Her turn

Two years had passed since Salifyanji's death. Everyone had moved on and Cecilia had recently gone through her coming-of-age ceremony. She was now recognized as a woman. The party went off without a glitch; there was singing and dancing among the villagers, and she along with the other girls received three brand new traditional wraps after having performed a solo dance of celebration to the drums. This was also an opportunity to attract a husband.

It was mid afternoon and Cecilia had just returned from the river. She set her pots near the other pots with water in them. She then washed her hands and face to get ready for lunch. Only when she turned around to face her parents did she notice that they had guests, three men.

"Cecilia, come over here," her mother called her happily.

She quickly walked over to where they were sitting, knelt to the ground and greeted each guest.

"This is Banda," her mother introduced, "This is his younger brother Katanda and his uncle Mundiya."

Cecilia got up and begun to walk away.

"Where are you going? Come back here," her father snapped. "These men are here for you."

She knelt back down on the ground next to her mother this time. He went on to explain that Banda was there to profess his interest in her and desire to Marry her. There was an eleven-year age gap between them for Cecilia was 13 and Banda was 24. The customs had changed a little so the village Headman was no longer necessary in this processs as long as the man had two relatives to accompany him.

"I refuse," Cecilia said and walked away.

It had been no different from all the other men who had been pursuing her since her ceremony. She was not interested in marriage at this time because of what happened to Salifyanji, therefore she rejected every one of them. After the guests left, her father scolded her for a while.

"Do you want to be the village spinster?! You'll disgrace our family!"

Martha tried to calm him down and then took him aside to serve him lunch. She then returned and spoke to Cecilia. They continued to talk over the meal and when they were finished, Cecilia gathered up all the plates and cleaned them. She then went to her new favorite place in the bush close to the village to relax before returning home to prepare supper. It was not so quiet there because people would pass by frequently but it was relaxing enough for her.

"This is a nice place," a voice said to her.

She turned her head to see Banda standing beside her. She scoffed and looked the other way. What was he doing there? How did he know where to find her?

"The first time I saw you was at the river," he said with a smile on his face, ignoring her attitude. "Thanks to you I got thrown into the water."

Cecilia looked puzzled.

"That was about two years ago. You have grown up into a lovely woman," he continued.

Cecilia got up, looked him in the eye and warned him, "Stay away from me." She then returned home.

Over the next few weeks, Banda came to her house everyday and followed her to places he knew she would be regardless of the fact that she rejected him each time. He brought her parents various gifts which included bags of mealie meal, maize, nuts, lots of meat and chickens, and so on. Because of his persistence, Cecilia began to grow fond of him. She even started looking forward to him showing up. Eventually, she gave into him and the lobola negotiations commenced.

After Banda had paid the lobola of eight cows, Cecilia was taken to Bana Chimbusa. The night before she went there, her mother talked to her for a long time. She encouraged her to be strong no matter what and to just do whatever the women told her. She also reminded her that all the married women had been through the process so she could also make it through. She hugged her and they sobbed for a while before putting out the fire and going to sleep.

When she arrived at the place, she could swear those six women looked at her like a pride of lions ready to devour their prey. She gulped and felt a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. But going through this was the only way she would be allowed to marry Banda so she strengthened herself and knelt down before them with her head bowed.

"Why aren't you saying anything??" One of them asked her.

"Because I have not been given permission to speak," she replied respectfully with her head still bowed.

Martha smiled. The women laughed cunningly among themselves. Then they spoke privately with Martha after which, she left. The first couple of days were not too bad; the women gave her various chores and tasks, inspecting her cooking and cleaning skills. Whenever she didn't know how to do something, she was badly beaten by them until she learned how to do it right.

*No one really wants to talk about exactly what goes on during the time after that in detail so the next events are based on the information the author gathered from the character's experience*

After those couple days, it was time for Bana Chimbusa to teach her about sex. At this time, they stripped her naked, fondled with parts of her body and left her kneeling in the room holding up heavy bricks for hours; only stopping during meal times. They would periodically check in on her yelling out lessons for her and occasionally touching her private parts. If she dropped the bricks or lowered her arms, she was whipped until she raised them back up. They claimed it was to check if she was still a virgin, test her promiscuity and also to strengthen her.

However, the things they did seemed more like molestation. Cecilia protested and attempted to cover herself as the women took turns fondling her body and inserting different things in her. The women slapped her so hard she fell to the floor. They continued to hit her until she gave in and begged for forgiveness. They told her to lay on the table, naked as she was, with her legs spread out and then had their way with her.

They gave her various "sexual" lessons and during that time she was not allowed to wear any clothes. They claimed it was a way to make her comfortable with being naked in front of her husband. At night they lit a fire, invited a couple of men to play the drums along with some other elder women (not necessarily old), and then brought her out of the room with only a folded wrap tied around her waist. The wrap was supposed to aide her in dancing. When Cecilia saw the men and other women looking at her naked, she was embarrassed. She was used to bana Chimbusa because they had been doing that and other things to her for a few days already.

She tried to run back into the room but the women ran after her and brought back; one woman was holding Cecilia's hands behind her back pulling her by the hair, another one was pulling her by the wrap around her waist and grabbing her genitals while she cried. They took away the wrap so that she was completely naked and pushed her toward a huge pot filled with beer. They then instructed her to serve all the guests the beer. Cecilia felt so humiliated.

After that, they folded up the wrap and tied it around her waist again. They then told her to dance for as long as the drums played. Apparently, it was their way of loosening her waist, making her more flexible for better sex. The men played the drums for hours. Cecilia wished they would stop already because she was sore and exhausted. If she even so much as paused when the drummers were still playing, the women would throw stones at her, beat her and pour beer over her.

By now she didn't even care that she was naked, she just wanted them to stop playing. Finally, the drums stopped to Cecilia's relief. Everyone was told to leave after being thanked for attending and given some beer to take away. She was then instructed to take a bath in front of them. Afterwards, they let her put her clothes on for the first time in days and that was the end of that part of the training. The last few days were much better because she was only taught about how to take care of her husband and the household. Her body got to heal and finally, it was all over - she could go home.