Twenty-seven

IF THERE WASN’T ROMANCE, AT least there was friendship.

When I was in my early thirties, two friends from church, Nuro and Lesedi, came to understand and support me in different ways. These two women gave me the company I had always needed: they were there for me. I felt their understanding. Lesedi would buy me food when I didn’t have any money, and Nuro was always finding me information about work that was available at the church. Nuro knew my story and just wanted to help me to be strong and become ‘delivered’ in the church.

As time went on, I tried to return the favour. Looking back, I know that my transformation had a lot to do with having the opportunity to help others. And that’s what the Methodists taught me: how to help myself in order to help others.

Lesedi was a member of the church choir, and did prostitution on the side. Lesedi did her prostitution differently; she kept it all very quiet. She stayed with a guy and even paid him rent, but she claimed he was her boyfriend. That’s how she satisfied her family back in Lesotho. She also sent them photos of herself in her church uniform during choir functions.

But she regularly had clients on the streets. I wasn’t judge-mental of what she was doing, but confused, wondering why she was in this sex work. She saw me as a strong person for breaking my former habits.

Lesedi would come to church, and then she and I would walk on the streets of Randburg at night while she did her work. I just waited for her and hung out. I had to wait because I was hungry! She was earning money for both of us, and she always shared.

Lesedi often fell pregnant and had one abortion after another, sometimes three in one year. I didn’t like what she was doing. I told her that these regular back-door abortions would kill her in the end. But I didn’t put pressure on Lesedi to exit from her affairs because I knew she needed the money. My stress kicked in because Lesedi was supporting both of us. I was not making any money and was dependent on her.

Once, during a four-day church conference in a Randburg hotel, a tall, handsome, well-dressed Nigerian man, who was high up in the church administration, approached Lesedi and me. After some small talk, he asked if we wanted to do business with him. He wanted sex with both of us but I said a flat no!

‘Listen, ladies, I need to deliver stuff to Cape Town,’ he persisted.

I was very desperate as I wasn’t working, and was being supported by Lesedi. I also had to pay Tie’s rent. He offered me R3000 to deliver a package of drug ingredients. He wanted this done immediately as he was soon returning to Nigeria.

He had his fun with Lesedi while I waited for my air ticket to Cape Town. I wasn’t afraid, just desperate.

‘I don’t care if I get caught or not,’ I said to myself.

I arranged with a friend to help protect me during my delivery to the buyer in Century City. A proper and quiet handover was necessary in a parked car in order to receive my money. My friend watched from afar; if the exchange was tricked, he would step in.

All went well, and I stayed with my mother and S for one week, then flew back to Joburg.

Lesedi was getting more connected with the church guys, and she was finding better-paying clients. She moved from the streets of Yoeville and Randburg to upmarket Sandton. As time went on I could not depend on her any more because I rarely saw her, but I had always tried to be the voice that spoke inside her ear, trying to advise her to get out. I hope it helped her consider her choices.

Nuro was fascinated by pornography. She was so naive. Knowing my background, she was curious and had lots of questions. I tried to wean her off her interest by explaining the painful experiences I had gone through. She wanted to know how I felt giving blow jobs, for instance, because when she watched the porn movies, the girls sounded so excited.

I told her how someone holds your head during the blow job so you can’t get away. I told her how I experienced forced blow jobs, and how I had to take four ecstasy tablets and half a bottle of Jack Daniels in order to deal with it. I told her how the skin of your mouth is broken, how your head is pulled back, how sometimes you are whipped while it’s happening. I showed her the pimples on my gums, and how discoloured my teeth were.

I told her it’s not an exciting, arousing, butterfly feeling. That there are better ways to be a super-strong woman.

Nuro had had her own experiences of sexual exploitation in her job as an usher at the church.

I asked her, ‘Why are you still ushering if you’re getting exploited?’

‘But I don’t know where to go,’ she said.

‘Now you know how I felt!’

I enjoyed seeing Nuro respond to this wake-up call.

In the end it was the church itself that released me from the cycle I was in.

I got a voluntary job at the Christ Embassy Church call centre in Randburg, where I had lots of contacts through Lesedi. People phoned the call centre about their physical ailments; on behalf of the church, I had to take the calls and say prayers for each caller. I had been led to believe by the church that if I attended a four-day conference and volunteered in the call centre, I would be eligible for a salaried job.

When I approached management about getting a paid job, they said they couldn’t pay me because I ‘needed to grow spiritually’. In a call centre, you need to grow spiritually? And they thought I didn’t have enough spiritual experience to be of service to others? If nothing else, as a volunteer in the call centre, I was the only person in a team of four who could take calls in English, isiXhosa, isiZulu and Afrikaans.

I didn’t feel the church was being honest with me by saying it was my own limitations that prevented me from being hired. That day of rejection was a very painful day for me.

I was very hurt by the church and I decided to leave both it and the call centre.