 

At some stage, she says he would hit her against the wall or rock. Consequently, she got used to demeaning tags such as “witch” which became her other names.

As if that was not enough, she suffered yet another blow when her aunt chucked her out of her home.

“Every month end my aunt would start hunting for me in homesteads around Mowaneng, give me my coupon to go and get my food ration which she would then lock in a wardrobe in her bedroom and only leave sorghum meal, mealie-meal and flour for me.”   

After spending a night at her aunt’s house, Tidimalo would be chased away the following morning. She says her aunt did this up until government phased out the coupon system to introduce the smart switch system, which she failed to register for since she did not have a national identity card - Omang.

Then when she asked her aunt to assist her obtain Omang so that she could renew her registration, she flatly refused. It was only after one Good Samaritan at Tshikinyega ward came to her rescue and offered her temporary accommodation that the situation looked promising.

However, she would at 16 years fall pregnant. Regrettably she did not know who the father was because given her plight different men took turns to abuse her. 

Tidimalo then relocated Serowe to stay with her grandmother but that was not to be as she too rejected her, thus turning the hapless and young expectant mother into an object of battering.

Notwithstanding, the worst was yet to come. Despite her bulging tummy, heartless men continued to sexually abuse her. The situation got so unbearable that Tidimalo decided return to Tshikinyega where the woman who took her in referred the matter to tribal authorities and social workers who later managed to convince her grandmother in Serowe to take her back.

She worked for Ipelegeng but she always forfeited her salary to her other aunt who stayed with her grandmother. The aunt forced her to pay utility bills and to buy groceries.

Enough was enough! After three months Tidimalo would abscond and head back to Tshikinyega where she continued to work for Ipelegeng.

Heartbreak would visit her again when a man she only knew as Charlie raped her notwithstanding her pregnancy.

“…that night he dragged me to his place while brandishing a knife. He pushed me inside a storeroom and raped me the whole night until 6am resulting in fetal distress and the baby dying inside my womb,” she recalls.

After raping her, she says Charlie assaulted her and was rescued by a passerby. The matter was reported to the police but Tidimalo says she is not happy with the manner in which the police handled her case despite having identified the culprit, crime scene and having proof from a doctor.

She says her case was dismissed on grounds that she was an epileptic - a condition she says bothers her much whenever it occurs to her that life would have been better were her parents alive. This also happens when people reject her or when she has to endure taunts from her Ipelegeng co-workers.

Nonetheless, life seemed better at Tshikinyega because she had shelter and her only contribution was to buy a few groceries. However, out of nowhere, the sister’s landlord started complaining that Tidimalo was not paying rent. That same night she kicked her out of the house.

She had nowhere to go. “I spent the next two nights in a culvert next to the road and my meals came from dustbins,” bemoans Tidimalo.

She says she then started collecting beer bottles and sold them for survival. One day while she was busy picking up bottles, she would meet her new mother, Magdalene, who received her with open arms and took her in, in her family’s home. That was in September last year.

Today, Tidimalo is a born again Christian. Magdalene says she first came to know about Tidimalo while attending a knitting course at the Mahalapye community hall where some people used to make fun of her because she was dirty.

“You could read sorrow all over her face,” she recalls, noting that Tidimalo used to confide in her that she did not have a place of abode.

Magdalene, a Bible Life member, says although she was staying with her mother, she felt it was God’s calling for her to house the homeless and dress the naked.

She says when Tidimalo moved in with her, many people still considered the young girl a troublemaker. Conversely, Magdalene says like any other child in her household, Tidimalo only gives her slight headaches but attributes that to lack of proper parenting and care. Magdalene says her challenge now is to teach Tidimalo basic things such as cleaning.

She says she has now learnt how to handle her epileptic condition which she reckons only attacks her when she is hurting or harking back to her past experiences.

Despite her condition, Cathy laments Tidimalo is not receiving enough help from the social welfare department, save for the food basket she started getting last month. 

On the other hand, according to Tidimalo’s medical records she had been referred for counselling several times. “Kindly assist in counseling above patient as patient appears to have social problem,” reads a referral note from a Mahalapye District Hospital doctor in January.

However, through Cathy’s support, Tidimalo managed to enroll for non-formal education. So far she is doing well because she can read the Bible.

 

Cathy says she intends to secure sponsorship from non-governmental organisations so that Tidimalo can be developed further and given skills. Mahalapye Sub-district Social Welfare Department refused to comment on the matter, save for the social welfare officer, Tlamelo Moatswi’s remarks that “re ka se bue le media ka client because it is confidential and private”.

Meanwhile, Mahalapye Sub-district Council public relations officer, Phatsimo Batshogile, decried what she termed minimal psychological support for abuse victims due to shortage of counselling facilities. 

She says such worsens clients’ conditions since they are left idling.

Statistics from Mahalapye Sub-district indicate that since last year sexual abuse tops the list of abuses with 24 cases recorded so far. 

Such can be traced back to school hostels where children start abusing others through homosexual tendencies.

Girls come off worst as victims of sexual abuse and child labour but in most cases such cases go unreported.

“Some people especially neighbours are afraid to become witnesses when such incidents are reported and ignorance still prevails,” reckons Batshogile. 

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