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Merab like any woman has had two important men in her life; her father and her ex-husband. These men who should have protected her both betrayed her; albeit in different ways. Let’s start with her father:
It was not his absence from her life that made her hate him. He was proud, arrogant and at times very violent. Especially towards her mother.
It was always his way or the highway. She remembers his relationship with her late mum and it was the very thing she did not want for herself. Merab was much happier when her father was away in the US. Working or doing whatever it is he did there.
Nobody knew. Nobody asked. He sent money home. Always on time. Always in plenty. He sent clothes in huge bags.
“I interacted with second-hand clothes for the first time in my adult life,” she says during our interview inside the restaurant at Kisumu’s Victoria Comfort Inn Hotel.
“He paid for us to go to expensive private schools. All three of us…and his other son,” she adds.
But Merab wanted more than expensive clothes from abroad and good schools. She needed the love of a father. Especially after losing her mother. Even though she was raised in a big family with uncles, aunties, cousins and grandparents, something always seemed to be missing.
“There is a way a girl glows when she is receiving affection from a man. I had men around me but they wouldn’t be affectionate to me like my own father would have been – at least in my head. But I know I craved something,” she explains.
This craving is what would send her into a relationship with a young engineer who worked for an electricity generating company. She started dating the guy when she was still in High School and would end up marrying him immediately after. Perhaps to fill that void.
A decision she regrets today. A decision that led to her doubting her own worth. The physical and emotional abuse she was subjected to could have as well been lifted straight out of the pages of a horror movie script.
“This thing was not supposed to end in a relationship,” she says laughing. Her laughter lighting up the little corner of the restaurant we were seated at.
For the first time she made eye contact and held it for long. When you meet Merab today, she is a bubbly woman. Full of life and oozing of positivity. Everything about her is purposeful.
She gets into a room and occupies it with her confidence and her soft smile. A beautiful woman. It’s actually a coincidence that this restaurant we are at is called Hermosa Chica – Spanish for ”pretty girl.’ Quite befitting.
You would not know what level of darkness now stays locked behind this beautiful personality that is Merab today.
“I was supposed to help my cousin get an internship. Nick who would later become my husband had told my cousin that he would hook her brother up with a position where he worked if she introduced him to a beautiful young girl,” she explained.
Other than being pretty and young, the girl just needed to be able to open her mouth and have something sensible come out. Merab was barely seventeen and still in high school when they met.
Despite her being an underage girl and school going, he didn’t mind it. Apparently, he had a thing for young girls. Merab confirmed this a couple of years later when he found him trying to date her younger sister while still married to her.
*We might get back to that later.
The relationship between Merab and Nick moved from zero to a hundred (in a petrol head’s manner of speech) very quickly. Quite to the bewilderment of her cousin Lilly who had assumed that once her brother got the internship they would break it off.
“Nick swept me off my feet. He gave me what I thought was love and the attention that I needed at the moment. Something that I was badly missing. Something boys my age at the mixed boarding school I went to could not give me,” she explains.
“I was having sex at 17, with a man who was about 33 at the time. I was fascinated by how he seemed smart describing the things he did for work. He was studying for his PhD. Soon he would be Dr Nick Omondi,” she adds.
Catch your breath for a moment here. Let me link this for you in case I have lost you along the way.
Merab’s dad is absent. He lives huko in the US. Has almost zero connections with her and her two sisters other than the upkeep he sends, which is quite important because it keeps their lifestyle. Oh…and the ocassional phone call.
The phone call only happens once during their school holidays. This is 2007 when not every part of this country is covered with good mobile network. In Nyabondo, Kisumu County where they grew up, they had to go stand at a particular place at 3 PM when their dad had promised their uncle that he would call.
Like a mzungu he would call at exactly 3.05 PM, I don’t know what that time would be on his side of the world. They would talk about school and what they needed. If they had not performed to his expectations there would be a lot of barking from their dad’s side of the conversation. It was never something to look forward to.
Then here was a man. Nick. Soon to be Dr Omondi. So kind. He was the man who visited Merab at school. The man who showered her with pocket money. The man who made her the envy of her peers. The man who gave her the glow … if you get what I mean.
“There was this one moment we got caught. I had lied to my grandparents that I was going back to school. It was about two days before we were due to open. My plan was to go stay with Nick for the extra days,” she explains.
“I had packed a couple of home clad in my school bag. Nick and I decided to go do some shopping in Kisumu. At that time he was living in Katito because it was closer to his work place.
“There used to be a Co-op Bank ATM at the entrance of Mega Plaza in Kisumu. While waiting as he used the ATM, I noticed my uncle approaching. He was in the company of my grandma. I told Nick to run. I knew my people. He did run.
“I was beaten. My dad was called and he told them to take me to the police station.
“What kind of a father does that? The cops beat me up trying to get me to tell them who Nick was, and where he worked so that they could arrest him. I did not. Eventually, they got tired of beating me up. I befriended a female cop who looked sympathetic. She understood I was in love. I gave him Nick’s number and they arranged for him to secretly drop my school bag. Of course at a fee,” she adds.
This little brush with the law did not puncture the wheels of their relationship.
“I was blossoming. My face was radiant. For once I was settled. I felt good. I felt loved. I finally knew what an orgasm was,” she says. A cheeky smile escaping the corners of her. She pauses. Turns her head to her left, then raises it to stare at a painting on the wall that’s besides my seat. It’s a painting of women at what looks like a fish market. Endowed women. The ones with thighs you would describe as ‘thunder thighs.’
Her gaze stays there for a while. The silence between us only punctuated by the occasional buzz of the coffee maker. After what seems like an eternity, her phone rings. When she excuses herself to take it, I notice tears welling inside her eyes. It’s a quick one. She tells the person on the other side that she will call them up in twenty —
She straightens up. Pushes her hair behind. If I knew a thing about weaves I would have described how it looked but I don’t. It’s just long, black and seemed expensive. She picks a paper towel from the table and gently arrests the little tears trying to escape her eye socket.
“When I finished my KCSE, I wanted a level of independence. I felt that neither my grandparents nor uncles were letting me have the space I needed to make my decisions. My father with his barking orders attitude from continents away was not helping either,” she says.
Merab decided that the best cause of action would be to go live with her maternal aunt. They had barely maintained contact after her mum’s death when she was only in class four.
Even at that young age she had very fond memories of her mum. She was from Kisii. She says Gusii women are loyal. She stood by her dad despite his violence, rudeness and absenteeism.
‘She was a keeper ‘ in her words. She thought she would see a bit more of her mum if she moved to live with her aunt in Nairobi. But there was no way her family in Nyabondo would agree to that.
So she decided to sneak out. She did not have enough money for fare and Nick had agreed to help. She packed a bag and left one Sunday when everyone had gone to church.
“There was no fare at Nick’s either. Not one day later. Not one week later. Not a month later. Before I knew it I was pregnant,” she explains.
Nick was the first child in a family of seven. Merab was now being elevated to wife status. Pregnant at 18…her body barely nomanaging to cary the additional weight. The mood swings. The morning sickness.
By this time, “her people,” as she refers to her family, had known where she is thanks to Lilly. They had moved to a house Nick was building not too far from where he worked. It was not complete but they were not paying rent. When schools closed his other siblings would be there with them too. At times it was a handful. But she was a dutiful wife. Taking care of everybody. She had to learn this pretty fast.
She woke up early and warmed bath water for her husband. They had no running water in the house. She made breakfast for everyone, and ensured her husband had pressed clothes.
She thinks it’s the hard work combined with her frail body that made her lose her first pregnancy.
A few days after, her dad showed up at her gate. When she saw him, she knew exactly what the conversation would be like. Orders like he was a military sergeant and her a private. She could not take that. Not when she is just recovering from losing a pregnancy. Not even when the man had flown from half a world away.
He could not believe it. His own daughter was refusing to open the gate. She had grown. No longer a “yes sir” kind of girl. She wished he could understand her. Part of her wanted to open up but she knew very well what would follow. She was not ready to deal.
She turned her back. Walked to the house. Leaving him standing there at the gate. Wondering what had become of her once little girl perhaps. But did he even know his little girl?
In less than a year she was pregnant again with her first-born daughter. By this time things had started getting bad between Merab and Nick. He started drinking and coming home late. He was also cheating. Mostly with the ladies at work.
This was before phones had fingerprints and complicated passwords. He would send her to check something on his phone and she would find a text message from the girls.
She was sorry for herself. She was nothing like them. They were more educated. Sophisticated. They had their own money. What was she but an insecure leech? She thought. Thoughts she did not share with anyone.
When the baby came things got a little more complicated. You see Merab did not have a house help. She did not want to overburden her husband. He had this house to finish. He had his six siblings he was paying school fees for. He was the sole breadwinner. Feeding nine mouths. Not to mention the relatives he still had to do stuff for in the village.
Merab also had a deep desire to be loved by her in-laws. She was not going to be seen as the one who was wasting their money.
But when their first baby came it was just a little too much. By then some of the in-laws were also done with school. She tried talking to Nick to have some of them move back to the village. He would not hear any of it. In fact, this was also the beginning of a frosty relationship between her and the in-laws.
“Because Nick provided everything I needed (financially), he felt that he could always have his way with me. He actually did. At this point my relationship had become both physically and emotionally abusive,” she says.
“I had already accepted that he was cheating. I was glad that he was not doing it in my face though. But now violence was creeping in. The thing that terrified me about my own parents’ marriage was now in my own house,” she explains.
Merab recalls the first time she walked out. Her son had been irritated by something and she was crying. Nick had just returned home and he was not in a very good mood. When the baby refused to calm down, he took his sandals and hit the baby severally on the head.
Merab could not take it. She intervened. Nick apparently read that as her challenging his authority. He beat her to a pulp.
A few days later he reached out and apologized. After a few more days of begging, she agreed to go back to her house. This cycle of violence and her walking out would repeat itself severally over the period they lived together.
There was another time they got into an argument as she was preparing to bath their youngest son. She had a basin full of water in at the foot of the bed, before she knew it, all that water was poured on her and the baby.
“He then started beating me. I was more of confused because I did not see the basis for this beating. I know how I sound right now, but I had come to accept being beaten for certain things. In this instance I did not deserve it,” she says.
“Worse of when he hit me I fell over my daughter who was lying near the edge of the bed. Not even the baby’s wails would stop him. I remember him calling one of his brothers who was in the living room telling him to help him strip me, claiming I was trying to run away with his ATM card,” she added.
Merab had always had one of Nick’s ATM cards. He gave it to her and would always ask her to withdraw money from the account either for house utilities or at times when he needed her to run errands for her. He had never accused her of anything like this before. She wondered where the ‘running away’ bit had come from yet it was him provoking her.
“They actually started stripping me. I had the card on me that day because I was running some errands earlier on. By this time they had dragged me to the floor. I reached into my pockets and handed him the card. He left the room smiling,” she narrates.
Here was a man ready to strip his wife naked in front of his brother. You can pause for a moment and let that sink in a bit.
Things even got worse when Nick moved to Nairobi and left her here. He would barely communicate with her. She was not even allowed to call.
“He would ask ‘are the children okay, is someone dead?’ If the answers to both questions are “no” then he would ask why did I decide to disturb him. Was I not aware that he was working hard to give us a good life?” She says with a smile in her face, but you could feel the sadness in her tone.
Things were so bad that her friends created a Whatsapp group just for checking in on her. If she did not respond to messages on the group one of them would go to her house in the morning or during the day to check up on her.
The day Merab moved out for good, Nick almost killed her. Remember Lilly? Yes, Merab’s cousin who introduced her to Nick. Now, Lilly sort of had a clandestine relationship with Nick.
There are days Nick would be in Kisumu but he would never come home. Merab would hear about it from friends or would be sent photos. Most of the time he was with Lilly.
On this day, she had been told he had been seen with Lilly. She did not expect him home. One of her friends and a maternal cousin were visiting. Merab was also unwell. She had sinuses that needed an operation. Nick knew nothing about her medical condition. He did not care. But he provided her with a medical cover that guaranteed her the best medical care. Even if it was as a result of the beatings he gave her.
Nick came in around 1.00 AM and found her cousin and friend watching a movie in the living room. One of his younger brothers was also there.
“I was already in bed because I was not feeling too well. The cold weather was not making my sinuses any better. I just heard him roar in the living room asking who were those in his house.
“When I got up to get to the living room we met in the corridors and he slammed my head against the window grills. I tried pleading with him explaining they were my guests but he would here none of it. By that time the children woke up and were now screaming,” she narrated.
They had an older house help who took the kids and locked them up in a room. The girls – her cousin and friend also hid in another room. The brother in -law could not help either. Nick is a ‘small god’ he listened to no one.
Merab always hid an extra key near the living room door. It was her secret escape plan, but that night she could not reach it.
“I have wanted to beat you for so long. Today you have given me a good reason to kill you,” he said as he dragged her towards the kitchen to get a knife.
Merab doesn’t remember much about what happened. She passed out. Right in the living room near the kitchen. Nobody bothered to take her to the hospital. When she woke up in the morning, not a single part of her body was not aching. Her head was swollen, and so was her entire face.
Even getting her head into the CT-scan machine in hospital was a problem. That same day Nick left for Nairobi and later on for a trip to Uganda. He did not even bother calling to see what condition she was in.
Every time Merab would try to involve Nick’s family in solving their problems she would get more beating. Her own relatives have severaly tried to talk to Nick but he would here none of it.
A part of her was still in love with him. Maybe because he provided so well for them. Merab also admits she feared what starting life on her own would mean. She had never worked a day in her life.
“Ominde, I had never even bought a spoon with my own money,” she explained.
But when she returned from hospital she decided that she was leaving. A few days before she left she called Nick and told her she wanted to go. Asked him to allow her to take one TV and a fridge with her because they had two of each. He accepted.
“In a way I was not even asking for those things. I did not need them. I just wanted to know if he realized what he had done and if he was going to be afraid of losing me but he was not moved. So the next day I packed and left. Took the kids, our clothes, a TV and a fridge.
“We moved to a single-room house. By the time my relationship had gotten extremely bad I had started seeing someone secretly. He was very understanding and never pushed me to make any decisions. To date even though we are not romantically involved, he still supports me,” she says.
That was not the last beating she got though. Before moving out she had been invited to a wedding in the family and she had promised to attend. Again, being the good woman she was, when the date of the wedding came she took her children to the village. During that visit Nick tried to get back with her but she refused.
When it was time to leave and a cab had come home to pick them, chaos erupted. Nick for no reason at all started beating her up again. In front of guests and his family. He dragged her on the ground, tearing her dress.
“what’s funny is that instead of people coming to help, they brought lesos to cover my nudity. For some reasons word reached my family that I was being beaten. I think it was the taxi guy who called. My family sent officers from a nearby police station. That’s when I was recued. Nick ran away when he was told cops were coming.”
Even after moving out she had bouts of anxiety. She worried one day he may find where she lives and beat her again. She would be startled by banging doors or falling objects.
Merab had to go through months of counselling. She says during her marriage with Nick her children were so much affected by the violence that they would poop themselves in school whenever nick was around.
“Today I am happy I decided to leave. I should have left earlier, but I am glad it wasn’t too late. I left with my life. Many people don’t. Recently, Nick called and asked me to get back to him. That he had changed. If there is one thing I know, people don’t change,” she says.
Nick still pays for his two children’s upkeep. That though, is all that still connects him to Merab. She has settled in business. Lives in a middle-class estate in Kisumu and is grateful for the life she still has.
Author’s Note: What saddened me about this story was the culture of normalizing intimate partner violence in our society. There were neighbors who heard her screams at night. There were family members who knew exactly what what was happening – some even witnessed the violence first hand. But at no time did anyone ever think about calling the cops. People like Nick get away with their actions because we enable them. Tujiangalie.
Photo by MART PRODUCTION from Pexels
