My Journey continued......

makanaka

thirty first candle

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• 2011 VOF Week 2

Having schooled at an all girls’ mission school in Zimbabwe I learnt quite a lot about what different girls my age were going through from just listening to stories people shared. It was a bit shocking for me but I did nothing because I felt I was too young to be able to make a difference. I tried where I could to encourage these girls to speak out but I never realised that it may not be that easy.
As I grew older and life happened I lost that spark that I had when I was young. I let the worries of the world take me over and I felt down trodden and weak. I sometimes used to question the very essence of women’s existence and whether or not this was how it was meant to be. I was angry at myself for being so weak and I realised that for most they found it easier to hide behind that no questions asked place, a place where no one feels sorry for you, where all appears fine and that place is called “SILENCE”. I could somehow listen in between people’s laughs and could see right through some who put up a put together face when deep inside they were in turmoil like I was. What made it even worse for me was when I continuously heard women say “its life and you have to get used to it”. These statements made me very angry at women for accepting certain things but I also realised that though it was easy for me to openly speak and seek help others preferred to suffer in that place called silence because they were too afraid to speak.
I went through a self searching phase when I turned 30 and it was then that I realized that there had to be another way and that I had more than enough power to act and make the difference I wished to see in the world. I had always felt the writer inside me wishing to be set free and this was the opportunity that I had to be that writer. I went though phases where I was ready to write but when I sat to do so writer’s block and self doubt would take over and I would start asking myself questions like, “who would be interested and why would they want to hear my stories?”
I searched the web for freelance positions but could never find anything. I was getting frustrated and I did not understand why I had this urge to write about women’s struggles when there was no platform. I came across writers afrika purely by chance but when I saw the VOF announcement and I read the pulseware website I knew I had arrived at that place I had been searching for. I had finally reached my destination and for the writer in me the journey had just started……..