‘ I knew the fear of Babes Wadumo’s face it has been my own ‘
I made up my mind that I was leaving. After 17 years, I was going to do what I was always afraid of doing.
I had made up my mind in May last year after seeing a very familiar look, a look of fear, a look that said “I don’t want people to know”.
I saw this look on Bongekile “Babes Wodumo” Simelane’s face last year as she sat in the SABC studios being interviewed by host Masechaba Ndlovu.
She was confronted for the first time about her abusive relationship with her boyfriend, Mandla “Mampintsha” Maphumulo.
I had been living with the father of my two children for four years and we had been dating for 17 years.
I’d been hit with a beer bottle on my head. I’d had him kneeling on the bed with me between his thighs as he wrapped his hands around my neck, choking me.
I don’t have words to describe the feeling that flowed from the top of my head to the tip of my toes as I felt my eyes roll to the back of my head.
No words can describe how and what I felt when I opened my eyes from blinking to see the asbestos roof above me, above us.
For a fraction of a second I looked past the towering figure kneeling over me as I lay captive between his thighs.
I remember that day, I had come back after spending the night drinking at a friend’s place. I had been drinking after we had a fight.
There have been so many incidents where I ended up being slapped, pushed or pulled, I can’t recall why we had argued that specific time.
But I had been sleeping when he arrived home. He too had been drinking and was totally drunk.
My son, our second-born, was still a toddler, just beginning to walk.
His sister, our first-born, was about 8 years old.
My drinking while I was in the relationship was toxic and so was his. I would always make sure to be asleep when he returned home drunk.
I would be under the covers in the children’s bedroom, but my heart would beat so loudly I could always hear it in my eardrums.
