‘Don’t be a whore!’ was one of my early lessons. When I was a little girl, my father was paranoid that I would become promiscuous and his messaging to me on the subject was harsh and aggressive, causing me much consternation about something I didn’t quite understand.  Sex was a topic of taboo where kids giggled and whispered about it, parents avoided it and education and awareness in those days was non-existent. The pendulum seems to have swung the other way these days, where it is promoted amongst the youth with the caveat that they have to be ‘cautious’ and ‘responsible’, almost as if they should indulge in the pleasure without commitment or care as long as they use protection.  Sex is more than a moment of pleasure between two people. It is a sacred act, which should be cherished and taken lightly. It needs to be understood, contextualised and taught with great care.

Religion and the idea of monogamy is frowned of upon in modern populist culture. The value of the act itself has been denigrated to ‘pure enjoyment’ and gratification, when it is so much more than that.  The merging of two souls in that manner, is God-given, and should be approached more with respect than fear or frivolity. There are many studies done on women who struggle to reach the ultimate goal of the act, and it is not surprising if we look at the context of indulgence and sexual freedom on the one hand and religious taboo on the other. Western culture places pressure on young girls to lose their virginity and young boys to be active studs, while conservative extremism forbids any talk or reference to it all.  I was exposed to the latter.

I recounted my ‘sexual encounter’ for want of a better phrase in the chapter “Come ‘lie’ with me little girl”, when a grown man impeached my privacy and exposed my six-year-old body to things that I couldn’t fathom at the time. That experience was a turning point for my psyche and was the catalyst for how I saw myself and the world.  His seduction was particularly deft.  He built trust with me first, making me feel important. By the time I was six I had already felt like the outsider, as I recounted in my previous two chapters. Isolated and lonely, I lapped up any attention I could find because it made me feel less lonely and made me feel loved. I sadly still find myself seeking attention on occasion, but temper it, rather than giving in to it, reminding myself that attention does not equal love.  I need to pay attention to me and appreciate my God-given gifts, without the need for external validation. I have to constantly remind myself that God is sufficient unto me.

At the age of six, when this grown man thought I was worthy of attention, I was enamoured.  He spoke in nice soft tones to me, almost as if he knew my weakness, and I succumbed like a moth to the flame.  By the time I realised what he really wanted to do, it was too late.  As I described in my detailed account of the incident, the natural physical stimulus, which my body responded to did not match the mental anguish and disgust my mind was spewing.  Although he did not penetrate me and cause me pain, the sensation confused me, yet I knew it was taboo. It was a bad thing. At six, I knew this. It was taught to me implicitly everywhere.  However, I felt like I betrayed myself, because of the physical sensation that I felt but could not stop.  I felt like I betrayed myself, because I didn’t scream out for someone or get up or run away. In my mind, I was ‘bad’ because I allowed this to happen to me.  I felt betrayed by him, because he manipulated me, and I trusted him, and then he did those things and showed me his manhood and caused me the biggest trauma in my young life.  I felt like the world was bad. Adults were not to be trusted, men especially.  I felt like God let this happen to me, and I felt that the world was a unfair.

I wrote about the way I struggled with sex in my first two marriages, in the earlier chapters of my story. I spoke out about the pain I endured. “Don’t be a whore!”.  Was I a whore if I enjoyed it, even with my husband?  Was that why my muscles clenched up so tight that the coitus was almost impossible for me for so many years.  Or was it because I felt shame for what happened to me when I was six years old? I also wrote about an experience in my twenties, after my divorce from my first husband, when I was “raped”, although I struggle to use that label, which is in itself a negative for women, as it perpetuates a concept of victimisation and persecution. “My Lord”, I screamed why is this happening to me again. “Why are you doing this to me?”  Was God doing this to me or were human beings?  In each case the emotional frailty I felt made me vulnerable and susceptible to these experiences, in which men thought they had a right to impose themselves on me.

When I was supposed to be enjoying the sexual union in a marriage, I experienced pain instead. Subconsciously the feelings of shame, guilt, disgust at the prospect of the male organ intruding caused me to tighten my inner walls and shut out this threat. When I met Shafiq, he spoke to me about the physical barriers he felt. For the first time I became aware that I created physical resistance because of my emotional trauma.  A most sacred union between two people was marred by my labels that “I was bad, because sex was bad, and men were bad”. Men and their phalluses of manhood were bad, because you cannot trust them. They will hurt you. Betray you. Compromise you.  I was subconsciously plagued by these thoughts. Mercifully when I met the man who had the maturity to speak to me about it, I became more conscious about the impact my emotions were having on my body, and I was slowly able to let go, until I realised the beauty of the sexual experience. With the birth of my first child the wonder of my womanhood completed the cycle and the walls had all but collapsed.  I finally submitted to my femininity, to the perfect design of the human body and the flawless function of mutual giving and receiving and being a conduit for another precious human life to come into this world. I saw what God was showing me, through my traumas and pain.  The release of my pent-up angst was so liberating that it opened the door to a deeper understanding of the spiritual aspects of this encounter.  I am not ready to write about that quite yet.

Just talking about it with my husband, was a catalyst for healing.  Why then is it so difficult for us to talk to our children about it. If I had been educated, holistically, without the taboo and the drama, I may have been able to ward off the predators in my life. It may have empowered me, freeing me of the fear of the unknown, the taboo and the negatives that impounded my mind.  I decided to teach my children, and not repeat the mistakes of the past, and I pray that they do not have to learn the hard way, like I did. I teach them with openness and integrity, suitable for their ages. It is far too important an aspect of life not to talk about.

Till next time, God-willing

With love, Radia💚

Part 19 – “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star”

In my last post I recounted the questions that started surfacing in my mind as a young child.

Why is the world so Unkind?

Why was I an outsider?

why was the world so unfair?

By the time I started Grade 1 at Progress Primary School I already found myself floundering, lost, alone. I was born in June, so I was allowed to begin Grade 1 before I turned six. I felt overwhelmed and alone. I had no friends that I bonded with and I felt isolated and alone. We would get 10cents spending money if we were lucky and that would buy quite a bit. I remember moorkoo (a hard spiral-shaped crispy fried spicy batter) which I could manage to buy.   I remember the moorkoo more sharply than I do any of my fellow pupils in my formative years at school.  There was a boy who wet his pants in the class and someone who picked their nose and ate it.  As grossed out as I was, I cannot remember the children or their names.  I had no friends.  I wished I was good at running, because that attracted much attention and fuss. However, I had to satisfy myself cheering on the fast kids in my sports house, wearing the coloured rosette that my mom sewed for me.  I was spotted by the PE teacher as having a penchant for gymnastics and was told to do some bunny jumps on the wooden bench. I never really found much joy there either.  I was not a loner, but I felt lonely.  After school I would visit my aunt and her toddler, my new cousin, and I’d inevitably be late for madrassa (Muslim school).  I felt equally lost at Madrassah, afraid all the time that I’d forget my surahs (verses of the Quraan). Teachers and school were a grim experience for me. My memories of Grade 1 and 2 were clouded and it was about the same time that my innocence had been disturbed by my mom’s cousin in the incident I described in earlier chapters.  How much that affected my schooling I will never know.  I loved books and would immerse myself in the likes of Enid Blyton, only discovering in later years her subtle racism and her personality disorders that clouded her reputation.  It was the fantasy aspect that appealed to me most.  I loved that I could become lost in a fantasy world and pretend that I was capable of flying and doing magic because it made me feel empowered.  In Grade 1 and 2 I felt lost in the crowd, ignored and overwhelmed.   In Grade 2 I got a maths sum wrong and I was rewarded with a strike from the sharp end of a ruler which left a lasting scar.  In those days, corporal punishment was the norm. Boys would get whipped with a cane on their butts and girls would get ruler shots on their hands.  The end result was that I had a mental block to arithmetic and math ever since. I work carefully to hide this disability especially because I am expected to be so ‘intelligent’, being an advocate (barrister), environmental lawyer blah blah. My Grade 2 teacher, who had an acne scared face and the most beautiful thick long hair which she wore in a braid to one side, no doubt thought she was doing what was best for me.  By the time I went to standard 1 (Grade 3), I had all but lost any concept and couldn’t keep up with basic arithmetic.  Instead, I continued to throw myself into books and was so thrilled when the protagonist was the same age as me.  There were moments of happiness in my childhood, but mostly it was marred by a shadowy mist, in which I felt misplaced.

In standard 2 (Garde 4), they had built a new school closer to where we lived called Pentarosa Indian Primary School. Things started changing then. I found myself coming out of my silent shell. I started performing well at school (except for math), and my personality started surfacing more as a leader.  We were asked to prepare a speech in class and I had not done my home-work. I thought I had some time because I was way down the list alphabetically and would probably get my turn in a few days. The teacher decided to randomly call people up and as fate would have it, my name was called.  Being put on the spot, I did an impromptu speech which was a pack of lies. I still don’t know why I made up a story about my blind Grandfather, who was anything but blind, in fact he was a dominating strong sometimes aggressive man. I always witnessed my father’s subservience and deference to his father with confusion. He was only ever this way with his parents. I felt like he was bullied but endured it out of respect and then moved out of the way as soon as he could.  This made an indelible impression on me and I suddenly found myself speaking about a fictitious feeble vulnerable grandfather as if I was taking his power away from him. I am reminded of a verse that I love that says God’s mercy is in every situation.   That speech got me recognised and I ended up doing the annual opening prayer for ours school concerts, always taking the lead in plays, speech contests and the like. I had a talent for taking my pain and reflecting it to the world.  Instead of being consumed by my loneliness and exclusion, I stood out in the crowd and made myself seen and heard. Being the outsider, gave me a different perspective. I could see people in a way that many others sometimes didn’t.  I saw their pain and their vulnerabilities. Their beauty and the secrets. I felt their emotions in every movement or expression of their faces. I found it almost second nature to look past their posturing and glimpse at what they were feeling. I didn’t understand it always, but it disturbed me. I always hoped that people would be happy all the time, and when I could witness their pain, not knowing where it came from, it made me unhappy and I would reflect that pain back onto them, as if shielding myself from it.  I would look for reasons to judge them badly because they were making me feel bad.  I tried to shield myself form absorbing the pain of others by finding fault with them, so that I didn’t have to deal with them. Yet as I grew older, I always tried to mend people’s hearts. It is still something I struggle with. Trying to fix the world.  All the while, I was trying to mend my own heart. I never assimilated into any group, which allowed me to see the strengths and weaknesses of each with an objectivity, which would not have been possible if I were on the inside.  I could participate in groups without being absorbed by the culture or ethos of any of them. I searched for their truths and falsehoods, whether it was in religious groups, political organisations or social circles.  I sometimes assumed the identity of a group, and would pretend to accept the values, but it never lasted long, like my first marriage and my friends at varsity. I had to forge my own path. I was an outsider, because I had to see the world and humanity from a different angle. If I were to serve humanity, I would have to understand human beings, and I could never have clear picture from the inside. The pain I suffer being on the outside however, helps me to understand myself.  The path of finding the self is littered with pain and strife, for it can be no other way.  Pain is an essential part of existence It is an indicator of something that needs attention. When I sought to avoid it, it brought more pain. I constantly try to discover the source of my pain (physical and emotional) and learn and grow through it. It has become my friend.  My experiences, which I used to think were bad and even tragic were perhaps just catalysts for my learnings and growth. My contemplation about these matters have led me to find the answers to my questions. Perhaps one of God’s pointers are to be found in the very darkness of our experiences. For we will never the see the breaking of the dawn without the darkest part of the night.

I had to answer my other questions also. But more of that next time.

With love, Radia💜

6 November 2018

7.45

I sit in a quaint coffee shop in London on this mild winter morning. My eyes well up with tears and I contemplate all that I am and where my story really began.  My friend alerted me this morning to my rather rushed crammed and preachy Part 17, and I started questioning why I fell short last week. It troubled me not just because I would disappoint readers but because I must have held back from myself. There are many aspects to my story which I have neither told nor explored with sufficient depth.  I have to go back to the beginning.

My earliest memories at the age of 1 and a half, oddly enough are in the Western Cape, Worcester, where we had a shop for a brief period and then in Cape Town, where we lived when I was two and my brother Rushdi was born. I recall having a room full of toys including a small piano, a stuffed giraffe and an array of dolls, given to me by various family members.  I remember being taken to the shop and I felt surrounded my love.  I also recall my grandfather in the background. He featured more strongly for me when I was a bit older and we had moved to Johannesburg. I also remember my room and the bed that was my very own.  Why would the bed stick in my mind I wonder?  In Cape Town I remember Granny. She was a small package of whirlwind wrapped in a cup of English tea.  Old school and proper, she was a force to be reckoned with.  Aunty Kiya (short for Rookaya) was a well-known dress-maker in Cape Town, who sewed for the likes of the author Wilbur Smith’s wife, as we were always reminded.  She was an avid reader and loved the ballet and opera.  As a little girl, we would watch the Nutcracker or Carmen and she would lovingly explain the story to me with such passion that I grew to love those times with her.  She taught me to love books. She had a steely resolve and was a disciplinarian. Etiquette was important to her and she painstakingly taught me how to do a proper table setting, and which piece of cutlery was to be used for what, never confusing a salad fork for a dining fork or a steak knife for a fish knife. I failed to retain that information, which didn’t seem important to me at the time.

Written on 7 November 2018 – same café in London

7.44

At my Granny’s flat in Loop Street in Cape Town, which looks so much smaller than I remember.  My Mom came back from the doctor laughing about how my brother, who was a couple of months old had peed on the doctor’s shirt, her beautiful face animated with mirth.  My mother was incredibly beautiful and still is even in her early seventies.  Perhaps that’s why she and my Dad always had a rocky relationship.  People were always in awe of mother’s beauty, men seemed to be mesmerised by her.  I always beamed with pride as a teenager, when people said she looked like my sister.  To my chagrin 30 years later I discovered that some teenage boys used to visit me just to see her, which made me cringe a bit.  Anyway, I guess teenage crushes on older men and women are not unusual. They have sassy and sometimes unsavoury terms for it these days.  My Mom hated Cape Town, as I discovered when I was much older, as her time there was marred by bad memories.  I remember her being distressed when her wedding ring fell down the sink hole and was lost forever.  I was 3 at the time. My happiest memories were at my Granny’ flat.  Our own flat looms in my mind as a dark place.  My Dad’s cousin lived on the upper level and I used to play with his daughter who was a couple of years older than me.  I remember being in their flat one day and my uncle glared at me and shouted, “Go Home!”.  I was terrified and quickly left to go back home.  I felt gutted. Rejected and abused. I recall feeling so sad and dejected because I had done nothing wrong and my uncle was being so mean to me. I felt the pain so deeply that I could not tell anyone about it. My deep sensitivity which revealed itself early on, continued to afflict me my entire life.  I felt dismissed, unfairly treated and terrorised all in one ball of torment. When I grew older my Dad, who was quite authoritarian when I was little, sometimes accused me of doing things which I hadn’t done, and I felt that same torment.  I would typically try to  push the memory of my pain aside and inevitably the incident that triggered my pain would play in my head and I’d feel a pain in my heart as if a wheel with dull protrusions would be turning , pressing it its protrusions into me with every turn. The pain would last sometimes a few days, sometimes a week until it eventually faded.  My question since I was a tot was Why is the world so Unkind?

Our business in the Western Cape apparently didn’t work out, due to my grandfather I was later told, who either lost the business through gambling or had put pressure on my Dad to help out one of his brother’s children, who always seemed to assume more importance to him than my Dad or any of us for that matter, save for my youngest brother who was undoubtedly his favourite.   This was not the first time that would happen.  We moved to Johannesburg, where we lived with my Mom’s family in Jeppe.  Our house, which had an outside toilet, was basic and modest, and faced a pavement on the street.  My younger brother Rushdi and I would sit on the steps watching people go by.  There was a Chinese general dealer across the road from us, Mr Ping who ran the shop with his family. They adored Rushdi, who had the Asian slant eyes he inherited from my Father. Mr Ping and his family were convinced that my father was Chinese. I would look from the outside of the metal guard gate that led to the area behind the counter, as they picked Rushdi up and played with him, ignoring me as if I didn’t exist, while I looked on from the outside. That was the earliest memory I had of feeling like an outsider.  This was another theme that seemed to influence my experience in the world. No matter where I found myself, I never had a perfect fit.  I was either not Indian enough or not Malay enough, or not rich enough or poor enough or smart enough or good enough or just enough… I sometimes wonder if I didn’t impose those exclusions on myself?  Or perhaps I just wasn’t comfortable with boxes, because every time I would come close to fitting into one, I’d jump out and claim rejection.  I struggled to completely accept a charter that defined any group of people.  It’s quite amusing that my introduction to ‘exclusion’   was that I was not ‘Chinese enough’ for what it’s worth.

During our stay in Jeppe, my youngest brother Zunaid was born at Coronation Hospital on my 4^thbirthday.  While my Mom was in the agonies of child birth I was having a birthday party. The house was full of people, coming there for my birthday.  I had on my saffron coloured dress with buttons down the front. One of my Mom’s cousins had a huge camera with a big flashing light and was taking photos of everyone. I’d never seen those photos but felt thrilled that I was going to be in them.  My most vivid memory was of several family members coming up to me asking “where is your mummy”, to which I would promptly respond, “My mummy’s in hospital having a baby”. My answer seemed to evoke much amusement, prompting more people to come up and ask me the same question. I wondered why everyone found it so amusing, as I was simply stating a fact.  Nonetheless, I adored the attention.  It felt so good to be noticed and fussed over. It made me feel loved.  My baby brother and I didn’t bond for much of our young lives. When my father was separated from my Mom, when I was about 12, Zunaid left to stay with him for about a year.  My brother gave us the most exciting accounts of his stay in Macassar with my Dad, where he learned to ride a horse, and ran freely among the dunes on Macassar with the neighbourhood children, who, when noticing his differences from them initially, explained the differences to other kids as “Sy Ma is a Moor” (His mother is an Indian, ‘Moor’, being a slang term for Indian.).

I was four going on five when we moved to the Indian suburb of Lenasia (Lenz), south of Johannesburg.  I recall asking my Mom what had happened to our stuff that we had when we had the shop in the Western Cape, and my Mom gave me some story that it was with my aunt in Cape Town.  She indulged me as I ‘wrote’ letters (obviously with four-year old scrawls) asking for my bed and my toys and she said she gave my letters to the postman. I wondered why I never received any response and eventually gave up.   The loss obviously didn’t make sense to me.  Our birth certificates read Cape Malay/ Indian and we were only allowed into the Indian schools in Lenz because of the addition of the words ‘Indian’ after the slash.  My bother Rushdi, who was born in Claremont in Cape Town unfortunately lost out on the “/Indian”, having been endowed only with the Cape Malay classification, which almost cost him a place at Progress Primary school in the Indian township. After some wrangling and negotiating, he was smuggled in as an Indian, despite his birth certificate and the fact that he was the only Chinese looking face in his Grade 1 class.

Written on 11 November OR Tambo International Airport (Delayed flight to CT after a long-haul from London)

We all seemed to feel like outsiders. I absorbed all this with confusion when I had started school.  Apartheid defined our narrative in the most destructive way. It forced communities into insular villages, each finding comfort with their own, endorsing the idea that like people needed to stick together and anyone who was different was rejected.  Indians in their place, coloureds in theirs and Africans in the remotest townships with the least resources when it came to housing amenities, education and everything else.  Whites were the cream receiving the best of everything, with Coloureds next (owing to their part white heritage), Indians came third, but still way ahead of Africans.  Whites were supreme and untouchable, like demi-Gods, who were revered by the system and by some “non-whites”, which was the term to denote the state of not being something which one “ought to be”. No-one used the term Non-Indian, Non-coloured, or Non-African.  These were obviously undesired sates of being under the Apartheid system. Our house in Lenz had to be put on my mother’s name because my father was classified under Apartheid as Cape Malay.  No-one was allowed to live in an area designated for another race group, or travel on the same bus or go to the same toilet.  I have an authentic sign from Apartheid years in my garden that reads: “Beach for local coloured servants”, which probably sign-posted a rocky un-swimmable beach in Cape Town. There was not much fuss about inter-marriage between any of the ‘non-white’ groups, but it was illegal for a white person to marry anyone of non-white’ persuasion.

Of course, being of mixed Indian/ Malay heritage I fitted in nowhere.  As if the Apartheid system was not bad enough, the Indian culture was particularly discerning and exclusive and anyone who was not “Gaas” (purebred) was looked down upon. Even amongst the purebreds there was a rigid caste system of people who hailed from different villages in India, where intermarriage between different village descendants was not tolerated.   Inter-marriage with someone not Indian was taboo.  My Mom fell into this category as did both her siblings. Although my Mom’s family was generally more accepting than most, due to many breaches of the inter-marriage rules, there were still occasions when I endured intolerance, not having the necessary DNA or wealth to gain me or my family much acceptance. My father, who always swam against the tide, held his own wherever he was, refusing to accede or diminish his self-respect on account of Apartheid or cultural snobbery.  His strength encouraged me, and I refused to try to fit in and gain the patronising acceptance of the Indians.  I gravitated towards friends who also had mixed heritage. I sneered at the concept of snobbery and exclusivity.  One of my aunts, who was unfortunate to have a coloured mix, spent her entire life perfecting the art of Indian food, until she was revered for her skills and was given silent honorary Indian status.  It seemed like too much hard work for too little reward to me, since being recognised as Indian was not a particular goal I aspired to.  I was an institutional and social outsider.  I asked another question to God. Why was I an outsider? I watched African people being treated like they were sub-human by the Indian folk, exploited, belittled and de-humanised. As a child, this injustice troubled me deeply and I cried, wondering and asking God yet another question, why was the world so unfair?

More next week God-willing

With love, Radia💙

My Story Part 17 – Searching for the light

God is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp, the lamp is within glass, the glass as if it were a pearly [white] star lit from [the oil of] a blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil would almost glow even if untouched by fire. Light upon light… [24: 35 Chapter ‘The Light’ verse 35]

In part 16 I relived my emotional turmoil as an imperfect parent and wife. It was not the imperfection in itself that disturbed me as much as its the depth and intensity.  Everything in my life was defined by my fears and misgivings and when I returned from Haj, they seemed to surface with a vengeance, forcing me to take a deeper look. My introspection went to a different level and I began looking at Shafiq with more sympathy if not empathy, my unrealistic expectations of him dropping somewhat if not substantially.  The roller coaster was a little less turbulent. However, every time I experienced unexpected pressure I’d feel myself flaring up again. The cycle of these episodes occurred less frequently though. I expected the drop in the pace to be noticed and found myself feeling afflicted when Shafiq would focus on the fight and seemed ignored the fact that it had been months since we had had one. I guess he wanted the fights to go away and it probably became irrelevant that we had not had one for a while.  Perhaps he didn’t trust that I had become ‘better’ at handling conflict and just expected the worst.  In any event I had not given him any reason to feel otherwise, yet I expected some acknowledgement of my efforts.  Why was acknowledgement so important to me?  It seemed to be a strong need that followed me my entire life.  Was I equating the need for acknowledgement with love?  Perhaps I didn’t get it in my formative years and continued to search for it my whole life. Perhaps acknowledgement became the sub-text of my language of love?  I felt like I was not receiving this from Shafiq. Should I have been?

At some point I had been experiencing physical dis-ease with the effects of various historical injuries I sustained during my sporting years and was looking for ‘healers’ in any shape, form or size, since customary medicine had reached its limitation for me.   A young lady I had just met, noticing my pain, referred to me to a Chinese acupressure healer.  He knew information about me that he could have no way of knowing, for example that I had married an Arab. In addition to the rather painful treatment he gave me he also fed me a large dose of my own medicine to which I initially did not take kindly.  On a subsequent visit though, I decided to give him a hearing instead of just resisting him. Perhaps he would lead me to some answers.  This man saw something in me and the appreciation of being acknowledged in this way, touched me in a way that awakened something in me in a way that I cannot explain.  He ‘saw’ me. He described me and seemed to appreciate all sides to me without judgement but through pure appreciation. He held the mirror up to me and forced me to look beyond my distaste of what I saw. He exposed the way I pushed my husband away, the way I rejected my dear mother, the way I didn’t ‘see’ my children. I offered him some of my own intuitive wisdoms about himself and he accepted them, often probing me for more. I developed an intense friendship with him and he pushed me towards healing my relationship with my husband and family. It was as if I was on a journey of healing.

A couple of years later, I was introduced to a wise old man, who originally hailed from Israel which offended by political sensibilities. He and his family run a centre called Insight Training Centre in Centurion, Gauteng the province I hailed from. They run unconventional consciousness raising courses in a set of three called Turning Point, Joyspring and the Mile.  I was introduced through a work colleague and it sounded like mental boot-camp, which strangely appealed to me and I allowed my instinct to lead me to the next step in my personal development and healing. My first session left me doubting whether I was doing the right thing, but I persisted and when I had done the few days of Turning Point I could not stop and went on to do the next session of Joyspring and the final leg of The Mile a few months later.  I swore an oath of secrecy on the experiences and methodologies used so as not to diminish the effectiveness for anyone who wished to subscribe to the experience.  They have been described by some as cultish and outlandish, by people who had quit before they completed the experience.  I endured the idiosyncrasies and alternate world I was thrust into and I had many life-changing experiences. Although I didn’t relate to all the concepts, I realised that God had led me to the most unexpected and unconventional sources to continue my education about His laws and the nature of existence.  I received knowledge from a person from a background that I reject, yet ironically, he helped me understand aspects of my own religion, scriptures and the manner of the Prophet (pbuh) that I follow, much more clearly. Was God showing me that the exclusiveness we have as Muslims, Christians Jews or anything else is but an illusion, that we create to make ourselves feel superior to others.  The things I had been taught so superficially, assumed a depth and subtlety. Suddenly, many of my father’s teachings crystallised and I understood aspects of his brilliance and spiritualism that had escaped me before.

It was as if my mind had opened and my soul engulfed the invitation towards the light of the Divine. It occurred to me that I had never looked at the language of love of my husband, my mother my own children.  I had always given them what I thought they needed, never bothering to find out what they wanted.  How they felt and how they would have wanted me to be as a mother, wife, daughter. I never sought to understand their languages of love, what made them cry or laugh or feel loved, yet I made myself believe that I was always doing what was best for them.  I was blind to my own arrogance.

When I left the Turning Point experience, with the wise old man and his team in April 2017, where I dropped so much of my baggage, I experienced a miracle that came with that release. My son had been resisting the idea of studying engineering despite the fact that his psychometric test revealed a penchant for that discipline.  He was fighting me on every suggestion I made, and I was exasperated. The day I returned from Turning Point, my son told me that he had decided on his path. He wanted to do a gap year and apply for engineering – aeronautical or BSC astronomy which he would pursue when he returned. Without any prompting from me he decided to pursue studies. I found that I was delighted to support him in whichever path he chose. I would gladly support his need for a gap year if he so chose. Whether he went to university or not, I felt released of the need to force him to do what I thought was best, when in fact I have no clue what that is. I was reminded of other members of my family who never studied but are living well. They found their paths in their own way. I asked him when he made his breakthrough. I discovered that he felt a release of pressure and things fell into place in his mind, about the same time I was experiencing my epiphany at Turning Point 1500km away. In that moment I realised that the power of my energy as a mother could stifle or release my children, no matter where I was in the world. My daughter who had experienced subtle bullying at her previous school by what I call a ‘Gucci gang’, got the lead part in Romeo and Juliette in grade 6 and I was happy because it made her happy. My younger genius son may be addicted to play station, but he has a self-awareness and strength of mind to work his way through the difficulties of always living in the shadow of his older brother. He has insights beyond his years and will have much to offer the world if I just let him work it out himself. I must let them go and detach more and more as they grow up. It is my choice. If I love my children selfishly and without trust, I impede them. If I release them and trust our Creator with their well-being, I may give them a real chance to discover themselves and their purpose in this world.

A person who did energy healing on me one day told me that I needed to visit a Nordic country to seek knowledge. I inwardly sneered sceptically, thinking about how improbable if not impossible that was.  The day I returned from Turning Point, I received an e-mail informing me that I was to go to Sweden for a conference on marine spatial panning, as I was drafting the first South African bill on the subject. My learnings on that trip no doubt went way beyond marine spatial planning and those insights are for another time.  As my mind opened, so did the world and God’s offerings.

My most extreme evolution has been in my relationship with my husband, companion, friend and esteemed father of my children. A merciful epiphany overcame me when I changed the direction of my focus. I looked at the same situation, the same man from a different angle. I stopped looking to him to make me feel worthy. I stopped needing him to be the perfect companion, to yield to my specific needs in the way I wanted. I stopped doing things for him in the hope that he would fulfil these emotional needs that I had. If I did anything for him, it was because I wanted to be of service him and not because I expected him to be eternally grateful. I stopped looking for validation and self-worth from my husband. I realised that no person is physically capable of giving validation and self-worth to another person. If I didn’t find that in myself, any affirmations from anyone else would not be enough. I had to realise my own self-worth. When I acknowledged my own talents, strengths beauty and flaws with less judgement to myself, I knew I could do the same for my husband. I had to consciously change the way I labelled my experiences, myself and the people around me.  If someone cuts me off on the road, I have to change my instinctive “asshole” response a thought that they are probably distracted or in a hurry to be somewhere and not thinking clearly.  The love and kindness from my Creator were suddenly evident in everything. Suddenly all my misgivings about myself became futile. It exposed how ungrateful and blameworthy I was towards Him who brought onto this planet and guided me through the wilderness of my existence unfailingly. Every mistake I made I blamed on someone. Ultimately, I was blaming God. When I truly saw that I had designed my own failures and that He was showing me all along the beauty and truth in every situation, I realised my self-loathing was destroying me and others around me. He is blamed for all not doing anything about the evils in the world. He didn’t cause them. We did. Humanity did.  Perhaps He didn’t put us here to fix our messes, but to allow us to discover that we are the source of and the answer to our own problems. He gives us guides and tools and it is our choice to use to them or not.  He didn’t cause me to be molested as a child, a human being made that choice.  Even though I was a child, I had a choice as an adult to react to the experience, and I chose to let it poison my view of the world. I Became aggressive, judgemental, self-critical, defensive and a control freak. I chose to see myself as a victim rather than a victor who had overcome and gained from an experience that made me grow. Only when I was ready to claim responsibility over my life and my actions was I able to forgive and love myself and forgive the man who had made that poor choice when I was a child.  I could forgive, because I knew that He forgives me. I could love myself, because He created me and loves me. If I cannot forgive and love myself, how would I ever be able to forgive and love anyone else. When I made strides towards this self-acceptance and validation through my love and appreciation of the favours from my Creator, I was able to show love, appreciation and forgiveness towards my husband. Only then was I ready to give to him with purity of heart. I no longer yearned for validation from him. I no longer felt a fear of not being loved. I no longer felt the need to own him, control his thoughts and behaviour or dictate how he should live his life. I was finally able to let go of my fears of loss and unleash my love to him without wanting payback. Without feeling resentment and hurt over irrelevant things because I felt insecure. Without expecting quid pro quo. Only when I realised this, was I released. Released from the prison of my own fears and self-loathing which I projected onto my husband. To my wonderment, he suddenly became the husband I wanted him to be. I was able to appreciate the completeness and beauty of the man I had been privileged to marry. I had to look again at his strengths, weaknesses, eccentricities and beauty, and accept the totality of his existence in as much as I accepted my own. I love. I must extend this experience to my relationships with all the other people in my life. My children, family, friends and colleagues, with humanity at large. My service is boundless as long as I am alive. Humanity is in need. It is not an easy road. I have not perfected the forgiveness and self-acceptance, but I continue to strive. The struggle to maintain balance continues day by day. Moment by moment. I also must manage regression from time to time when I slide into old habits and find my way back again. Is this not the nature of the struggle of our existence? To constantly strive, accept that we err but make efforts to correct them and evolve to a higher consciousness of existence. To think one has arrived is a misnomer.  What occurred to me is that this is a constant struggle to reach a higher level of consciousness and the path is not smooth. It is jagged. It stops and starts and sometimes veers sideways, but we must continue to strive towards balance.  This is the incessant and profound ‘Jihaad’, (translated means struggle or effort), which embodies the purpose of existence. It has sadly been misplaced with mis-emphasis towards war and bloodshed.

My relationships with my loved ones have changed for the better not because they met my expectations, but because I committed to meet theirs.  I could only do so for a purpose higher than myself. My service to humanity is aligned with my service to God.  His expectations of how I should treat His creation guide me, and even though I don’t always get it right, I understand that my purpose is who I am. If I stop striving to meet it I fail myself, as God is beyond anyone’s success or failure and needs nothing from me.

These days my emotional reactions are vastly different from the ranting, raving angry storm I used to be.  I noticed that when I struggle with something, when I am feeling tender during my cycle or during a hormonal flux, or if I was hurt by something or someone, I tend towards softer emotions. I cry with sadness at what I cannot improve in myself, or at a hurt I am feeling. My vulnerability and true nature that I suppressed for so long is exposed, and I am ok with that.  Perhaps I am swinging to the opposite side of the pendulum, and in the natural pattern I need to gravitate back towards the centre. I experienced extreme highs and extreme lows, but my desired state is that of balance – the middle road.  This is a state that I actively work towards, not just hoping that it will magically descend on me.  It means that I have to consciously strive to achieve the balanced response in every situation, every challenge, every relationship. When I feel myself slipping into old habits, it does not last long because I don’t allow it to. In every moment of difficulty, I seek to remember to call on my Creator, even if it be to ask Him to help me be of service to Him, since I am often too weak to serve properly.  I found my purpose and it is essentially who I am.  My strengths must serve the world.  Each of us have special talents and which we should share with the world. I always sought to trust, have faith, be grateful and be righteous but I still felt like something was missing. After my Haj, I was shown a path beyond.  Each of us have talents, the things we were born to do.  I have started using some of mine to reach other human beings through exposing my own truths.  By using words and speech and my very being to uplift myself and anyone else I can in the process.  I was terrorised and oppressed growing up.  I seek to stop others from being terrorised, by encouraging myself and others to manifest who we truly are, pushing past our fears and insecurities and terrors.  I have begun manifesting my purpose with my family and with the world through my words, actions, and writing.  Unbeknown to many, I have suffered many trials and tribulations in this process and have not been deterred in my pursuit.  I know I am on the path I am meant to be when I find that no matter how challenging the obstacles I find myself unable to stop.  Ever since I commenced this path which I hope will open and develop further, the void has been filled. I no longer feel like there is something missing. My need for acknowledgement has lost its edge and lingers with dullness on the periphery of my consciousness, no longer taking centre stage. I continue to strive to bring the best side of my character forward, live with trust, gratitude and love for God in service to Him through my devotion and service to humanity in a way that is most Divinely pleasing.

The words of my favourite poet come to mind, ‘The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.’ – William Shakespeare

It seemed impossible for me to have come even to this point in my life, if I look back. How was did it happen?  The answer lies not with the people I met along the way or the courses I attended. They were the blessed catalysts for my growth.  The key for me was in truly wanting to find my truth and actively seeking the Divine light.  Sincere intention (mine manifested in prayer), followed by action and effort, opened the door for me. Patience, perseverance and trust in the Divine are the bags I packed for the journey.  Gratitude is the cloak that covers my weary body. My journey continues…

I will continue with my stories sharing current challenges and experiences of which there are many.

I leave with those thoughts today. All my love Radia💙

My Story Part 16 Piercing through the heart of darkness

I experienced two weeks of the best and the worst of human nature and the best and worst of my own nature in the most intense physical and spiritual journey of my life. Having slowly graduated to my earthly reality I found myself once again confronted with my demons. Had my pilgrimage lifted the veils of darkness that overwhelmed me, or the pain and frustration of failed expectations in my life and relationships? I found myself feeling closer to Shafiq in some way. I looked at myself more closely than I had before. I felt a calmness but also heard the murmur of my discontent in the background, humming and awakening more with each passing day.

As the daily pressures of my life continued, I felt my anxiety mounting. I had to get to the source of my discontent. My children were growing. From time to time I would feel my frustration growing with them. I felt like I bore the lion’s share of responsibility in my family. I was always sorting everyone’s life out. I was the fixer in my own life and in everyone else’s life around me. Yet I felt the pressure of this self-imposed obligation. I felt the weight of the world bearing down on me. I almost blamed Shafiq and felt a hidden resentment brought on by my own martyrdom. I felt like a victim, like everyone “took me for granted”, but judged me as the supreme bitch. I felt like no-one knew how I really cared about the well-being of everyone. I felt like ‘they’ (the world – everyone, including my own family) judged me and disliked me and didn’t appreciate me. This is what I thought about myself and projected onto the world. All the while, I was trying to control everything and everyone, and convincing myself that I was helping everyone. I felt like a caged animal. I constantly felt like no-one understood me. I would sometimes feel sorry for myself and feel the urge to run away from everyone, but I knew that I would not have the courage to do that. In my moments of extreme pressure, I’d feel anger welling up inside me and I’d explode at my children and Shafiq, sometime to the point where my screaming matches with Shafiq increased, leaving us all feeling torn and desperate. My trip to Mecca seemed to have intensified everything, as if to bring it to a boiling point. I had prayed for answers and felt forsaken as I felt myself spinning further into the vortex of my emotional turmoil. My Haj had not lifted the veils so much as pierced through them to reach the heart of darkness that tarnished my soul.

My family would sometimes walk on egg-shells around me hoping I don’t get triggered. It took me some time to realise that while I perceived myself as a victim, I behaved more like a bully. I cry in shame just recalling the trauma I put my family through. I wasn’t always the ogre, but the memory of those times overshadowed the good ones. I remember praying on the planes of Arafah for God to help me and my husband. For a long time, my prayer was that he helps me ‘against’ what I saw as the cold distance of my husband. It’s hard for me to revisit my selfish state of mind where I felt hemmed in by my own life because of failed expectations of feeling appreciated, loved and acknowledged as good enough by my husband, my mom, my children, who themselves were not capable of understanding their own emotions and who were looking to me for love and appreciation rather than the other way around. I kept on feeling like Shafiq didn’t love me. The truth was that I didn’t love me, and I convinced myself that no-one else did. I felt like my little kids needed me more than they loved me.
I loved my children with an iron fist. The dubious joy of motherhood has taken me to the heights of pleasure and pride to the recesses of my deepest fears. What is it about our children that brings out the most extreme reactions and emotions? Why is it that in the relationship with our children, we generally tend to want better than what we want for ourselves? Most of us cannot honestly say that we wish that for any other human being. We can perhaps want others to be happy and may even want them to have what we have (if we are generous of heart), but rarely do we want other people to have more than we have. Yet with our children, there is no limit to the good wishes we have for them. In fact, we make some of our biggest sacrifices to ensure that they have the best of what we can give them. We want them to excel at everything. Is it because we see them as an extension of ourselves? Do we see them as the chance to succeed where we failed? They may share 50% of our DNA but does that mean that they are half an extension of ourselves? Or can it be that they are no extension at all. They are complete souls that have come through us and share of our DNA but are not a part of us. Khalil Gibran summed it up in the first verse of his poem “On Children”

“Your children are not your children
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself
They come through but not from you
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you”

I learned this the hard way. I was so overwhelmed by the gigantic responsibility of being a mother that I monitored and controlled everything my children did since they were born. I believe in the importance of boundaries for small children, but I fear my boundaries may have more closely resembled fortresses. I wanted them to be perfect and not flawed like I was, I wanted them to be well adjusted and happy, successful, productive and the list goes on and on. I was affectionate and loving, but my command-control style as a mom often came across as bullying sometime subtly and at other times overtly. I recall giving them endless lectures about studying hard to make a good living and supporting their own families one day. Yet when my sons each at different stages started questioning the system and the value of the current education system, I became exasperated because even though I agreed with them, I felt duty-bound to push them into the sausage machine, because I could see no viable alternative. I became frantic about their future and what they were going to do for a living and the more I panicked, the more pressure I placed on them. Although my oldest son’s aptitude tests showed a penchant for engineering he fought me when I urged him in that direction. My second son who gets straight A’s in math, performs mundanely in anything that requires rote learning, is utterly bored and disengaged at school. My daughter whose head is in the clouds and spends her free time drawing and daydreaming, is not at all like me, and although I was relieved at her lack of intensity and her calm subtlety, I was still worried that she had problems at school. I paid a small fortune for tests and assessments for all my children to ensure that I was not missing anything. They felt as if I was measuring their worth by their performances at school. Even when my kids did well at school or anything else, I didn’t announce to family and friends any of their achievements and even less did I announce their failings. I refused to let the family and friends place any pressure on my children or me. It never occurred to me that I was placing sufficient pressure on them for everybody. I felt like their failings were my own and their successes in some way were attributable to me. I was, to my chagrin, worried about what people would say, and wanted to shield my children and myself from criticism or gossip or envy. But I was shielding myself from my own fears and failures

At least to my credit I did not expect them to excel at sports even though I was a sports fanatic when I was at school. None of them showed any interest in sports. My oldest was on the A-team for water polo when he entered high school, but he despised water polo partly because he suffered with asthma and partly because it was a tough and demanding sport. I pressured him in the beginning and then let go, realizing that he needed to do what he felt good about, rather than what I felt good about. It reminded me of when my swimming coach in my teens came to beg my mother to make me return to swimming because of my potential, when I really hated the rigours of training and swimming galas. I let go, despite my secret wishes for him to be an excellent water polo player.

I was not so giving with everything else, and now…. I was imploding. As a wife and mother, I was failing. Something had to give. My oldest son, was becoming a broody introvert, questioning everything and silently resenting my iron fist. His younger brother, who was always an introvert is a quiet rebellious genius, who knew several computer languages at the age 13 but now 16, still struggles to comply with a system of learning that is thrust upon him. I had to send my daughter to a private school as she struggled to pay attention in big classes and I had a hysterical breakdown with her teacher at the public school she attended because all my efforts to make interventions had failed. My self-loathing was inextricably linked to my need to control. My need to always be right and to convince myself that I had the moral high-ground. If this were so true, why did I still feel, like I was missing something?

I attended many self-motivational courses, visited doctors, therapists, Imams and energy healers, exploring the spectrum of professionals from the ordinary to the extra-ordinary searching for answers. I always returned in tears to God sometimes feeling close to Him and at others feeling abandoned. I knew in my heart that lessons of perseverance and patience of which I was in short supply, was a key part of my endurance test in this stretch of my journey. I resisted the temptation of trading with my Creator, as more useless pursuit I have yet to encounter. Everything I needed was there, I was just not reaching it, perhaps because I was looking in the wrong direction or perhaps I was missing the obvious clues, like a science experiment in progress. The laws of nature need discovery not invention. They are the trick of the mind’s eye, which decides its readiness to receive the magnitude of such greatness. Patience and wisdom are its vehicles and faith and His message its fuel.

The butterfly in the cocoon that I saw in Mecca was fighting to break out. I felt like I needed a catalyst for my transformation. I felt like it was there but just out of my reach. I continued to search. I was almost there…

Find out more next time, God-willing
With love and perseverance, Radia💜

My panic and unease during my first pregnancy (exposed in Part 11) increased exponentially after I gave birth. I remember everyone waxing lyrical about the “joys of motherhood”, yet for at least the first eight months of my baby’s life, feeling inept, unknowledgeable and completely inadequate as a mother, my experience was more akin to the “misery of motherhood”. With a baby that screamed constantly (with colic I was told), I found myself unable to pee, shower or even get dressed without having him bring the house down. Having had a Doepmaal (Naming ceremony) that was televised and published in a local newspaper (a long story I care to leave to another time), we managed to keep him quiet long enough for the important bits. He was bedecked with yellow roses shrouded in white and looked every bit the little angel.

My new life was characterised by constant screaming, to the point that I could not do normal mummy things, like shopping or walking in the park. Grocery shopping was virtually impossible, and any attempt ended up with me hightailing it out of the supermarket before someone called the welfare on me. Shafiq was incredible as a father, helping wherever he could, from nappy changing to bathing, and his even temperament created somewhat of a balance in the chaos. As a husband, he was less than experienced, and we bounced off each other frequently. We had a common challenge though, which bound us in a way but at the same time put strain on us. Shafiq and I would sometimes be pacing up and down in our bedroom at 1.00 in the morning trying to calm down our screaming little son. No doctors could diagnose anything unusual and I am convinced that my baby felt my fear, my inadequacy and absolute ignorance, and it ignited within him a resistance that may have shaped some of his personality growing up. How much of it was genetic, I will never know. This little man, always seemed like an adult in an infant’s body, fighting against the restrictions of his tiny immobile physique and a clueless mother. I know that I felt constant strain and I remember one day, still in my pink spotted nightgown, having had no opportunity to shower and get dressed that day, Shafiq returned from work, happily waiting to see the baby, with a huge smile on his face and reached out to kiss me. I burst out crying yelling “Take your baby!” handed him over to his dad and ran into the bedroom weeping in self-pity. These melt-down-moments are neatly tucked away in mother-baby magazines with tips on how to handle baby blues. This, however was not baby blues. I didn’t neglect Faeeq depressively withdrawing from life. Instead I stopped living, to see to his every need, causing me insufferable angst.

I didn’t embrace my pregnancy or my motherhood and even though I was a 32-year-old first-time mother, I reacted more like a teenage mom. I could have embraced love in these moments, but instead I chose to focus on my own pains and woes, not even considering the pain and fears that my husband was experiencing. My mom supported me throughout my tribulations as she had always done, yet I took her for granted, as if she had no choice, but to be my mother and take care of me, even though I was now having to take care of another human being. This attitude marred my relationship with her for many years and I was embarking on the same course with my own child. I never considered anyone else and focused on my own universe as if it were the only one that mattered. No wonder my son screamed. He imbibed my selfish fears through the milk I nursed him with. He felt my anxiety and heard the tension in my voice. The love I had for this little creature was so immense, but not even my gentle touches and loving kisses were strong enough to overcome everything else I sub-consciously shoved at him. Not to mention what he must have absorbed during my troubled pregnancy.

At 4 months old, after a visit to the family in Cape Town he started calming down. At 5 months old, I left him in the day care of my aunt while I returned to work with a heavy heart, commencing my practice as an advocate. By the time Faeeq was 10 months old, he walked with sturdiness. He stopped nursing from me at about 16 months old on his own accord, oddly enough, on our second annual trip to Cape Town with him. The bottles that he drank from, while I was at work were similarly put aside by him without looking back. I never had to train him or discipline him in any of these matters. Once he made up his mind about something he implemented it immediately. Potty training was equally easy. This toddler who screamed his way through the first few months of his life had something to teach me. At that stage I couldn’t see beyond my own pain and strife and could not see what I had to learn. Shafiq and I reared him with strict discipline and fear, not sure whether our approaches were right or wrong. Shafiq was more even tempered and calm, but when the need arose he took complete control. I wish with all my heart that I had tried harder to figure out what language of love Faeeq needed, but I was too busy imposing what I thought he, (and his dad for that matter) needed. I had to get this motherhood thing “right” and not fail. My assumptions took over, as my need to be in control and always be rights over-shadowed everything. I felt responsible and approached it in the organised way I did my work, and other ‘projects’ of importance. I always had baby bags super-organised for outings, food prepared and state of the art bottles, bags, bowls and baby gadgets and adorable clothes. Love and adoration cannot be planned though. Even though I felt an abundance of love for this beautiful creature that entered my life so unexpectedly, I wish I could go back and swap some of the organisation for disordered unfettered affection.

I was affectionate and loving, but my command-control style as a mom often came across as bullying, sometime subtle and at other times overt. My son, now 19 years old is a continent away from me and even though I feel like a piece of me is missing, I agreed to let him spend a year in Australia, before starting university next year, God-willing. This young man has seen his own way in the Australian Outback in the rural town of Abergowrie, with no post code or amenities, living on 2-minute noodles and back-packing to Thailand and Malaysia by himself, and none of these accomplishments have anything to do with me or my mothering.

I have had to forgive myself for doing the best I could as his mom. I had to acknowledge that my mom did the best she could with me. That she chose to stay and look after me and my brothers when my father left for a few years. Before you nod with approval, know that it took me many long years to fully realise these truths. They reached my head much earlier than they reached my heart.

I fell pregnant 5 times with Shafiq in a seven-year period, despite the use of contraception. Three of my pregnancies resulted in beautiful children. I had spent most of my life avoiding the mammoth responsibility of motherhood. Before Shafiq, my body and mind were complicit in this avoidance, and I managed to escape the fate of pregnancy. How did I find myself as ‘the mother’? I had never been maternal except to my cats and dogs when I was little. I was devastated when my first dog Sandy was struck down by a virus before she was fully grown. I forced my brothers into mourning with me and we did prayers for her as she was buried on our back yard behind the garage. It took me a long while before I agreed to accept another dog (Bruno) that my dad got us from his friend Duggie. I also adopted an abandoned grey kitten Mishka, who slept with me, brought me dead mice and birds as gifts when she was older, and although she was friendly with Bruno, scared off any other dogs in the neighbourhood that threatened her. I lost her too. These relationships were manageable. I played a subsidiary role in their lives as they could survive independently of me. It was still difficult to see them go.

All who knew me struggled to reconcile the iron-fisted sassy woman with the mother figure that they encountered. I didn’t want to bring children into this harsh world, to be abused and bullied by adults, yet there I was, bullying them in a different way. I had fulfilled the prophecy myself. What was God showing me? Why was everything so difficult? I was losing control, but I didn’t believe it. I continued to try to control my world and everyone around me, instead of experiencing the world and life the way I was intended to. I hadn’t realised that control in any form is the most powerful illusion in the human experience. We have no control over our children, spouses nor any condition that befalls us. We only have control over our thoughts, actions and reactions in the vast spectrum of our existence. God, in His infinite mercy threw all the clues down for me and I kept on missing them. I had a long road to travel yet, and I was not getting any younger…

More next time God-willing
With love and self-forgiveness, Radia ❤️

In part 8 I had met Shafiq and all seemed well. Unlike in the movies, meeting my life partner is not the happy ending. In fact, as life goes, it inevitably is the beginning of the most educational chapter in one’s life, if one chooses to learn through it. In any event, love and its languages had to take a pause for a while. My life was being overtaken by another major event.

My beloved father had fallen ill. I thought he’d recover as he went in and out of hospital. I felt uncanny guilt about not being able to afford medical aid or a private hospital. Perhaps if I’d stuck it out in the legal field, much as I hated being an attorney, I would have been able to get the best medical care for him. This formidable man who had always been larger than life for me was fading before my eyes and I did not have the courage to accept it. I would see him walking in pain and I couldn’t bear to watch him suffering. At home, his pain-riddled moans and sighs pierced through my brain like a buzz saw and I felt I just wanted to get away from the whole scene. I couldn’t bear to see him struggle to walk from his bedroom to the bathroom. When he was in hospital, I questioned the doctors and sent letters to the Minister of Health about the poor state of the provincial hospital he was at. I even sent copies of his medical records to one of his doctor friends in Cape Town. When he said there was nothing to be done, I still refused to accept it. I was even too afraid to visit him in hospital, as I couldn’t bear to see him in such a state of frailty. It felt unnatural to me. He endured nine long months of illness and I endured nine months of resistance and denial. He was even too ill to meet Shafiq. Somehow, he knew that I would be marrying, without me telling him much about it. One night at the hospital he said he was not going to be around for the wedding. I still refused to accept that my beloved father and teacher was preparing to depart this world. I was with him one Thursday night at the hospital and he looked at me but right through me. It was as if he was not aware of anyone in the room. I distinctly heard him addressing my granny, (his mother), the way I remember him addressing her when she was alive. I went home that night, and quietly made sure that the telephone was connected, took out my prayer mat and in communion with my Creator, I felt a surge of release unto him, submitting to my father’s passing and seeking forgiveness for refusing to let go. For the first time, I sobbed acknowledging my father’s human frailty and imminent departure from this planet. Early that morning, the second day of October in the year 1998, at the time of Fajr, the early morning prayer, we received the dreaded phone call. My brothers and I made our way to the hospital. He lay there as if he was sleeping. I was struck with fear as I bent over to kiss his forehead not expecting the coldness of his skin as it grazed my lips. This incredible human being, an unsung hero who had touched so many lives was only here in body. My mind struggled to accept that he would not wake up at any moment. Everything felt surreal. I opened his favourite book containing the words of God in the manner he had taught us, and it fell on a verse of Jannah (heaven), one he had quoted and explained to us many times before. I couldn’t weep. I felt as if I was frozen. Everything moved really quickly after that. Family and friends rallied to arrange his burial speedily, as is the custom with Muslims. This was a blessing for me. I don’t think I could’ve managed having his body around for a long period. I really needed the speedy closure afforded by a quick simple burial. I went to buy flowers for his grave and only then, when I was alone in the car did I let out a deep moaning from the pit of my stomach followed by a guttural sobbing. My father was gone. I would not hear his boisterous laugh, and his smiling hazel eyes and full lips which I inherited. I would not hear his voice calling me “Ratz, Ratzy….” I would not be captivated by his wisdom. I would not feel his strong hands on my shoulder or his re-assuring pat on the back of my neck. A gesture he made with my brothers and I since we were little. I would have to rely on my memories of him and the many treasures he left me in my tool-kit of life. His body lay in a white calico shroud where people would have a chance to greet and make prayers before he was taken to the cemetery, I braced myself as I knelt to sit near him and I could swear I heard his voice saying to me, “sit at my feet and let the grandchildren sit near my head. You’d better read Yaseen coz you know it’s the surah you know best. Don’t wanna start hukking now.” I almost laughed. Whatever I heard that day, whether it was my father’s voice or my own thoughts, it calmed me, and I was able to pray for my father and bid him adieu till I meet him again when it is my time. He was buried before Jummuah, the Friday Sabbath prayer. My worldly attachment and dependence on my dad was suddenly snatched away. His passing left me vulnerable and alone. My father had been a focal influence in my life and I had a deep attachment to him. He was my back-up; my security, and his passing felt like a rug was being pulled out from under my feet. As much as I loved and depended on him, his onward journey was inevitable, and the reality of loss faced me head-on for the first time in my life. I had to let go and was gifted with the grace of understanding that I had to detach. We are social beings and have dependencies on each other. It was my father’s passing that taught me that the wonderful gift of relationships, be they with our parents, partners or children, friends or lovers, is not accompanied by any real measure of dominion. Love, ownership and control are mutually exclusive. We cannot control the time of departure from our loved ones. Transience defines our existence and defies the intelligence of control and dominion. The greatest gift that came with his passing was the freedom to make my choices without fear of his disapproval. He never imposed that on me when he was alive. I chose to seek it for myself, making him the barometer of my good and bad choices.

He returned unto his Creator and journeyed to the next phase of his existence. I miss him every day, but I can continue my life with appreciation of the invaluable tools he had left me. I am at peace in the knowledge and acceptance that he has continued his journey, where I would have to follow when it is my time. Life is a gift, as is everything else made available to us on this earth, but like everything else it is temporary and can be taken away, lost, or destroyed. I was forced to focus my dependencies elsewhere. There is a much greater reliance that I needed to develop, and my face turned towards my Creator as my benefactor, and the owner, controller, designer of everything in this world and beyond. As my soul pushed me toward him, the earthly need for love turned me towards another male figure. My future husband. As I lost the most important man in my life, I was gifted with another. But would I find the answer to my questions with a new love and my third marriage?

We’ll have to find out more next time God-willing

With love, Radia💚

After what almost seemed like a plot in a movie, having fled from Kenya, I returned home downtrodden. A close friend of mine, who had also gone through an extremely rough experience, gave me sanctuary in her house while I recuperated and secretly hid away from the world and from the possibility of being tracked down by my Arab ex-husband, whom I had not seen again to this day.

I slowly came out of my shell and moved back in with my father, who had remarried a woman. They were so much in love that she decided to leave her then husband and family to be with my father, having caused much consternation from her family and the Muslim community in Johannesburg at large. It seems that changing one’s mind about one’s spouse is taboo in our community, even though the scripture gives guidance on these human experiences. With my dad, however, it would have been received more harshly than most. He was severely criticised by many Muslims for his Sufi practices. Having come from a checkered and controversial past, his turn towards an esoteric aspect of Islam was unpalatable for many. He was labelled a charlatan by some and accused of black magic by others. He never wasted his time either defending or trying to disprove anything but continued his path of tassawuf (Sufism) relentlessly. So, when a woman left her husband to marry my father, it reinforced these negative perceptions of him. Those close to him were similarly disparaged by association.

Many people did not know about my second marriage and divorce and I was keen to keep it that way. As much as I was not swayed by people’s opinion, having been on the wrong side of it most of my life, I was so ashamed of my latest experience that I hid it from the world until I started blogging last year. I thought I was strong, yet I had allowed myself to be dominated and victimised almost like a hostage and I couldn’t really face my own shame. When I returned to my father’s house, my depression and shame turned to anger. I had tried to do the right thing, find a path to God with a man who I thought would allow me to do something useful with my life. Instead, I was met with the bitter possibility that my true intention may not have been pure, or I would not have failed so dismally in my choices. Perhaps the reason for the turn of events was to show me that my purpose was in a completely different direction. At that point I was too angry to find out or to redirect my efforts. In rebellion, I started partying with my friends. I let loose again, almost forgetting how that didn’t work out for me before. Perhaps I was repeating my mistakes until I was ready to yield to the pull of my soul towards the Divine. Perhaps I was angry at God, again! Perhaps I was angry at myself, again! What can I say? I’m a repeat offender and a slow learner.

This time, I compartmentalised my relationship with the God, sustained prayer and devotion at certain times and pursued more frivolous activities at others. My father never stopped me or forced me into anything, thankfully, but continued to guide me towards my truth, sometimes subtly and at other times compellingly. He often pushed me harder than anyone else to face my deepest darkest fears, including my childhood molestation. My father became my closest friend, and mentor. He explained deep concepts of Islam and Sufism and embellished the tool kit of life that he had handed to me. I could ask him any question and he would answer with acuity. We’d have discussions and discourse on a variety of topics, often talking late into the night, sometimes to the break of dawn in time for the morning prayer. We spent a few months in Cape Town while he was treating a difficult patient. We frequented the different religious sites. I recall our midnight trysts up the 99 steps to the shrine of Sheikh Noorul Mubeen, with the wind howling through the trees. We frequently visited all the Karamats in and around Cape Town where we made thikr (prayed) and he taught us (myself and a student who lived with us, who remains a dear friend), many beautiful aspects of higher learning. At the time I felt like I was in an alternate universe. I was steeped in an esoteric deeper experience of learning and at the same time experiencing internal disquiet, while I internalised the concepts and tried to reconcile all I was taught, with my unsettled life.

When we returned he started a Madrassa (Islamic school) for adults who wanted to learn about the principles of tassawwuf (Sufism). His sage teachings were matched only by his infectious booming laugh and uncanny sense of humour. He often used jokes in his teaching to provoke thought and introspection. Our modest little house was always full of people. Patients seeking assistance with an array of spiritual ailments, students hungry for his esoteric knowledge, wayfarers and friends seeking his solace or just his company. My father had created a sanctuary of safety and learning. Some students stayed with us from time to time in the small outside room that we had. His enemies despised him, his students adored him, his patients depended on him, the poor benefitted from him, and to me he was a pillar from which I drew strength, knowledge, wisdom and unconditional love. I was still seeking companionship but having been severely bitten in this arena, I never got seriously involved with anyone. I had become more hardened and aggressive, an older version of the little head girl in primary school. My iron fist was back with a vengeance, almost as if protecting myself more fiercely from predators.

There were a few suitors, who thought fit to approach my father and he graciously waved them directly to me, smiling knowingly. One staunch Indian family, who knew my grandfather offered me the choice of one of their three unmarried sons. This was unheard of with a woman who had been divorced, even once. We chuckled about it, joking about how I would go about making the selection. All this attention was hardly due to any of my charms but seemed to have been related to my father’s status as a Sufi Sheikh. Some may have thought it would bring them closer to my father. Others may have sought a stake in his bloodline. Whatever the reason, I was not inclined towards any of the proposers, save one of his students, a few years my junior, who had a kindness about him and who himself didn’t seem to care about my father’s status. Although he was prompted by his father to initiate a union with me, he seemed genuinely interested in me, and he peaked my interest. I was almost thirty and was willing to find a partner who I at least liked and could have children with. I was yearning to start my own family. That relationship didn’t work out and I was alone again. In desperation I engaged in a brief but intense relationship with an old flame, much to my father’s irritation. I knew it was going nowhere, but I somehow hoped I may find something lasting, but alas I was locked in a cycle of commitment fear and continued to anchor my safety under my father’s protection. I constantly sought his approval and didn’t realise how I used it as an excuse to not move forward in my life. I didn’t pursue my legal career. I worked instead at a diamond company and waited for weekends to go out with my closest friends. Although I eventually stopped partying, I was always looking for something to entertain me and take my mind off the prospect of moving out of my father’s house and living my life. I wasn’t ready to use the tool kit.

There were times I wished death would overcome me rather than face the abyss of what life had to offer. I almost got my wish. One of my closest friends, who had also become a student of dad and I, planned a trip to Cape Town once, and were greeting my dad, when he took off with me for some or other bad decision I had made. I argued with him and said that I’d rather die than submit to whatever it was. We had more or less resolved the issue, he bid us farewell, and my friend and I left for the trip, stopping in Lenz, to drop my car at my Mom’s house first. It was late at night as we were exiting Lenz, my friend was driving, I sat in the passenger seat and her son was in the back seat. We were suddenly intercepted at a stop street at a T-junction by a beat up old sedan. It was surreal, and time seemed to slow down for me. Three men jumped out of the car, one of them ran to the driver’s side, pointing a gun at my friend through the driver’s side window. I spontaneously screamed to her to reverse. Wordlessly, she deftly and without hesitation, reversed and passed by the surprised gun toting man. Startled he exclaimed ‘huh!’ and move back slightly. They all rushed back to their car, jumped in and, as they reversed to position the car to follow us, they left a small gap. ‘Go forward!’ I shouted. I’m still not convinced that she hadn’t gone for a “secret advanced driving course”, because she sped forward through the gap, and passed them before they could block us off again. Having never lived in Lenz, she didn’t know the roads. I kept shouting out for her to turn left and right, planning to drive to the police station, but, before we reached the cop shop, she ‘kamakazied’ until we lost them. Neither of us thought it appropriate to back out of our planned trip. Shaking with adrenalin, our breathing slowly returning to normal, we both decided to continue, drove to Cape Town and had a wonderful holiday. She remains one of my closest friends.

I dallied aimlessly for a couple of years. By the time I turned 30, I was so desperate to fill the void that I contemplated artificial insemination to conceive a child. I even did an interview with a local Imam on the religious implications on my weekly radio slot called ‘Legal Talk’ on a community radio station in Johannesburg called ‘The Voice’, where I volunteered. One evening, after one of my shows, I came across a distinguished man with salt and pepper hair, a lean face framed by a goatee. He had the most beautiful sea green eyes surrounded by splashes of hazel around the pupils like mini explosions on the shiny spheres sea-green. He was filling in for the usual sound engineer on the show before mine and we crossed paths. He had a quiet dignity that commanded attention and respect, yet he personified an uncompromising gentleness of spirit that permeated even the air around him. He was lean and tall and his face radiated light. I was instantly mesmerised and I feverishly quizzed two of my friends about this magnificent man. One of them was my lifetime friend with the kamikaze skills and the other was her cousin. He was older than me, so I feared he must have been married and if not, I fervently prayed that he was not gay. The next week, I dragged my friends with me to the studio to scout. One of them went ahead of me to spy and reported that when he heard my voice, he removed his fez and smoothed his hair. I was enthralled at his apparent interest. I discovered that he was part of the Muslim activist organisation that owned the radio station and spent a lot of time there. He was also unmarried and there were no apparent signs of homosexuality. Whoop Whoop! I watched out for his blue Mazda when I drove through the streets of Mayfair and my heart skipped a beat if I spotted one and crashed in disappointment if it wasn’t him. He was constantly on my mind and I waited anxiously for my weekly radio slot to ‘bump’ into him. I discovered that many young and a few not so young women in the community had their eye on him, either for themselves or their daughters. They would woo him with ‘koesiesters’, (Cape Town style no less), and other treats at the radio station, especially during Ramadaan and judging by his thin frame, it didn’t seem the obvious path to his heart. The station hosted a Women’s Day event in August that year. Two memorable events happened for me that day. I met Aunty Fatima, an incredible woman who was my first ex-husband’s mother in law. (I feel like a collector of exes!). We bumped into each other as we were making ablution for the afternoon prayer. Aunty Fatima, realising who I was looked at me almost sensing my loneliness said to me that she prayed that God would give me a good husband that I would be happy with. She was so warm and sincere that I smiled with appreciation. Later that afternoon, Ouma, a wonderful lady who worked full time at the radio station, having spotted the chemistry between myself and the man who had me aflutter, played cupid and arranged for him and me to stay behind and do the cleaning up after the Women’s Day event. That day was the beginning of the rest of my life with Shafiq.

More next time, God willing
With love and Thankfulness, Radia❤️

I ended Part 6 in Nairobi, Kenya, with my Arab husband coming at me with a broken coffee table raised above his head, and then by the grace of God retreating without causing me any physical harm. What had I done to place myself in such mortal danger?

This man, despite his major weaknesses was an Islamic scholar who possessed much knowledge about the law and ethereal aspects of the religion I love. When I look back at how he (and others) have translated that knowledge, I understand why this beautiful religion has become despised and feared by so many.

During our brief time together, he passed on to me some knowledge of the prophets and the significance of the elements and the nature of God’s law. Much of his teachings were so beautiful that I began trusting all that he said. I saw myself as the doting scholarly wife, who would travel the world with this worldly man of knowledge and wisdom. He expressed his unhappiness with the Saudi’s alliance with the Western powers and their control of Mecca to the detriment of the Muslims. They had betrayed the Palestinians. I thought he was a man who fought oppression and I wanted to be by his side fighting to free people from injustice and oppression. I saw this as a fulfilment of a worthy life purpose and refused to allow my father or anyone else to rob me of that chance.

I refused to believe that a man with such knowledge and accomplishment could dupe me. His attempts to undo my father’s influence over me, I dismissed as an attempt to wean me off my emotional dependence on my father, to make it easier for me to leave on my worldly adventure. I dismissed the rumours about his criminal activities and molestation of boys as nonsense. He was steadfast in prayer and spent many hours doing special religious devotions. He was highly educated in western and Islamic disciplines. How could such a knowledgeable holy man do such heinous things?

The coffee table incident was a rude shock. I recoiled, and he tried to re-consolidate his control and influence over me. He tried to placate me and although I unconvincingly tried to make him believe that I had ‘gotten over it’, for a short while he knew that he had lost the Svengali effect on me. He started revealing horrific stories about his past. It became apparent to me that this man had not only been a soldier but an assassin. He didn’t seem to be from any known groups of the 90s and I never quite knew who he was affiliated to. For all I know he could have been a lone ranger. He never revealed too much. He very deliberately however, revealed details of how he had killed people. Some of the methods he deployed were so heinous that I dare not repeat them. He made sure I understood what he was capable of. The seminal narration of the historical experience of the prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) at the city of Taif, a town east of Mecca bore reference to me. He spoke to the towns-people spreading the message of Islam and was met with stoning from the entire community. Bleeding and dejected, on one of the lowest days of is life he was given the choice to have them destroyed and he nobly remitted that that was not his purpose on this earth, and that even if the people rejected him and his message that day, future generations may adopt the way of God. He even questioned whether he had erred in the way he delivered the message that caused their violent reaction. He chose not to take life in the most difficult circumstances, yet Muslims such as my husband at the time, seemed to favour a hostile, violent and aggressive disposition personally and politically.

In fear of his anger and violence, I nevertheless pretended to be impressed by his murderous political exploits instead of showing him my utter shock and horror. My terror grew rapidly, and I engaged survival mode. I pretended to be enthused by him again, and to have regained my trust and admiration for him. I was truly amazed at the duplicity I was capable of. I am definitely not spy material, yet, when my life depended on it, the Mata Hari in me surfaced out of nowhere. I played every bit the dutiful wife, ready for my worldly mission with my trusted warrior husband, knowing that if at any time he suspected that I was playing him, he could easily have killed me. At one point, I almost slipped up and he became angered by something I said. He jumped up grabbed a towel and started hitting it vigorously against a pillar, all the while cursing me. I would have been the recipient of those blows, but I got the sense that he did not want to hurt me unless it became absolutely necessary. He went on a tirade about the maleficence of women. Almost as if he would destroy us all if he didn’t need us. I knew then that he had a definite plan for me which he had not yet revealed. He was going to use me in some way. He mentioned that he was going to ‘take’ Mecca. Whatever that meant? I realised that he wanted me under his complete control to do his bidding in whatever plot he had set in place. If he lost his influence over me his plans would be thwarted. I had to muster every inch of self-control not to reveal my fear and maintain the façade of unity of purpose. I had no more time to lose I had to get away from him before he left with me to Tunisia, which was his next plan. I pretended to be part of his plans. I even made him believe that I had lost the emotional dependence on my father. That I was ready for war. All the while I thought about finding a way home. He was around me all time and it was difficult for me to plan an escape. Fortuitously, an opportunity presented itself. He needed something from an associate in Johannesburg, South Africa as part of a business deal he was busy with and he needed me to ‘run the errand’. Of course, I pretended to reluctantly agree to the request, all the while hiding my excitement at the chance of escaping ‘Alcatraz’. I packed, leaving the bulk of my clothes in Nairobi, not wanting to raise his suspicions about my true intentions. I was still nervous as I sat in the old black London-styled cab on the way to the airport. I would not feel safe until I was miles away from there. I boarded the plane and still felt nervous. When the plane took off I could feel myself starting to exhale, and when I landed at what was then Jan Smuts International Airport, I wept with relief.

Despite the relief of not coming home in a body bag, my terror did not abate. I lived in mortal fear looking over my shoulder all the time, expecting him to be there. I couldn’t shake it. When he called me, I told him I couldn’t return and that I was leaving him. He tried to coax me, telling obvious lies and even threatening me. This time my mind was crystal clear. This was not the first time I was bailing on a marriage but this time there was no amicable talk and separation. This time I literally ran away in fear and was holding my ground on the phone thousands of kilometres away. The first time I chose someone who had no religious inclination. The second time I chose someone who had an extreme warped conviction with a deep criminal proclivity. How could my choices be getting worse? He was of the breed that helped to catapult Muslims into the abyss of infamy, derision and global rejection. These tyrannous villains played into the hands of the modern world order who cast all Muslims as ‘terrorists’, the modern replacement for the red terror of communisms that they used as a bogey man during the cold war. I was married to one who contributed to harming Muslims the world over.

I thought I was getting superior religious teaching, a noble purpose, respectability and adventure. I seem to have only coined the latter. I thought I was seeking God but revealed the paucity of my intentions when I lived in the aftermath of my naiveté and unfortunate choices. The respectability I sought was not from the people in my community. I never quite respected the societal norms and values, particularly when it came to women, divorce, racial ‘impurity’ and other such social vices, that still sometimes plague us today. No, I had rejected their rules of engagement when I was but a child and forfeited their endorsement by sailing against the wind at every turn. It was a respectability I sought for myself and which I often reflected in the need for my father’s approval. I felt if my father was ok with me the world was ok. I even rejected that notion momentarily. Although he encouraged me to marry the Arab man initially, when he saw the danger and tried to warn me, I no longer wanted his approval. I rejected him when I thought I had someone better to follow. I sought a nobleness of purpose and ironically debased myself and my soul. My search for the divine would have to take a different turn.

My father, family and my closest friends nursed me back to a state of ‘normalcy’. Although my father didn’t admit it, I think he felt responsible for encouraging me to marry the man in the first place. As wise as he was, he had erred. I always convinced myself that my father had a higher purpose for me with the Arab. That he intended me to learn some valuable lessons, as with my first marriage. He spent an unholy amount on my first wedding. When I had separated from my first husband, I met an uncle of mine who nearly fell off his chair when I told him I was on the verge of divorce. “I don’t believe it!” He cried. “Marnie told me that this marriage wouldn’t last.” I listened, surprised but not shocked, having been privy to this uncanny ability of my father over the years. My uncle continued, “I asked him why he was letting you go through with it then, and he said that you needed to learn something from the experience. Your father said, ‘if I told her it wouldn’t stop her, so she needs the process to complete itself’”. My uncle, still in a state of disbelief, said he doubted what my father told him at the time, and seemed to ponder that it had come to pass.
As much as I wanted to believe that like with my first marriage, my dad had a big plan, and this was a process of higher learning, (as it would make my part in this saga more palatable), I knew that this was not the case. He thought it would work out well but by the time he saw the danger I was in, it was too late. I was already taken in by the false dream of saving the world with an anti-hero. My steadfast belief in God had to sustain me through the terror I felt for a long time after. I couldn’t blame Him or any person for my predicament and had to contemplate how I had spun myself into this quagmire of fear, deception and danger.

If I had a rumbling distrust of men before, it had become infinitely worse then. I was caught between the innate need for companionship and the mistrust of the male species. My existence on this planet was devout of true meaning. My soul yearned to meet its purpose and the yearning continued to burn in my belly. I had many long years of traversing in my quest for meaning. I seemed to have a misplaced need to follow a man to greatness. I needed to find my own greatness. My innate power. Then maybe I would find my true path to God. I didn’t suspect that I would have to experience the loss of the greatest man in my life before this became possible.

More next time God-willing

With much love, Radia 💚

In Part 5 of my story I relayed how my childhood ‘molestation’ experience had shaped my school years and influenced my narrative. In fact, rather than hooking my reactions onto the experience, it seems more appropriate to anchor them on the choices of a child who had been taught the labels and experiences of her culture. I had learned society’s ideas of what was good and bad, holy and unholy, and other judgements about people and things. When something socially unacceptable happened to me, I used these labels to define myself and apportioned blame to myself in almost every situation. My narrative became “I am bad” “The world is bad”. I tried to protect myself by donning a cloak of aggression and being ‘bad’ to everyone before they could be bad to me. I chose the illusion of control and domination. I navigated my teen years with usual angst in the midst of family upheavals brought upon by my parents’ divorce, my father’s involvement in the underworld, the judgement of our community and my survival in high school as a gang member. I cannot talk about my parents, out of utter love and respect for their efforts and struggles parenting me and my siblings. They, like all other parents with no manual, raised us through trial and error, adversity and joy, togetherness and separation. Unappreciative of this quest, for a long time I blamed them for much of my predicaments in life, failing to take responsibility for my own actions or acknowledging the script that I had written and enacted in oblivion of my ultimate choices at every juncture. Nonetheless, at some point I had become determined to find independence and set my sights on an education. All the while I was driven by the thought that I did not ever want to be controlled or dependent on a man. In my mind, men were always dominating, bullying, thinking of me as a sexual object. They had the upper hand. Ironically, I always found myself captured by the very thoughts I tried to run away from. My warped view of life may have been the catalyst for the experiences I was drawn to. I later understood that perhaps through our choices we create our own tests, our own calamities. The pain we feel is meant to alert us to what ails our minds and taints our souls. Pain in the body is merely the indicator that there is something wrong in the body that needs healing and care to repair itself. Was pain in the heart not the indicator that something is wrong with the self that also needs care and healing. This I understood as the language of God beyond His words. Instead of heeding the messages which He allows us to send to ourselves, we blame Him for all that goes wrong with ourselves and the world, completely ignoring the role that we play in creating the mayhem around us. I held onto my belief in Him through the years but felt alone, ever ignoring the messages that were coming to me through my life experiences.

I proceeded to university and thought I was escaping my past, by starting a new chapter, finding my love and getting married. The misconceptions of my first marriage as described earlier in my story, led me to a period of seeking a different path. My father, who was living with me and providing me the cover I sorely needed after my divorce, had grown into his path of wisdom. Everyone had sneered at the thought of his turn towards Sufism, having leveraged judgement on him about his activities in the past. No-one understood his path or his choices and when he started a Sufi school and started assisting people with an array of spiritual matters, he was regarded with scepticism and disdain by many. For my part he had taught me the most valuable lessons that stood me in good stead for the rest of my life. He never imposed any rules on me, allowing me the freedom to discover myself and my path to my beloved Creator. I had lost my connection with prayer and instead of imposing it on me, he gently re-introduced me to connection with my God, allowing me to find my way towards Him in my own way.

During this time, an Arab friend of my father, whom he had met some years before, surfaced again. I didn’t know much about him, save that he was a doctor of sorts who also had esoteric Sufi knowledge, albeit different from my father’s. He was short, dark with a rounded belly and stocky strong physique. He was apparently an ex-soldier involved in war-fare in and around the middle east. Being a few years older than me, he expressed an interest in me and spoke to my dad about it. Having been on a roller coaster of bad experiences since my divorce, this seemed like an opportunity to get out of it all and go away with this man to a better more wholesome life. I was persuaded by my father and I agreed to marry him. I was determined to turn a new page and convinced myself that being a dutiful wife was the answer. I would find respectability this way and who knows, I could see the world with this man. After all my dad trusted him. I placed all my trust in him, listened to every word he said and followed him religiously. There was one thing that disturbed me though. He would often make questionable statements about my dad and implied that I was too influenced by him. I brushed it aside. He even asked me to get rid of a picture of my father, which I refused to do. He didn’t push the matter. I was working as an attorney at the time and he asked me to put a deposit on an apartment, but that in the meantime I was to stay with my dad. The alarm bells should have gone off then. Why was I paying for an apartment, which I was not even living in? Soon after he asked me to buy a car on higher purchase which I did, trusting all the while that he knew what he was doing. By this time my father had become decidedly annoyed and tried reasoning with me about the decisions I was making. I refused to listen to him, thinking that he was just trying to interfere in my life. At one time he screamed at me banging his fists on the kitchen table. “You will lose a lot of with this man!” he screamed “and I will be unable to help you”. I scoffed at the thought of my father’s attitude especially since he was the one who recommended I marry this man. Now he was suddenly changing his tune. I promptly told him that this was my husband and that I would follow him. Before I knew it, I had left my job and was driving off to Zambia and Kenya with him. The road was long and tedious and between Botswana and Zambia, there were only pit toilets and isolated general dealer stores with only tin food and crumbly bread. We ate uncooked canned pilchards, which had never tasted so nice with my empty tummy. Having crossed the Zambesi river on a ferry into Zambia, we stayed at a very hospitable lady’s house in Zambia. Someone he knew and who welcomed us and fed us heartily. There was a street in Zambia, called Katanga Road, on which one could trade in almost anything, from foreign currency, to contraband. Many years later I remember reading an article about human organs being traded on that very road. The people in Zambia were extremely warm and friendly. Always greeting and smiling. I had learned that you always needed something to appease officials at random check-points north of our borders. My husband, collected the drinks from the mini-bars at hotels for this purpose, and it got us out of some potentially sticky situations. I remember the colonial air that still hovered in Zambia in the early 90s. The Victorian hats and Anglo-African sub-culture fascinated me. It wasn’t long before we trekked to Kenya where we booked into an apartment. Kenya had different charms. Nairobi had the black cabs (London style) a colonial throw-back no doubt. They were charming nonetheless. I recall an amazing warehouse that housed the most incredible fresh fruit. It was marred by the smell of a public toilet nearby, but I tried to overlook the odour and walked to the far end of the market that was unaffected by the latrine. The mopane worms sold on the pavements was not as overwhelming as a meat market I encountered, where meat was sold in the Kenyan heat with no refrigeration or infrastructure, except for the tables set in stalls in open market. Mounds of flesh chopped and sold over the counter in less than hygienic conditions. Imagine my surprise when I saw pigs hanging on hooks in an unrefrigerated stall in that heat. I wondered how the locals survived. We were fortunate to find a butcher-shop that was halaal, no less, with Kenya still having a 5% Muslim population at the time.

My husband had meetings with Kenyans and seemed to have various deals going but I wasn’t too involved in those matters. After a while, I started noticing the chinks in the armour. The things he was telling me were not quite gelling. He criticised the way I dressed. He mentioned the women that he thought presented themselves well and they were oddly unfeminine with very short hair and austere dispositions. It was almost as if he wanted me to become like that. I had passed my tomboy phase way back in my teens. He also mentioned that he understood why some men preferred other men as partners because women were so manipulative. He intimated that he didn’t trust me and that I would be like all the other women. I remembered an anonymous letter I received just before I married him. I had dismissed it at the time as nonsense. The letter had made many allegations about him molesting boys, being involved in heinous crimes including murder. It seemed so preposterous that I gave it no credence at the time. His clandestine activities and his expressions of sexual preference jolted my thoughts back to the letter. Perhaps there was some truth to it after all. I began to pay attention to him in a different way. Looking more closely at this man, examining everything he was saying and doing with circumspection. It was almost as if I woke up. I started recognising lies and inconsistencies in his speech and actions. It was probably always there but I chose to ignore it, because I convinced myself that this was good for me. He told me a deliberate lie one night in the hotel we were staying in, after a telephone call he had made. I called him out on it and he denied it. I was sitting up in the bed and he was sitting across the room from me on one of the chairs near the coffee table which was towards the middle of the room. I sat up in the bed looked at him and said, “Don’t ever lie to me”. I then turned around and lay in the bed, not sure what would happen next. I can’t remember how the lights went out. Either I had turned off the bedside lamp or he had turned off the lights, but the room was in complete darkness as I lay there for what seemed like an eternity. He didn’t move. There was a deathly silence. Suddenly there was a loud bang. I jumped up and saw his silhouette in the dark room to which my eyes had become accustomed by now. He had broken the wooden coffee table and with a part of the broken table in his hands raised above his head he menaced towards me and stopped in front of me with the broken table raised above his head ready to smash it against me. I was frozen to the spot. I thought that this could be my last moments on earth. My life did not flash before me, but images of my death did. My family would never know what happened to me and I would probably end up in a shallow grave in Nairobi. I was terrified. Despite my terror, I refused to let him take my life, my power and my self-respect. If I was going to die, it would be with dignity. I would not cower and submit to the will and tyranny of my oppressor. My only salvation lay with my Creator. I yielded unto Him in that instant and submitted to my fate. If it was my time to die, then I submit. If It was not, He would take me out of it. “I’m not afraid of you!” I blurted, “If you kill me I’ll tell Him that YOU sent me there and cut my life short”. He obviously didn’t kill me, or this would be an epic tale of “ghost writing”. I will never know what stopped him, but he stood in front of me with the table raised above his head shaking and angry and slowly retreated. This was the first incident.

More next time God-willing

Always with love
Radia 💙