ABUSE

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“There is a level of grief so deep that it stops resembling grief at all.”
–Elizabeth Gilbert

I stay in apartment number 5. Yaro Sheu’s has eleven apartments for rent. It’s the most popular block of apartments in Abinsi. There’s a gist around that Yaro Sheu made a lot of money by offering his butthole to rich politicians and that he is trying to make the story go away, –to deceive people into believing he made money from real estate. No one says any of these things in Yaro Sheu’s presence.

I have been living in the house for five months. I talk to few co-tenants in the house and I'm sure no one knows the colour of my carpet. The guy in the eleventh apartment, I don't know his name, if we ran into each other on the street I wouldn't even know we left the same house. Last night, I was chatting with a friend on Facebook when I heard loud cries. It's not my business that he was beating his girlfriend again, I have never seen her before too.

Other neighbours were at his door begging him to open up. I still minded my business. Then there was no wail, just the sound of his leather belt hitting her skin for about a minute. I was scared, I ran out of my room in my jim-jams. Then there was no sound for about another 2 minutes. The scariest night of my stay in the house, we —including the other neighbours who had been pounding his door and begging him— were scared.

Someone suggested we call the police, but we had no number to call. The same person volunteered to run to the police station, the rest of us were scared he would run away. From the police station he called to say there was only one police officer at the station who ordered that we bring them to the station. We feared the lady was dead. Then the volunteer returned with vigilantes, about eleven of them, who threatened to knock down the door, it was then that the neighbour opened.

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His girlfriend had fainted. Nobody wanted to touch her body curled in the corner of the room. The vigilantes made him carry her in his arms to the health centre where she was admitted. I was still outside with other neighbours when the vigilantes returned to the house with him, someone had called Yaro Sheu, and he was there too. The vigilantes questioned the eleventh apartment guy openly after we had been instructed to notify them in case he lies. We circled him as he answered questions about his relationship with the lady.

During the interrogation, a member of the vigilante group whose face I couldn’t make out in the dim light of night asked if he enjoys sex with the lady, the eleventh room guy looked at Yaro Sheu, his eyes were rheumy and his answer couldn’t cut through the silence of night as if he said the Yes without conviction. He was taken away after the interrogation.

This afternoon after her discharge from the health centre and the boyfriend's release, I passed her in the kitchen, she was cooking his food. He was yelling in a language I don't understand from his apartment. I didn't look at her face, we didn't say a word to each other, and we will continue to live like last night was my invention.

One out of every three women worldwide will be physically, sexually, or otherwise abused during her lifetime with rates reaching 70 percent in some countries.

It could be anyone. No one deserves to go through violence in their life. Take a stand and help end violence against women!

Thank you all for taking your time to read this.

@mr-aaron's poem was a great inspiration