Looking Back - The personal beatings. Violence being the order of the day in Zambia
Today is Sunday, 17th February, 2008, and on Sunday, 17th February, 1985, I was confronted with the Word of God at a Christian mission meeting. That night I responded to the Word of God, and I asked Jesus to come into my heart.
It’s strange sitting home today, and thinking back to that Sunday in 1985, 23 years ago. I was just 26 then, with my daughter aged four, and my son aged two. Over the last few days I have been remembering a lot that happened prior to February, 1985. I remembered the day I got a particularly brutal meeting from my husband. I was used to his angry outbursts, and I had been punched quite a lot over the years, and when pregnant with our daughter he got me on the floor and kicked me in the abdomen, and that triggered labour pains. Thankfully the ambulance crew were able to stop the labour, and our daughter’s life was spared.
The particularly brutal beating I was remembering the other day was when he went to his wardrobe and chose a belt. He had a selection of belts, and I watched him run his eyes over the belts deciding which one he was going to use. I had never been hit with a belt before, and I confess fear filled me. I had our daughter in my arms; she was just a toddler, and I was wearing a halter neck top; so my whole back was bare. I knew what was coming as he prepared himself to lash me with the belt on my back. I felt one lash, and then another, and another. I was in shock because I was holding our daughter tightly in my arms, and trying to protect her. I screamed out in shock; shock that he dared to attack me in full view of our daughter; he had never done this before. Clearly he was moving to a new level in his attacks.
I started to make my way for the bedroom door, and managed to get out, and I remember running out of the house and making my way across the road to a friend. I arrived at the friend’s house with our daughter still held tightly in my arms. I was crying, and my friend could see the marks on my back. I was living in Zambia on the Copperbelt and this was not England. My friend was an ex patriot nurse who had worked in Zambia for many years, and so she was used to the culture and customs. I hadn’t been in the country long, and so I was a novice regarding law.
I learnt it was perfectly acceptable for a man to beat his wife, and the wife had no protection. I don’t know if the laws have changed now; because when I lived there from 1981 – 1984, it was a dictatorship. I remember my friend telling me I would have to go back to him and try and make amends. Our baby son was asleep in the cot, and there’s no way I would escape with our daughter and leave our son behind. I think she knew if I didn’t return to my husband. He would murder me, and that’s exactly what he said to me when I returned to the house. He used angry swear words saying, if I didn’t behave myself, he’d drive me out to the bush, and I’d never see the children again. I knew beyond a shadow of doubt these were not just idle threats.
He told me I was not permitted to question his authority or his whereabouts. This meant he could go where he wanted, sleep with whatever woman he wanted; drink as much alcohol as he chose, and take drugs, and I was to be a dutiful wife and behave myself. One thing I hated was him coming to bed in the early hours, and I would be fast asleep, but that never bothered him. I felt like a piece of meat as he used and abused my body. There was absolutely nothing I could do; I knew there was no human being who could rescue me.
There was no human being that could rescue me, but I had not considered God could rescue me. I remember sitting under the mango tree on the straw mat. He’d gone to work, so I knew I could have some peace to think. The sun was shinning, but I was shaded by the tree. I had a large stick, and I used to love lifting the stick up and shacking the branches of the tree, and all the ripe mangoes would fall to the ground. I’d munch away at the ripe mangoes, and feel there was some pleasure in my life. Then I sat there, feeling the pain inside me, thinking of my Mum, Nan and Granddad so far away in England. They had no idea what I was going through.
I had written to one friend in England, and I had completely forgotten I had mentioned my husband beat me. I asked her to not reveal any of this to my family. Well, I had no idea she was not going to honour my request, and I found out at a later date she shared the contents of my letter to my family; how dreadful, I did not know. So, my Mum must have known, and probably for a long time Mum was thinking how she could rescue me and the children.
Well, there was Some One stronger than Mum, and little did I know He was on the case. I just remember sitting under the mango tree that day, and I began to remember the children’s bible my Nan had bought me when I was small. I loved that bible so much, because it was massive, and it had loads of pictures in it, and some of the pictures spanned a double page. The text was large and written in an easy way for children to read. As well as reading my bible stories I used to read the Famous Seven by Enid Blyton and other Enid Blyton titles as well. Mum had given me all the Heidi story books that she was given as a child. I also had David Kossoff reading bible stories on an LP record.
All, the stories came flooding back to my mind, and the pictures of Jesus helping people, and Moses rescuing the people from their slave masters that beat them. I felt exhausted with my life, and I remember crying out and saying, “Why God am I suffering like this?” I didn’t pray or think of God, but things had got so bad, I felt desperate, and I just needed someone to help me. I thought if God is real I could at least try and let Him hear me.
After crying out and asking this question, I don’t think for a minute I expected God to hear me, but I began to feel a warm presence around my skin. I thought it was just the sunlight warming me, but it felt different, and then I heard a voice not an audible voice, but a voice even so. The voice said, “One day you will understand why you had to suffer these things; it will all make sense to you.” That was it, that’s all the voice said. I wasn’t sure what to make of the voice, and I think I probably put it down to my state of mind. My husband told me daily I was going mad, and I suppose I had started to believe what my husband said.
A welsh girl married to a Zambia like me, said I should go to the doctors and ask him to give me some something for stress; she was on some medication for stress. So, I went along to the doctors and I got a prescription. I remember seriously considering suicide, and I thought of swallowing the whole bottle of tablets. I told my husband I couldn’t suffer anymore, and I would probably swallow all the tablets and die. He said, “Yea, well, so go ahead, you do as you please.”
I remember one evening our white South African neighbours were robbed at gun point. It was a pretty horrific experience for them. I was in the house with the children when it happened; my husband was out enjoying himself as usual. I was frantic with worry about the same thing happening to us, and he casually dismissed my fear by saying the burglars would not rob our home because we had maize growing in the yard. He said no white families grow maize in the yard because it attracts mosquitoes. He said the burglars would not rob the home of a black family. I said, “Well, I’m not black, I’m white.”
A week or so later, my husband came back from work and told me armed militia had entered the local golf club and opened fire on all the white members. He didn’t look alarmed about this. He said as long as I continued to wear the traditional two metre cloth around my waist and covered my head, and walked with mixed race children beside me, I would be classed as a Zambian, and I would be safe to walk around. Hmm, that was a big comfort.
The first week I arrived in the country, a white lady married to a black Zambian pulled me to one side furiously because I had looked at a photograph of the President in a local shop, and I said “How come we have to look at his ugly mush every time we come in a shop?” My friend Linda said, “Jackie, please be very careful, you must realise the party people are everywhere, and you will be arrested for saying that.” I said, “You what, you are joking aren’t you?” She said, “No, I am certainly not joking.”
One day whilst in town, I saw a crowd kick a young black guy to a pulp. My husband casually said, “The man being kicked to death was a pick pocket.” I saw the black mine police pull a young black guy into the back of their jeep.” Again, my husband told me once the police put you in the cells there was little chance of you coming out alive. I have never spoken to anyone about the many atrocities I witnessed whilst living under a dictatorship. There were more, but I won’t share everything.
God hears and He answers our cries for Help
A letter arrived from my Mother, and it was clear Mum needed my help. She said my younger sister (my half sister) was causing her a lot of problems and the latest was, she had run away from home with her boyfriend. My sister was only a young teenager. Mum sounded like she was at the end of her tether.
My husband decided to let me go to the UK with the children, and he said, all would be well, and he would join us in three months. He seemed excited when he talked about getting work in the United States as an engineer. He said all our marital problems would be sorted out when we left Zambia. I believed him; I always believed him. I was putty in his hands, for I had been beaten into submission, and I no longer had my own life; I belonged to him; I was his property. I was but a shadow of my former self, and there was no longer any shine in me.
It is only now when I look back I can see the hand of God in everything that happened that day I cried out and asked for help from God. I didn’t believe He would help me, and I didn’t know God was helping me. I arrived home with the children in April 1984, and I remember my Mum, Nan and Granddad just worried sick about the state of the three of us. They were just so relieved to have us back. I remember Mum saying, “None of you ever smile; the children never smile and you don’t smile.” It makes me cry remembering Mum saying this to me, because she sent a film for the camera, and she asked me to post the film back to her for developing, and sure enough there are photographs of the children in our yard in Zambia, and they are not smiling.
Smiling was not part of our lives out there, and I hadn’t thought of this. I had no idea how raising the children in this foreign country would affect them. Another thing my Mum noticed was, the children never said please or thank you. My husband had brought many of his relatives to live at our house, and they didn’t speak hardly any English. They were attempting to raise the children their way, and if I had remained in that country, I would have had little influence over the raising of the children.
I had no idea God knew the beginning and the end of this story. I did not know He was undertaking for me. When my husband phoned me in January 1985 to announce he was ending our marriage; I had no idea God could possibly have a hand in this. A born again Christian told me Satan had destroyed my marriage, and she said I was to keep my engagement ring and wedding band on my finger because God would restore the marriage. I did as she asked, as I was used to being told what to do. I kept the rings on my finger and a few months later a letter arrived from my husband saying he had divorced me; he’d paid a lawyer to make this possible, and he had remarried.
I showed the letter to this born again Christian, and I must admit she did look a bit shocked. It took me years before I was able to muster up the strength to divorce my husband legally. I only did this because my Mother and her solicitor friend persuaded me I had to do something to sort the mess out. I remember the day I got the Decree Absolute, I knew something was broken; a power that held me captive was finally broken.
This was by no means the end of the struggles in my life; there were far more I was to encounter; just as fierce, and just as dangerous. But, I can always write about those on another occasion.
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