These days it's really hard to ask help even when you need it because people have learned the hard way when coming to helping others.
My name is Promiseland Shangarai and here's my story. I came to South Africa when I was 8 years old. My parents gave birth to me and left me back at home when I was just 7months old. They moved to another country to try and find greener pastures because things were really hard back at home in Zimbabwe.
Both my parents are the first born children in their homes and you know how that automatically makes them deputy parents. When I was about two years old my mom's mom passed away living me with my grandfather, uncles and aunts. To this day I am told I used to be very close with my grandmother although I can't really recall much.
My parents couldn't attend my grandmother's funeral apparently because they didn't have enough money to return home for the funeral but atleast they sent some money to help with the burial.
Well my dad did not have a mother so at my paternal side I've always known my grandfather and two aunts and they loved me so much. We had a good relationship so now I was only left with two cool grandfather's who loved me dearly. In Zimbabwe most women have kids at an early age, from 14 years in most cases.
From my paternal side I had an auntie who had 4 kids at the age of 22. Well that's how being blessed mainly meant. With both my parents being gone now I can tell you now that both families were both expanding and my grandfather's couldn't do anything about it.
Both sides my uncles and aunts were having multiple kids and we were getting a bit overcrowded. I was getting older and neglected because everyone else now was concentrating on their kids. I was getting lonely and a bit rebellious because I was fishing for attention from anyone who cared to look my way. Finaly when I was 8 years old my parents came to fetch me. They were strangers to me because honestly since I was born I must have seen them three times or less. But I was excited to finally be going to live with them.
Only my father came to fetch me,he said my mom had to work so she couldn't take days off to come get me. So basically my mom took many years without returning to our home town.
I was excited,very excited that finally I would live with my parents and life would be so much easier. My dad looked like someone who had life together,he wore very nice clothes and he smelt good plus the goodies he would bring to Zimbabwe you'd also believe that no everything is on track there in South Africa.
When we got to South Africa I got the shock of my life. My parents had 3 more kids younger than me. They lived in a very cramped and dirty squatter camp where they didn't even have electricity. Their shack was the smallest shack I've ever seen in my life and what's worse was that five people lived in it and now I was going to be the fifth one.
In simple terms I just came to South Africa to suffer more. My mom would go begg for piece jobs in the nearest suburb. She would literally go door to door asking for chores to do and in return for food or clothes. I now had to stay at the shack every single day looking after my younger siblings.
There was a woman near by who was an unemployed teacher, she ended up opening her own school where she juts taught us how to read and write English. It was afternoon classes so everytime my parents came home I would then go attend the classes.
That is the only school I went to. When I turned 14 my mom came home one day with a funny looking man and said that I should pack my clothes because she found a job for me. She said I would be living with the man and his family and in return they will pay me for taking care of their home for them.
Let me tell you now that when we arrived at this man's house, I was in shock. It was a very big house, qualifies to be a mall even. But he was a very strange man. He never said a word to me from the minute he picked me up until we got to his house.
His mother is the one that welcomed me and showed me to my room. In as much as the house was that big my room looked very odd. The room only had a mattress and no window. I was told that no lights were allowed in that room and I should always switch off my phone when I sleep.
I am not going to lie and say I wasn't treated right. I was treated right and funny how I didn't even have to work. I ate well and most times just relaxed. I would hear people and children talking and laughing on the other side of the house but I've never met any of them.
I was even given the opportunity of a home school. The only thing about this house was that I wasn't exposed to people,only the grandmother and her son who fetched me. She was an elderly citizen and she made me comfortable the most.
But one thing that was strange was that I wasn't allowed to bath using anything with a scent. No soap,no foam bath nothing nje I just had to use water and some leaves I still don't know why.
My room had no ray of light entering in it. I used to be the girl that spent most times wondering why but eventually stopped asking questions. My room had a strange smell at night,a smell of mashed potatoes.
But in the morning the smell would disappear. Truth is it felt like I wasn't sleeping alone in that room because other times I'd wake up in the middle of the night and hear a snore from the roof. When I told the granny she would always say it must be the gardener with a big belly. She would turn it into a joke and say he snores so much that even people in another country could hear him and we laughed about it.
But stranger things started happening,I'd fall asleep like i was being drugged and I'd feel someone touching me all over and getting their way with me. While all that is happening I'd be powerless and just laid there. I couldn't move nor scream or even do anything about it.
The next morning when I wake up I'd find my clothes on the floor and I'd feel that something happened to me on my body because the changes were evidently felt. I was too scared to tell anyone about this not even the granny that I was very close to.
This went on for two years and in those two years I hadn't seen my family. I decided to tell my homeschool teacher who then gave me a very small bible and told me to pray every chance I get and to always remember to hide the Bible so that no one ever sees it.
Since that day she never came back to the house. She stopped coming and I remembered her last words when she said : this is a very strange house and the atmosphere is even stranger.
I started praying and reading the Bible more. The strange things in my room stopped and I would hear the grandmother screaming almost every night. Screaming in pain. To this day I am not sure why but I suspect whatever was happening to me was now happening to her.
One morning she woke me up with so much anger and hate. She was with her son and they threw me out of the house without explaining anything.
I went to my parents shack and I was told they moved out a week after I left. I was told that they now live in some suburb. It is obvious that my own parents sold me out to that family so that they can improve their lives while I suffered.
The Bible had my homeschool teacher's home address and I went to the nearest police station so that they can help me with finding the address and I did. She was so happy to see me alive and she took me in. I've since been living with her and the one thing I keep learning from her is to never stop praying.
When I got to her I had a problem of bleeding from my private part none stop. We went to the clinic and I was told that I had a womb infection and it was so severe that the only way to cure it is to go to the hospital and have it removed.
Long story short,I didn't get my womb removed instead I pray about it each and every single day.
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